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61–516PDF 2010

U.S. STRATEGY FOR COUNTERING JIHADIST

WEB SITES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, 

NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

Serial No. 111–130

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE

BRAD SHERMAN, California, Chairman 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

TED POE, Texas 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Mansour Al-Hadj, Director, Reform in the Arab and Muslim World 

Project, The Middle East Media Research Institute ......................................... 6

Christopher Boucek, Ph.D., Associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace .............................................................................. 16

Gregory S. McNeal, J.D., Associate Professor of Law, Pepperdine University .. 23

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Mansour Al-Hadj: Prepared statement ........................................................... 8

Christopher Boucek, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................. 19

Gregory S. McNeal, J.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 26

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 54

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 55

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U.S. STRATEGY FOR COUNTERING JIHADIST 

WEB SITES 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., in room 

2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad Sherman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. 

I know that the title of this hearing uses the term ‘‘jihadist,’’ 

which is widely used in the intelligence and antiterrorism community. I realize that the term ‘‘jihad’’ is sometimes used in Islam to 

describe a personal struggle; and, accordingly, I will use the word 

‘‘terrorist’’ or ‘‘extremist,’’ not that the term ‘‘jihadist’’ does not also 

carry with it the meaning, but it has secondary and tertiary meanings as well, and obviously those engaged in a personal reflection 

and struggles to improve themselves are not the focus of these 

hearings. 

We have seen extremists use the Internet for a growing number 

of activities, including recruitment, propaganda, psychological warfare, and soliciting financial support. Today’s hearing is to focus on 

how to best counter those activities and basically to ask the question: Why aren’t we doing so? 

The growing number of instances in which the Internet is used 

for extremist activity is quite long. For example, in March, the 

Washington Post reported that extremists used the Internet to pass 

along U.S. operational information to insurgents in Iraq. Perhaps 

the best-known example is Major Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter 

who was influenced by extremist propaganda on the Internet. The 

five men in Northern Virginia who traveled via Pakistan to attack 

U.S. troops in Afghanistan made contact with the extremist organization over the Web as well. 

We see groups like Fajr, which not only maintain their own Web 

site but have a dedicated nexus to communicate with other extremist groups. One can find the many books and essays pushing the 

extremist position on the line, and you can find instructions on how 

to download extremist content onto your cell phone. 

The question is, what is our response? The politically correct response is for us to monitor what is going on and maybe detect who 

is visiting these sites. We did a great job of determining which sites 

Major Hasan visited after the terrorist incident. Keep in mind that 

2

our enemies have decided that, even though we have the capacity 

to monitor, the Internet serves their purpose. So those that argue 

that our ability to monitor means that extremist Web sites are 

helping us more than they are helping our enemies have got to reflect on the fact that our enemies have analyzed this and come to 

the exact opposite conclusion. The other approach, also politically 

correct, is to reply, read everything on the Internet, and write an 

essay as to why the extremists are wrong and we are right. 

Both of these responses to terrorists’ use of the Internet have a 

number of advantages. They are polite, they are politically correct, 

and they involve hiring many people with master’s degrees in foreign affairs. Being polite and hiring lots of people with master’s degrees in foreign affairs may be the chief mission of our State Department and other national security bureaucracies. 

I would prefer to see us shut down these sites. Now, you can 

argue the First Amendment, but the fact is that while you cannot 

scream fire in a crowded theater, you also cannot legally try to 

raise money for terrorists or provide an article how to ‘‘Make a 

bomb in the kitchen of your mom’’ or advocate that people do so. 

What we are talking about here are sites that are not protected by 

the U.S. First Amendment. 

The advocacy of taking violent action against Americans certainly poses just as great a danger as yelling ‘‘fire’’ in a crowded 

theater. We are going to be told that there are lots and lots of Web 

sites, that is true, but they tend to get their content from 5 or 10 

or 15 providers. So if we should down every Web site that provides 

original content, we will have shut down the propaganda machine, 

the finance machine, the recruitment machine that the terrorists 

are deploying on the Internet. 

Now, private citizens have been working to shut down extremist 

Web sites by contacting companies who host these Web sites and 

urging them to take them down. In addition, the U.S. military, in 

at least one publicly reported case, decided to shut down a Web 

site. 

