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The Internet Your Rights Online

U.S. Lists Web Sites as Terrorist Organizations 507

Posted by timothy from the and-declan's-an-isp dept.
mgcsinc writes "The United States for the first time has placed a web site on the list where it normally places terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, placing several conditions on Americans' interactions with the website. Certainly, few could challenge the latest addition, but how could this ability to effectively squelch internet speech be used by the government with less valid rationale in the future?"
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U.S. Lists Web Sites as Terrorist Organizations More

U.S. Lists Web Sites as Terrorist Organizations

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  • Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:08PM (#7190197)
    Since when a website ever directly killed anyone?
    • Feardotcrap made me want to kill someone, does that count?

  • What's Interesting About This Is. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 1stflight ( 48795 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:10PM (#7190208)
    With the current administration so adamant about not criticizing israeli actions...

    Jewish group Kahane Chai or Kach, which is suspected of organizing attacks on Palestinians.

    This is a first!!!!

    • Re:What's Interesting About This Is. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is a first!!!!

      Wrong. It's not a first, nor a last. The Kahane Chai group and its predecessor have LONG been labeled by the State Department as a terror group. In January 2001 (this was months before 9/11), the FBI raided the headquarters of a Brooklyn group that maintains the Kahanist Web site, and tried to locate documents linking them with Kach or Kahane Chai. That's worth repeating: They raided a terror group's web host service just to hunt these guys down. The US and Israeli intellgence se
    • Ah but you miss the duplicity of it all. States get to do whatever they want in the name of fighting terrisim, rebels and sepratists including using there tactics. One persons rebel or terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. The problem with these sorts of orginizations is they have become a method to wage war without going to war as fas as there host states are concerned, welcome to the post UN world where you cant go to war unless your on the security council and can veto any reprisals.

  • goatse.cx. Now, if that's not a TERROR-ist site, what on earth is?

  • 1984, right prediction, wrong year. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by perlchild ( 582235 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:18PM (#7190265)
    Apparently now emitting an idea, is a crime. There goes protected speech, and thoughtcrime is a reality. George Orwell was just 20 years too early.
    From there there is not that far to outlawing voting for the opposition. USA citizens should have brought their government to heel when they had the chance(the constitution gave them that power) but now they would have to collectively each commit a crime(a terrorist crime no less) to exert their own constitutional rights... From there, how far to outlawing a repeal of a politician? I guess Arnold's election scared all the politicians with thoughts of "he ain't one of us"...
    • Tool.

      Not everything you disagree with is 1984. Fuck. Bush is temporal. E.g. he prolly won't be voted back in...

      Or how about instead of pinning all your problems on one fucking guy you guys take responsibility for your own actions. Stop acting so paranoid and just relax!

      Tom
      • Bush is temporal.

        Aren't we all?

        Here's what I worry about. If the Shrub wins re-election (he's surely got another pointless war up his sleeve) then Brother Jeb wants his turn on the throne. Can America-as-we-know-it survive 16 years of Bushness?

        "Time is the only true purgatory."
        Samuel Butler

    • You know, you might try actually reading the article, rather than just spouting off. I realize that this is novel behavior for a slashdotter, but it can actually help. The government is not, in fact, planning on censoring the web sites or making them directly illegal. They are saying that it's not OK to give money to the sites, which actually makes sense- that money will go into the hands of people who will use it to commit murder and other terrorist acts. Since that would classify as aiding and abettin

      • Let say that a site is run by terrorists, does money that goes towards running the site that puts forth the ideas of the group, considered supporting terrorism?

        If you consider this about an anti-abortion group, would a site containing anti-abortion retoric by the same group who bombed an abortion clinic. Would that make any donation to their website or materials used in a picket would be considered supporting their terrorist activities?

      • The government is not, in fact, planning on censoring the web sites or making them directly illegal.

        True enough, but consider this: Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites

        Technically, if you clicked on a banner ad at one of those sites, and the site made money from from the clickthrough, you are now providing money to the site. Actually, if they made money from impressions, you'd be providing money merely by visiting the site.

        Now, I do

  • paranoia strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)

    by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:21PM (#7190286) Journal
    effectively squelching internet speech? there is no restriction on accessing the website.
  • I see nothing wrong with Kahane websites, or Kahane organization in general. Kahane.org is critisizing Israeli government from the right, thus going against official US position in regards to Israeli government. Irregardless of the believes that Kahane offshot organizations hold, I do not recall a single attack purpotrated against Palestinians by Kahane.org or any affiliated websites, or any affiliated organizations. Is it possible that the US government is trying to influence the policies of Israeli govern

  • Can anybody figure out what this means? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) * on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:23PM (#7190308)
    It seems to me the ability to designate any web site as a terrorist organization, would potentially give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet. That's the gist i get from the Patriot Act, not that you can easily figure out what this law actually does...

