POLITICO
Dec. 2, 2012
Last month, President Barack Obama signed an executive order on cybersecurity, giving the government new powers to defend the United States against online attacks. We support the administration in making cybersecurity a national priority. But this shouldn’t be limited to countering hacking and cyberattacks by foreign governments.
Online radicalization is a new and evolving threat in cyberspace that demands more attention.
That terrorists are using the Internet is not new. The 9/11 Commission report showed that the Sept. 11 attackers used the Internet for searches, to buy airline tickets and book hotels. Yet none of them had been radicalized online. A decade ago, the rise of virtual communities, social networking and the production of near professional propaganda videos were hard to imagine and impossible to predict.
Today, terrorists are using these and other tools to spread their ideas, connect with each other, make new recruits and incite illegal and violent action. In fact, most experts agree that the growing importance of the Internet is the single most important innovation in radicalization since Sept. 11, 2001.
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