I am going to try to save some of your time by skipping some of 

my prepared remarks here. 

Yet we still have not only the many examples I mentioned before, 

but also Colleen LaRose, commonly called Jihad Jane, who was arrested in Philadelphia after months of trying to recruit jihadist extremists in the United States. The Los Angeles Times reports that 

this individual was just one of a dozen domestic terrorist cases that 

the FBI disclosed in 2009, all of which used the Internet as a tool. 

Anwar al-Awlaki, an extremist leader with ties to al-Qaeda, is 

now being credited as being the brains behind online recruitment, 

particularly in a magazine written in English. I mentioned his 

most famous article regarding making a bomb in a kitchen. 

The terrorists very much want to recruit operatives that are legally entitled to be in the United States and culturally familiar 

with the United States so that they can act without creating suspicion. The best and easiest way for them to reach out to American 

citizens, legal residents, and those familiar with our culture is 

through the Internet. 

During the Bush administration, the military began formulating 

plans for a cyberattack to shut down a Saudi Web site, which they 

3

reportedly did. Interestingly, the Web site, according to the Washington Post, was being operated by a joint Saudi-CIA operation in 

order to collect intelligence on the extremists and possible Saudi insurgents. A better degree of coordination might be called for in our 

efforts. 

There is, of course, the naming and shaming, trying to get Web 

site providers to take down certain Web sites. This is not always 

successful. We have people here with technical expertise who can 

perhaps advise us on whether the United States can do what we 

are told high school students are able to do, and that is to take 

down a Web site. And as I pointed out, we could take, remove the 

content from hundreds of Web sites if we were able to take down 

5 or 10 other sites that are providing the content. 

Now, it is attractive to say, well, we should just read what the 

jihadists put up or what the extremists and terrorists put up and 

then respond. Because a lot of us grew up in politics, and when you 

have a good argument, you prevail. I have never had an argument 

good enough to get 99 percent of the people in my district to agree 

with me and only 1 percent to agree with my opponent. 

But if I ever did come up with such a good argument, that would 

be fine for my electoral purposes, but it wouldn’t be successful here. 

Because if 1 percent of those visiting these Web sites do what the 

Web site authors want them to do, which is to become terrorists, 

then the fact that 99 percent are convinced to do otherwise hardly 

provides us with much solace. 

The only way to be 100 percent convinced or 100 percent sure 

that 100 percent of the people who are visiting a Web site are not 

persuaded by it is to make sure that nobody is visiting the Web 

site. Anything else leaves you struggling to get 50, 60, 70 percent 

of the people who are visiting that Web site to not be convinced by 

it. So I look forward to using these hearings to see whether we are 

going to be a polite country or a safe country. 

With that, I yield to the distinguished ranking member from Orange County, California, Mr. Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I followed your argument there on the percentages, but I thought 

it was interesting because I saw a story the other day out of Pakistan that indicated that only 2 percent of people in Pakistan believe that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. So perhaps the environment is even less conducive in terms of trying to make a case 

when you are dealing with people that have so much 

disinformation. 

One of the questions all of us have is how is it possible that this 

very dangerous jihadist ideology is spreading. The argument that 

the heart of this is really being spread through the Internet is an 

interesting one. I know personally from conversations that I have 

had with a number of people who have been radicalized that that 

played a key role, that that was at the heart of how they came to 

these conclusions. 

I think it is following the way in which this is being used not 

only as a tool to recruit and indoctrinate but the way that, beyond 

that, it is becoming sort of a virtual radical Madrassa, these 

Deobandi schools that we see in Pakistan. Now we have these on 

the Internet. They are walking people through this logic or this arVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:50 Dec 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\TNT\092910\61516 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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gument, and they are being used to fund-raise, they are being used 

to train, they are being used to plot attacks. And if we think about 

9/11, you know, al-Qaeda used an extremist Web site to help plot 

that 9/11 attack. 

Today Hezbollah is particularly adept. Following up on that competing terrorist organization, they have become adept at doing this; 

and, obviously, it is done pretty cheaply. So you have got really a 

virtual caliphate, as somebody once mentioned here. Obviously, 

many are using these Web sites to target Americans with apparent 

success. 