    For example...

    I'd love to get my hands on whatever obfusicator our politicans ran on the USA Patriot Act [epic.org]. What a mess:

    SEC. 201. AUTHORITY TO INTERCEPT WIRE, ORAL, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM.
    Section 2516(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
    (1) by redesignating paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132; 110 Stat. 1274), as paragraph (r); and
    (2) by inserting after paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (division C of Public Law 104-208; 110 Stat. 3009-565), the following new paragraph:
    `(q) any criminal violation of section 229 (relating to chemical weapons); or sections 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332d, 2339A, or 2339B of this title (relating to terrorism); or'.

    Trying to figure out the new powers granted the government in the USA Patriot Act involves a ridiculous array of search-and-replace scavenger hunting.
    • ...potentially give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet...

      In this particular instance, we are talking about a publically available website. Something that any member of the general public can see. Whether we are talking about a website or someone exercising their dog in a public park, the government can observe any activities that the general public can view. They can read the website, or watch you exercise your dog in the park, no special considerations required.

      Or are you concerned abou

    • give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet.

      Tap the Internet how? It's not like there's a single wire anywhere along the way to easily connect into. Short of tapping at the receiving end where all the packets converge again at the destination web-site, you'll need to do that for every single site and then trace back every IP address -- including those using anonymous proxies.

      Possible? Yes.

      Expensive? Very yes.

      Worth the effort? Ask the RIAA!

      • luckily the internet isn't much of a web design like envisioned... there are only a couple of major backbones that would need to be tapped to capture the vast majority of traffic.
    • SEC. 201. AUTHORITY TO INTERCEPT WIRE, ORAL, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM.

      What a land we live in... we're all free, so long as we're not suspected of being against the government. Fantastic.

      i.e. we ain't free peeps, sorry.
    • What's your problem, it's just a diff! Just run it through patch and you'll be ok.
  • "... as aliases for the Jewish group Kahane Chai or Kach, which is suspected of organizing attacks on Palestinians..."

    I thought that the US government was on the side of Israel in the war against Palestine. From the news reports the war over there was about Israel trying to stop Palestine from suicide bombing.

    So who is the US govt for in this war? The Israel terrorists or the Palestinian terrorists.

    PS this is not meant to be a troll. I'd really like to know the stance of the US govt wrt this war.
    • You're not thinking the problem right. Whenever you think about something that happens in the US, think lobbying groups. The US government itself isn't necessarily for or against Israel at core, but Jewish, Muslim, peace-loving ... pressure groups might be, and those have voting power and money. As a result, most administrations tends to show that they support the point of view of whichever lobbying group has more money and voters. It works like that for nearly all US policies, foreign or not.

      So in this p
    • AFAIK, Meir Kahane's been on the State Deptartement's list of terrorists for a few years now, since even before the War On Terror started. Him and his boys are the Israeli equivalent of the Black Panthers - extremist militants who happen to get a kick out of killing Muslims, and manage to see the whole world as a Muslim conspiracy against the pious Jews.

      Regardless of which side the US Governent is one, Kahane is the kind of group that would be blocked.
      • AFAIK, Meir Kahane's been on the State Deptartement's list...

        Just a minor point... you mean the LATE Meir Kahane.

        For those who don't know who Kahane is, he founded the JDL (think Irv Rubin -- the guy who hanged himself in prison). While I believe that Jews have the right to defend themselves, Kahane was nothing but a thug.
    • It doesn't matter if they are Israeli or Palestinian.

      It just happens to be the case that right now you see many more killings by Palestinian terrorists than by Israeli terrorists. This is probably because Israel is in political control of the region right now.

      When (if?) peace is achieved and some of the settlements are evacuated, you can expect to see a far greater degree of activity from Israeli terrorist groups. Right now, they would have to be strategic morons to do anything. (Obviously there are at le
      • It just happens to be the case that right now you see many more killings by Palestinian terrorists than by Israeli terrorists. This is probably because Israel is in political control of the region right now.

        I think this is only true if you consider the killings of Palestinians by the Israeli military to be non-terrorist in nature. This distinction may not make a lot of difference to the dead Palestinians, who have died in much larger numbers than Israelis have.

    • "I thought that the US government was on the side of Israel in the war against Palestine. "

      All cynicism aside, the US position is to seek peaceful resolutions, and to minimize the extent of combat operatione when they become necessary.

      Guerilla/militant fighting, terrorist actions, and coups d'etat are not condoned, at least not according to official policy.

