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Terrorism fight spreads to Net

by Buford Hambleton (2020-07-22)


id="article-body" class="row" section="article-body"> In what is shaping up as a replay of the battle over the Communications Decency Act, the government is redoubling its efforts to clamp down on the free flow of online information because of suspected links between terrorism and the Internet--and cyber-citizens are already organizing to fight the new initiative. Many law enforcement officials say an increase in terrorist acts, particularly pipe bombings, is at least partially attributable to the amount of information on how to make explosives that is available on the Internet.

Government officials want to censor the Net in an effort to stem such communications. Some argue that pranksters and dedicated political terrorists alike can request information and share tips with other bomb makers in a variety of online newsgroups. Although nearly all of the actual techniques could also be found in libraries, Daftar Sbobet law enforcement authorities point out that the Net makes the information that much more available. Bombings believed to be related to the Internet have increased in recent years.

In Los Angeles, for example, Slot Online the number of explosive devices found by the police department has risen 50 percent in the last two years, many of them made with information obtained online, said Lieutenant Tom Spencer, head of the department's arson and explosives detail. Accepting this apparent correlation between bombs and the Net as fact, the government wants to make it a felony to disseminate bomb-making information not only on the Internet but also in print, on radio, and on television.

Such a proposal was thrown out Tuesday at a meeting of G-7 government leaders representing France, Italy, Japan, Britain, Germany, Canada, and the United States to discuss the recent bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta and the explosion of TWA Flight 800. The proposed law called for violators to face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The measure would have criminalized everything from a high school chemistry teacher's explanation of scientific principles on the Net to a newspaper's publication of an illustration of a bomb's construction.

Government officials also said they would use the Internet to monitor terrorist communications and would prohibit encryption technology not regulated by the government. Politicians in the United States are already trying to account for the Net in a fight to strengthen the anti-terrorism legislation enacted after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has re-introduced an amendment into the counter-terrorism legislation that would make it unlawful for "any person to teach or demonstrate the making of explosive materials, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to...the manufacture of explosive materials if the person intends or knows that such explosive materials will be used" in a criminal manner.

The original bill contained the amendment when it passed by the Senate last year, but the House removed it before the legislation was signed by President Clinton.