We had the 9–11 Commission report recently by Tom Kean and 

Lee Hamilton. From time to time, they make pronouncements on, 

you know, the current state of play and the war on terror and they 

have warned about complacency about home-grown terrorism and 

they said we have been—their words—‘‘stumbling blindly’’ trying to 

combat it. 

We see the ever steady pace at which this recruiting and these 

attacks are increasing. The report that was filed by the members 

of the commission said they found it—again, their words—‘‘fundamentally troubling’’ that there is no Federal Government agency 

or department specifically charged with identifying the 

radicalization and recruitment of Americans into this process of 

being radicalized and then becoming terrorists. And, of course, it 

is the Internet that is central to that radicalization and recruitment. 

So what to do about these Web sites? There is a debate about 

whether they should be taken down or whether they should be 

monitored, as the chairman referenced. 

Intelligence can be gained on occasion, but we need the tools and 

focus to aggressively attack these sites. At the end of the day, we 

are at war. It is a declared war on the other side. They have declared war on the U.S., and we should act like we understand that. 

We should respond to that. One witness offers legislative suggestions that I look forward to hearing. 

I commend Mr. Poe, my colleague, who is not with us yet for this 

hearing. He contacted YouTube, and he expressed his concern over 

the rise of terrorist groups posting on it after he witnessed some 

of these videos. 

Some argue that we should be actively monitoring to counter 

radical Internet messages, debating some of these finer points over 

the justification of terrorist acts, for example. I understand the concept, but I don’t know if our Government has the ability to effectively execute such a policy which requires a set of specialized and 

uncommon skills and very deep understanding, if you are thinking 

about somebody sitting there engaged in this kind of a debate. We 

should know also, I think, that a bad effort at this would do us 

harm. If we tried to do this and do it badly, we would be in more 

trouble. 

One academic calls radical Islam on the Internet ‘‘a virtual community of hatred.’’ How you embark on this is a very difficult question and they are very tough waters for a bureaucracy to dive into. 

Given that they have declared war on us on the Internet, the answer is to take them down. The answer is the obvious answer, don’t 

give them the ability to continue to recruit and to plan. I would 

5

have a bit more confidence if the administration better understood 

the totalitarian ideology that we are facing. 

Six years ago, the 9–11 Commission found that ‘‘we are not 

threatened by ‘terrorism,’ some ‘generic evil’ but specifically by 

‘Islamist terrorism.’ ’’

This remains the threat today, but the commission’s straight talk 

is shunned by this administration which prefers to speak of ‘‘violent extremism.’’ That’s the very generic threat that the commission rejected. They wanted to name this threat for what it was. 

This blindness is one reason, perhaps, that we are ‘‘stumbling 

blindly,’’ as Kean and Hamilton regrettably concluded. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I wonder if we have an opening statement from 

the vice chairman of the committee. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, I will be very brief, but I would like to make 

a couple of statements about this very timely and important issue. 

I think if there ever was an example of our becoming servants 

of the machines that were created to serve us, this is clearly an example of it. 

The Internet sort of reminds me of the rope that is thrown down 

to a man fallen from a cliff. He can either use that rope to pull 

himself up or use that rope to hang himself. 

The Internet and the use of it by terrorists and criminal activity 

is just mushrooming, and we have got to have the ability to be able 

to adapt our capability of thwarting the terrorists’ use of it as 

quickly as we can. 

The topic of today’s hearing is one of increasing importance as 

we move through the 21st century and as we continue our offensive 

against terrorist groups, be they foreign or jihadist, including alQaeda, or domestic, as more and more are rapidly becoming. 

The rise of social network and communications platforms like 

Facebook, Twitter, all allow for great, creative, and political and 

economic promise for all of us. It could be a rope to pull ourselves 

up. 

But as we have seen all over the world, political movements and 

demonstrations have been organized through such Internet portals 

from the streets of Tehran to right here in Main Street, U.S.A. 

Spreading messages to the masses has become far easier in our 

interconnected world, and we have got to make sure that the 

United States, our country, remains at the forefront of the developing cyberworld in order to advance our Nation’s interests and to 

promote freedom and democracy abroad. 

