The US Department of Justice (DoJ) wants Google to hand over data about what people are looking for on the Internet. Ostensibly, it’s to shut down child-pornography rings, which is good and proper, but what must worry terrorists is the possibility that the DoJ is putting up a smokescreen; that what the Americans are really after is information on their online habits.
After all, in the World Wide Web, Islamists have found a place where they can act out all their sadistic fanatasies. From providing detailed instructions about how terrorists could attack and kill individual Westerners on the streets of Jakarta, to posting video clips of frightened hostages in Iraq. From elaborate bomb-making manuals to releasing the latest suicide-endorsing fatwas- it’s a wiki-wiki world for these Islamists.
Thanks to its almost daily crawls of the Internet, Google is armed with an extensive database on website contents; unless of course, Islamists have enough tech-savvy to place a robots.txt file in their root servers, effectively telling Google’s “webspiders” to stay out.
But Islamists want their websites to be found. They can’t stand nonchalance from us. That’s why they’re so into bombs.
No doubt, if the DoJ succeeds in bringing Google to heel, it would be well-placed to sieve out what’s terrorism-related, and what’s not. However, there’s always the question of how much intrusion is too much?
The Bush Administration is currently reeling from recent revelations that it authorized the bugging of phone lines, without the DoJ’s approval. More astonishingly, federal authorities have been monitoring the radiation levels of some mosques.
Though a recent study conducted by the non-partisan Freedom House has highlighted the existence of ‘hate materials’ published by Saudi Arabia in American mosques, I hardly think that a mosque is an appropriate place to store an atomic bomb. I am forcefully reminded of the intrusive raids by the FBI into mosques after the 9-11 attacks. An attorny representing 18 Muslims who had been held in connection with 9-11 investigations retorted:
“Why is our places of worship the focus of your attention, when you know the hijackers weren’t worshipping at religious centers, but they were hanging out at bars?”
Little known to the general public, though, are the efforts taken by Google to resolve once and for all, some burning questions on the “war on terrorism”. The outcome of a showdown between Hamas and Israel, for example, has been emphatically decided. Of more interest to Islam-insiders is this ongoing battle.
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Google not only help war on terrorism but also HELPS terrorism. Especially with Google map, where you can pinpoint the exact location of interest and view its surrounding in 3-D.
Try it out, go to Washington DC and see if you can pinpoint the Pentagon, White House and others. ^^