      So the US position is to try to avoid chaos. Suicide bombings are the very essence of chaos, and the truth is, nobody has a clue what to do about the
  • Quoted from the article:

    Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites

    So if the site has ad banners on it, and I visit the site -- if they have a pay-per-view plan on their ad banners, then my visit just generated $0.0005 for the website. Would I be breaking the law?

  • Let's see... (Score:5, Funny)

    by errxn ( 108621 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:28PM (#7190338) Homepage Journal
    ...for a website to be a terrorist organization, it would have to destroy random targets, and instill fear in the masses. So, umm, don't they mean a site like this [microsoft.com]?

  • 2600?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dciman ( 106457 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:28PM (#7190339) Journal
    Just wait....
    How long do you think it will be until the MPAA, RIAA, or some other "Big Business" (friend of the Bush family) convinces the honorable John Asscroft that 2600 is a terrorist organization. After all, they talk about security exploits, fun with the phone systems, etc.

    If this goes unchallenged, the possibility of abuse against people "not with the team" is almost a definite.
  • For one thing, Kahane Chai itself is already on the list [state.gov]. For another, if the same thing happened with a book publisher, TV channel, or whatever this wouldn't even be on Slashdot.
    • For one thing, Kahane Chai itself is already on the list. For another, if the same thing happened with a book publisher, TV channel, or whatever this wouldn't even be on Slashdot.
      Yes but this didn't happen with a book publisher, TV channel, or whatever, which is why it's on Slashdot.
  • The classification is about providing monetary or other material support to the site which the government considers to be a front for Kach/Kahane Chai, which are actual terrorist organizations. These groups, by the way, are flat-out banned in Israel if I'm not mistaken. The press is much freer there than in any other country of the region, but it's not like they have a 1st amendment.

    I actually met Kahane about 25 or 30 years ago during his JDL (Jewish Defense League [jdl.org], an only slightly less objectionable org
  • Available in Text [akamaitech.net]

    Domain names are included with the list of the organizations.

  • How Long... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:35PM (#7190390) Homepage
    How long before this is a classification that geeks strive for?

    "Getting the google counter and endless slashdot mod points is not enough... I want to be an internet terrorist!!!!"
  • It reminds of of the article a few days back that Indian government had asked its ISPs to block access to a particular groups's yahoo group. As ISPs couldn't implement that, they blocked all the yahoo groups.
    Anyway, the question is that are such type of actions completely unjustified? I mean I know they are against freedom of expression, but what are the alternatives for a government when faced with such a situation. Take the example of SCO. Even though they emanate a lot of FUD, many people still believe t

    • So now faced with such a situation, should the govermnent, with the knowledge that this may lead to some other people joining the movement without knowing all the facts about it, be justified in imposing some kind of restrictions?

      I said this during the Kynhun episode, and I'll say this again:- if you want something restricted, the best you can do is to NOT GIVE IT FREE PUBLICITY. Kynhun had exactly 34 members when the ban first came into place; now it has 200-odd subscribers. Fighting terrorism is both

  • Why hasn't the KKK been targetted in the war on terror? They've been terrorizing our nation for more than 100 years, and they're very public.

    • At least in the last 50 years or so, they have been. I'm not saying members of the KKK aren't violent, but the organization as a whole doesn't go on midnight lynching rides anymore. Sure, they constantly spew a rhetoric of hatred and intolerance, but hey, if you think that kind of speech should be restriced, you're free to move to Europe.

      I personally think that hate speech, the most distasteful and disturbing, should also be the most protected, precisely because it's unpopular..."It is a besetting vice of

  • Confused (Score:2, Interesting)

    by astro ( 20275 )
    So, in my never ending quest to get added to the FBI/NSA/etc watch list, I visited each of the sites referenced in the main post.

    I will admit to feeling naive about it, but the site kahanetzadak.com REALLY freaks me out. This is the worst kind of racism - it's as bad as American Aryan sites. Total hate. From my point of view, it's as bad an advertisement for modern Judaism as I have ever seen.

    The reason I state my response title as "Confused" is that I really wonder if this isn't some reverse-propaganda p
  • Seem like the biggest target for any western hacker. A group dedicated to bombing civilians would be a fun hacking target. No law enforcement to punish you if you get caught and possibly helping fight the war on terror by disrupting online actions. At the very least I would enjoy a slashdotting of this sites for the time being.

    As for privacy concerns, well if the Chinese government can't stop their people from getting to web sites and discussion boards with the help of the biggest US tech companies (Gre
  • Apparently Jewish dating services [kahane.net] are a major source of terrorism funding in the region.
  • That instruments of online speech are now added to "terrorist organizations" is a very clear and present danger to internet freedom and to 1st Amendment rights of US citizens. It is also a clear danger of worldwide moves to destroy internet sites the US government decides it does not like. The designation of terrorist organization itself is not required to be supported in any legal proceeding whatsoever before assets are seized and friends/visitors/parties involved of/with the organization face possible l
  • With labels such as "terrorism". Anything can be defined as such, if you select the facts carefully enough. Likewise, any group can be labelled as "legitamate", if you also select the facts carefully enough.