Likewise, this case of communications allows for enemies of our 

basic freedoms, enemies of democracy, to recruit for their destructive causes. While pursuing our strategic communications, encountering the recruitment attempts of terrorist groups, we also must 

make sure that we don’t use this to hang ourselves, that our vigilance is tempered by our respects to those rights that are endowed 

by our Creator, that we cherish and that are enumerated within 

our Constitution, the values that we represent. 

And this is what I believe should be our primary focus in this 

hearing today. It is a delicate balance I think that we walk. 

We have got to be able to intercept and unscramble encrypted 

messages. But we have got to balance it. We have got to balance 

6

our security needs with protecting the privacy, with protecting the 

democracy, protecting the freedoms. 

Inherent in that freedom is our individual citizen’s right to privacy. So we have got a challenge here and let us hope that at the 

end of the day that we use this rope we have to indeed pull ourselves up to a better country, a better world, and not allow it to 

hang us. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Manzullo, do you have an opening statement? 

Mr. MANZULLO. No. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I should note that both witnesses and members 

will have 5 business days or longer, if they ask me for it later, to 

put their full statements in the record. 

I should also say—just to clarify things—I think we are all talking about the same enemy, that is to say, those who believe in the 

use of terrorism or other violent means and are inspired by a corrupted interpretation of Islam and a corrupted interpretation of the 

concept of Islamic jihad. 

First, I would like to introduce our first witness, Mansour AlHadj. He is the director of the Reform in the Arab and Muslim 

World Project for the Middle East Media Research Institute, 

MEMRI. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MANSOUR AL-HADJ, DIRECTOR, REFORM 

IN THE ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLD PROJECT, THE MIDDLE 

EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Royce, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me 

to serve as a panelist on this important topic. 

My name is Mansour Al-Hadj. I was born and raised a devout 

Muslim in Saudi Arabia. I earned my degree in Sharia and Islamic 

Studies at the International University of Africa in Sudan. 

I am the director of MEMRI’s Reform in the Arab and Muslim 

World Project. My work involves focusing on liberal voices and advocates of reform in the Arab and Muslim world, including those 

who speak out against online jihad. 

As a youth, I was taught to hate America, the West, Jews and 

Christians. I was taught to love jihad and those who wage it. Religious settlements and Islamist pamphlets turned me into an extremist by teaching me that Muslims are backward because we 

don’t implement Sharia. 

My transformation away from extremism came after reading the 

writing of a peace activist who denounced violence and supports 

the use of nonviolent means of social change. Today, I see many 

Muslims stuck in the same conflict I was. The difference is that 

today Muslims have much more access to the source of extremist 

ideas online through jihadist forums and Web sites. 

Jihadist forums on Web sites have played a role in several recent 

terror acts in the United States such as the Fort Hood shooting 

and the failed Times Square bombing. I personally witnessed the 

powerful effect a propaganda campaign can have on a young mind. 

As a student in Sudan, one government recruitment effort during 

the civil war was a jihadist TV series. This show documented jihadi 

fighters imparting their love for jihad. I still remember how fasVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:50 Dec 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\TNT\092910\61516 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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cinated I was by their stories and how I longed to become one of 

them. 

Just as the Sudanese Government managed to market the war 

to recruit thousands to join their jihad, terror organizations such 

as al-Qaeda are actively recruiting thousands through the Internet. 

Islamist organizations primarily use the Internet for spreading 

their message and propaganda. It is considered to be an integral 

part of their jihad, and they invest tremendous resource in it. 

It is impossible to imagine the development of global jihad movement without the Internet. Through MEMRI’s research of jihadi 

Web sites, it has discovered that many of them are hosted by Internet service providers in the U.S. that are unaware of the content 

due to the language barrier. 

MEMRI addressed Congress on this issue in July, 2007. We suggested dealing with the problem by notifying ISPs in the United 

States about what they host in the hope that they would voluntarily remove the sites. In the week that followed, 32 out of 50 ISPs 

questioned removed the jihadi sites. 

Opposition to closing these sites came in several varieties. First 

Amendment rights, the Web sites are a source of valuable intelligence, and the difficulty in dealing with a large number of Web 

sites were all given as a reason to keep the sites active. 

However, we at MEMRI believe that if the key jihadi Web sites 

are shut down, the rest of them will dry up. Most importantly, the 

number of jihadist Web sites has decreased in recent years. Currently, the number of highly dangerous sites is less than 10. 

