by Mrs. Weisburd
The article "Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort" by Carmen Gentile, which was posted on the FoxNews site on Saturday, March 22, 2008 contains gross mischaracterizations and sheer speculation.
Speaking as someone who has considerable knowledge of Aaron Weisburd's professional activities and motives, I wish to respond to a number of these inaccuracies.
This freelance journalist writes as if he either interviewed Weisburd, or contacted him and was refused an interview. Neither is the case. Gentile never contacted Weisburd, therefore these passages are misleading:
Wiseburd [sic] is reticent to discuss his efforts, due to safety concerns — he said he has received death threats and a handwritten note mailed to his home from a disgruntled site creator.
If Gentile knows Weisburd to have said that the letter came from a "disgruntled site creator," he should cite where he got the information. Weisburd doesn't know where the letter came from, and results of the DoJ investigation were not shared with him. Is Gentile speculating?
As for the claim that Weisburd is reticent to discuss his efforts, it is difficult to see how Gentile could come to that conclusion if he knew that Weisburd appeared on 60 Minutes and FoxNews long after receiving death threat letter.
Wiseburd [sic], the creator of the Web monitoring site Internet Haganah, which collects and stores intelligence for governments to use, said he was responsible for the dismantling of thousands of extremist sites.
In July 2007, Weisburd stated on Internet Haganah that the "site down" reports "are not a claim of responsibility. In fact, they are not even a sign that we think the removal of any given site was a good idea." (see internet-haganah.com/harchives/006186.html)
Gentile must have done some research, but he apparently missed this rather important point. If he had read it, he might also not have characterized Weisburd's efforts as being "just about shutting down sites" in words he attributes to "a private intelligence contractor."
Much of the credibility of this story rests on the comments of this anonymous contractor. Yet this anonymous source's claim that he has been monitoring the Web for jihadist activity for 15 years -- when public web browsers haven't even existed for that long -- calls his own credibility into question. A minimal amount of fact-checking pre-publication might have raised these questions.
What kind of journalism sets up a false argument and then cites an anonymous source to refute it? And is that kind of writing worthy of FoxNews?
He and Warner say their work is an important part of stopping terrorist groups from gaining a recruiting foothold in the U.S. and inspiring others to form their own spin-off extremist groups.
Gentile may have spoken to Warner, but he certainly did not speak to Weisburd, so to write the sentence as if he did is misleading. Gentile is welcome to quote Weisburd from an Internet Haganah posting:
Shutting down websites is a tactic, and done wisely in support of a particular objective it can be a good thing. Done blindly as an end in itself it only serves to breed a resistant pest, much like the over-application of insecticide will do.
Cyber vigilante Aaron Wisesburd [sic]
Gentile misuses the word vigilante. A vigilante undertakes law enforcement without legal authority. Reporting web sites to ISPs is not undertaking law enforcement. It is not even undertaking enforcement of service providers' Terms of Service. It is merely passing on information that others may choose to act on. There is no vigilante action, no matter how often sloppy journalists misuse the word.
One more thing: it's spelled Weisburd.
Posted on 22 March 2008 @ 21:48