    Labels are convenient at times, but they can be over-used.

  • and I'm not just talking content here! Screams for a web designer.

  • Article Summary is Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)

    by solman ( 121604 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @01:12PM (#7190580)
    The US has not listed a website as a terrorist organization. It simply listed it as an alias for a known terrorist organization.

    Kahane.com is not being banned for saying bad things. It is being banned FOR CARRYING OUT TERRORIST ATTACKS IN WHICH CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN AN ATTEMPT TO ACCOMPLISH POLITICAL GOALS.

    Listing kahane.com as an alias for Kahane Kach just makes it clearer to US citizens that aiding any group claiming that name is a felony.

    It makes as much sense to claim that kahane.com is a non-terrorist political offshoot of a terrorist group as it does to claim (as the Europeans did until recently) that Hamas is a non-terroist organization.

    This notion that groups which support the killing of civilians can be split into terrorist and non-terrorist components simply does not pass the smell test.

    I'm glad to see the Bush administration applying this principle uniformly.
  • The /. effect fights terrorism!

  • And now they'll all get slashdotted (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @01:17PM (#7190604) Homepage
    These are sites run by militant Jewish organizations. Kahane is the descendant of the old Jewish Defense League started by Meyer Kahane, which did some minor terrorist-type stuff in the US in the 1970 and 1980s. Their slogan was "Every Jew a .22". (Today, that sounds like wimpy firepower. The US was less heavily armed back then.)

    Kahane sounds a lot like most extreme right-wing religious groups. The extremists of the Christian right, the Jewish right, and the Islamic right have far more in common with each other than they like to admit.

    I'm surprised that the Bush Administration is acting in this area. Bush Jr. (unlike Bush Senior) gets considerable support from the American Jewish community in exchange for his support of Israel. There's got to be more political story behind this.

  • The list still isn't complete (Score:4)

    by davmoo ( 63521 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @01:18PM (#7190611)
    The number one terrorist that needs to be on that list is Attorney General John Ashcroft. He's done more to undermine the Constitution than any foreign organization has ever dreamed of.

  • The Israelis that run the website are not hiding in the mountains somewhere in Pakistan. The fact that the Bush Administration put the website on the list is political...they're sending a message that they will consider certain Israeli organizations to be terrorists if they behave like terrorist Palestinian organizations.

    The people who run this website may or may not have family in the U.S or might want to visit the U.S in the future. Cutting them off from that access is a punishment, certainly.

    But will t
  • The first site doesn't look particularly offensive (despite the spelling), it just says "This site is being redesigned, so be patient Their is going to be a discussionboard and some other feedback posibilities".

    Repugnant as the views expressed on the other sites may be, I really can't see the point in this. If being entered on to the list has any impact at all (except for driving lots of people to look at it and see what the fuss is all about), the site owners can easily relocate the content to a new doma

  • Where is the list of terrorist websites? Because I want to browse them all!!

  • pissing in the wind (Score:3, Insightful)

    by geoff lane ( 93738 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @01:55PM (#7190765)
    wouldn't it be a better idea to actually go out and _catch_ some terrorists instead of pissing away time and money chasing easy and irrelevant targets?

  • I'm looking at kahanetzadak.com, to use as an example.

    A lot of these sites have banner ads. One prevalent "sponsor" (their word) is some site called affordablehealthcare.com. So would I be supporting terrorism by buying medical supplies from them.

    On the links page, the articles of people like Alan Keyes, Rush Limbaugh, Senator James Inhofe, and George Will are linked to. Does this make them sponsors of state terrorism.

    Heck, Circuit City has a link on their pages. Are they now supporters of terrorism?
  • First there have been attempts to ban Casino web-sites.

    There were attempts to ban VoIP (as if you can separate one type of data from another).

    Now political speech sites (have we become France verses Yahoo Auctions?)

    At the same time our government is setting up anonymous proxy servers to help Iranians visit political dissent sites.

    Who is being helped and who is being hurt?

    Who has freedom?

  • Can't wait for them to get listed for their grenade logo.

  • My terrorist act of the day: (Score:4, Informative)

    by X86Daddy ( 446356 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @07:16PM (#7192099) Journal
    And the four sites are:

    Frankly, I think this is perfectly acceptible action at this time, and I hope that the US does not try to go further and block the sites. When you can read vile words from the mouths of fools, you're often alienated from them easier than if they were underground, secretive, suppressed, and romanticized .

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