It is important to mention that terrorist organizations are always 

on the lookout for other channels to propagate their ideology. As 

jihadists encounter increasing difficulty with their Web sites, they 

discovered Western social media outlets such as YouTube, 

Facebook, and Twitter. 

In fact, YouTube is a primary clearinghouse for one of America’s 

most wanted terrorists, Anwar al-Awlaki, who provided spiritual 

guidance and inspiration for several recent successful and failed 

terror attacks in the U.S. al-Awlaki’s’s presence in YouTube is the 

result of the shutting down of his Web site shortly after the Fort 

Hood shooting. 

At that time, MEMRI reported that al-Awlaki’s Web site was 

hosted by an ISP in California. Within 2 hours of the report’s publication, the ISP removed al-Awlaki’s Web site. 

In conclusion, online jihad is a dangerous foe. The U.S. must confront it exactly as it confronts other forms of extremism on other 

fronts around the world, both within and beyond its border. As 

with its military ventures, the U.S. must initiate cooperation with 

its allies, international organizations, and the business community. 

Experience shows that this can indeed be done. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks. Thank you 

again for inviting me today. I welcome any questions that you or 

the members may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Al-Hadj follows:]

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Mr. SHERMAN. I want to thank you for that testimony and I believe your written testimony is longer and, without objection, will 

be made as a part of the record. I recommend to my colleagues the 

first illustrative paragraph of your written testimony. 

Next I would like to introduce Christopher Boucek. He is an associate in the Carnegie Middle East Program where his research 

focuses on security challenges in the Arabian Gulf and North Africa. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER BOUCEK, PH.D., ASSOCIATE, 

MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

Mr. BOUCEK. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and distinguished 

members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today to speak about this very important topic. 

I think I would like to keep my remarks relatively brief, as my 

written testimony has been entered into the record, so we can move 

on to questions that you may have. 

As we all know and as was mentioned in the opening statements, 

the issue of Web sites promoting and propagating jihadist terrorist 

ideology is a serious concern. I think it is important that we keep 

in mind what the Internet does and how this plays with recruitment and radicalization. It serves as a system to propagate and 

perpetuate an ideology as well as provide ideological cohesion and 

a sense of belonging across great distances. It is an unrivaled 

source for connectivity for sharing information, as well as knowledge, inspiration, propaganda, recruitment, and fund-raising efforts. 

What I would really like to do is focus on three aspects that I 

outlined in my written testimony. 

The first is a need for measured response, which I think would 

fall somewhere between the polite versus safe setup that we heard 

in the opening remarks. I would propose that there is a need for 

a very strong and coordinated approach to dealing with these 

issues, and I think that has to come from a basis of understanding 

what these issues are all about and how the Internet is being used. 

There are times that I would say that certain Web sites should be 

shut down or named and shamed, as have been outlined. 

I would also say that we need to weigh this against the unintended consequences that can arise from doing so. There is a value, 

a considerable value for keeping some of these Web sites available 

for law enforcement intelligence as well as research efforts. I think 

we also need to keep in mind that over the last several years a 

number of experts have pointed out how there is a decreasing value 

in both shutting these down and as using them for surveillance or 

research methods. So I think this issue has an awful lot of nuance 

in it. 

I would like to pick up on a point that was made by the previous 

witness, which is the use of YouTube, especially the use of 

YouTube by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. About 3 months 

ago, a new YouTube channel appeared branded as AQAP, the 

Islamist al-Qaeda organization based in Yemen, their media outlet. 

This features all of AQAP’s videos subtitled into English. 

17

No longer do you need to have access to Arabic. No longer do you 

need to be able to navigate Web forums. In conjunction with 

English language propaganda material, you can now use Google 

and YouTube to access this material, and it is everywhere. Taken 

in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, his sermons and lectures are available widespread, not just on YouTube but on an infinite number of 

outlets. 

It is important to keep in mind that shutting down these Web 

sites will not completely eliminate the sentiment behind them, and 

I think this leads me into my next point, which is the need for an 

increased sense of counter-engagement, I guess the read and talk 

aspect. 

And I think what I would say here is that it is important, I 

think, for us to keep in mind that al-Qaeda is fueled by an ideology 

and a set of ideas and a set of grievances, and we need to understand these, and there are some individuals—there are multiple 

pathways to radicalization, and there are some individuals who are 

motivated through religion, who benefit from religious discussion. 

