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Tackling cyber-terrorism: Balancing surveillance with counter-communication

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Abstract

Cyberspace has expanded the arena within which extremists and terrorists operate, posing a range of new challenges, many of which are still to be addressed. From propaganda through recruitment to financing and attack planning, the use of the Internet has been growing in size, subtlety and sophistication, often blurring the legal with the illegal. Its interconnectivity, anonymity and affordability have served Muslim extremists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis alike. The present article analyses the online challenges posed by such groups, pointing out how they might be potentially hampered by combining the currently dominant online surveillance with marginalized cyber (counter-) communication. It also highlights the mechanisms of decision making based on matters of principle and honour, the factors that typically drive terrorist actions, showing the inadequacy of the traditional economic models, on which the surveillance largely depends and risks scaring extremists off the radar.

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Notes

  1. For the practical purposes of this work, the action-connoting term ‘terrorist’ and intention-connoting term ‘violent extremist’ will be used interchangeably.

  2. See Bandura (1990) for more information on the psychological processes and mechanisms of moral disengagement.

  3. Examples abound, including Arid Uka, who shot dead two US airmen at Frankfurt Airport in March 2011, and who claimed to have been radicalized by Jihadist propaganda videos online. Colleen Renee LaRose is an American citizen charged with terrorism-related crimes; Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged conspiracy to kill a Swedish cartoonist. And most recently, Anders Behring Breivik carefully prepared an Internet-based media strategy to accompany his attacks in July 2011.

  4. See, for example, the essays of Louis Beam on the concept of ‘leaderless resistance’, a philosophy whereby individual and autonomous activity is encouraged.

  5. In much the same way as Cordes (1988) discusses propaganda and auto-propaganda, with auto-propaganda aimed internally, at those involved in the movement.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Derby, Derby, DE22 1GB, UK

    Marek Palasinski

  2. Department of Applied Arts, School of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Republic of Ireland

    Lorraine Bowman-Grieve

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Palasinski, M., Bowman-Grieve, L. Tackling cyber-terrorism: Balancing surveillance with counter-communication. Secur J 30, 556–568 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2014.19

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