And there are a number of programs in other countries—Internetbased, radio-based, television-based interactive programs—to discuss these issues. 

We don’t need to do this all ourselves, and oftentimes we probably should not be, and there are ways in which I think we can 

support these programs in other countries. We can support moderate—moderate voices that speak out in the region against violence. This comes with a caveat that some of those voices that are 

speaking out against violence are probably also speaking out on 

issues that would be of great displeasure to a number of people in 

this country. So we need to weigh the balance of these issues. 

The last point I would like to make is how we look forward on 

some suggestions, and this is why I would highlight need for research and further research. I guess this is no surprise coming 

from an academic and a researcher. I think, basically, I would say 

that it is unbelievable to me that almost 10 years into this struggle 

we have yet to fully set up a way to address dealing with these 

issues. 

If you look 10 years into the Cold War, we had a much, much 

better developed understanding of the Soviet Union, China, communism, socialism, the Russian language, Chinese. We are nowhere near that dealing with this issue. Across military, universities, higher education, I mean, this is shocking to me and I think 

this is something that we need to fix straightaway. 

I think we also need to keep in mind that the Internet is not always a perfect mirror for what is going on in the ground in a lot 

of these countries. I think it is very easy to use the Internet to try 

to understand what is going in places where most Americans don’t 

go, if it is Peshawar or Marab or other places, but there is no replacement for actual on-the-ground field research and interaction 

with people. 

With that, I would like to highlight several other points, and I 

think that there are ways that, because this is an argument based 

on ideology and ideas, we can highlight the flaws and the inherent 

discrepancies in these arguments. I think doing this in conjunction 

18

with the more rigorous shut-down approach is probably where I 

would say we should head forward. 

With that, I would like to conclude my remarks. Thank you very 

much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boucek follows:]

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Mr. SHERMAN. We will now hear from our third witness, Mr. 

Gregory McNeal. Mr. McNeal is an associate professor of law at 

Pepperdine University School of Law located immediately adjacent 

to the 27th Congressional District and previously found in the 24th 

Congressional District of California. He has also served in an advisory capacity on counterterrorism policy to the Departments of Defense and Justice. 

Mr. McNeal. 

STATEMENT OF GREGORY S. MCNEAL, J.D., ASSOCIATE 

PROFESSOR OF LAW, PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. MCNEAL. Chairman Sherman, Ranking Member Royce, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is an honor to be here 

today to speak about the threat of terrorist Web sites and the U.S. 

strategy to counter them. 

As a professor at Pepperdine University, I specialize in national 

security law and policy, and I have written specifically about the 

threat of terrorist Web sites. 

As a California resident, it is an honor to be here speaking before 

the subcommittee, which has been so ably led by California representatives, Congressmen Sherman and Royce. 

In the era of home-grown terrorist plots, terrorist Web sites are 

a grave threat to national security, which require a three-pronged 

approach to combating them. That approach combines monitoring 

for intelligence value, elimination and destruction for operational 

gains, and co-optation for propaganda and ideological value. My remarks today and my written testimony focus on the elimination 

and destruction of terrorist Web sites. 

Eliminating selected extremist Web sites will enhance our ability 

to collect intelligence by narrowing the field of enemy sites we 

must monitor. A small number of Web sites will allow for target 

efforts to undermine the jihadist message. Finally, efforts which 

keep the enemy on the move impose costs on them. They 

delegitimize them and at the margins make it more difficult for potential recruits to become radicalized. 

Today’s headlines about a plot to engage in coordinated Mumbaistyle terrorist attacks reveals the critical importance of countering 


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the terrorist Web presence. Home-grown, low-sophistication, highcasualty plots are increasingly facilitated by jihadist Web sites. 

Consider just a handful of our close calls here within the United 

States. 

Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood attacker, was inspired by and 

radicalized by terrorist Web sites. Those Web sites now hold him 

up as a symbol of successful, home-grown attacks. 

Najibullah Zazi, who planned a second series of attacks against 

the New York City subway system, was radicalized and educated 

through jihadist Web sites. 

Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, was radicalized 

through terrorist Web sites. It was there that he found his inspiration and fixity of purpose that drove him to carry out his attack. 

Internet images of jihad were the singular tie binding together 

the efforts of the Fort Dix plotters. And, moreover, in the case of 

Ohio terrorists Mohammad Amawi, Marwan El-Hindi and Wassam 

Mazloum, terrorist Web sites were the motivating and enabling factor in the recruitment, providing them with information about how 

to build bombs. 

The common theme running throughout nearly every attempted 

attack since September 11 is a radical ideology. That ideology finds 

its home in a small core of Web sites with close operational ties to 

al-Qaeda. Those core forums are the mainstream media of extremist ideology. They have the label of legitimacy. Their stories, videos, 

training materials, and directives are picked up by mirror sites and 

repeated throughout the Web. We should be disrupting their operations. 

I would like to address a common myth that shutting down terrorist Web sites does not work. I say this is a myth because, to 

date, there has been no concerted government effort to shut down 

these sites. I readily admit that the terrorist Web presence cannot 

be eliminated, but that is not the goal of what I am advocating for. 

Rather, the goal I believe we should be pursuing is to impose costs 

on our enemies in time and resources to narrow their potential 

Web hosts and corral them into places of our choosing so we can 

monitor and co-op them. It should not be easy for our enemies to 

recruit, train, and proselytize. 

The Internet is not a battlefield that should operate according to 

the directives of our enemies. Rather, it is a battle space that we 

should own. On the traditional battlefield, few would argue that we 

should forego killing and capturing terrorists merely because they 

may be quickly replaced. Yet when it comes to the Internet that 

is exactly what those who are opposed to shutting down these Web 

sites are advocating for. Now, I am speaking in terms of warfare. 

However, the fight against terrorist Web sites must be an interagency effort. The intelligence community, the military, law enforcement, and the State Department are all key players in a comprehensive strategy to counter the threat of jihadist Web sites. 

However, this should not be solely the province of the executive 

branch. In fact, I believe that comprehensive legislation directing 

and prescribing the activities of each agency in the cyber realm is 

essential to national security. 

Congress can and should make its mark before the executive 

branch takes actions on its own, forming precedent without policy. 

25

The threat of jihadist Web sites is one part of a broader need for 

legislation directing of our Nation’s cyber war efforts. The key to 

countering the influence of terrorist Web sites is to first ensure 

that those Web sites do not receive any support from U.S. Web 

hosts. This can be accomplished through application of existing 

laws and shaming techniques. Second, we should eliminate selected 

sites using existing statutes and Treasury regulations. Third, we 

should work with allies to target those individuals who are supporting Web sites abroad that are beyond the reach of our law. 

And, finally, when necessary, actions should be taken by the Pentagon’s Joint Functional Component Command Network-Warfare 

Unit and Cyber Command to shut down selected Web sites. However, this should only be done after coordination and consultation 

with the intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic community; 

and Congress should be regularly informed of these actions. Following these steps will go a long way toward countering the influence of jihadist Web sites. 

This concludes my formal remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McNeal follows:]

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Mr. SHERMAN. I thank you, Professor, and since you are suggesting legislation—my law school professors used to assign homework. I have always wanted to reverse that. So if you haven’t done 

so already, your homework assignment is to draft proposed legislation implementing what you are talking about. Unless you have already done that. 

Mr. MCNEAL. Mr. Sherman, I would be happy to work with the 

committee on drafting that legislation. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And they say this job doesn’t have perks. I just 

gave a homework assignment to a law professor. 

We are going to hear, first, questions from our ranking member, 

Mr. Royce.

Mr. ROYCE. Let me ask a question of Mansour. You mentioned 

that your move away from radical Islam or jihadist thinking came 

as a result of an article that you read. I wondered if you had read 

that on a Web site or if it was a pamphlet. I am wondering how 

that idea got in circulation. You were in Sudan, I think, at the 

time? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Saudi Arabia. 

Mr. ROYCE. Saudi Arabia. I would also ask if—that is Khales—

what did you say his name was? Khales Jalabi? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Khales Jalabi, yes. 

Mr. ROYCE. Is he widely read today? Is there sort of a movement 

in Saudi Arabia? 

No, not really? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Not really. He basically is considered like a bad 

guy or something because he is against jihad. I mean, he interprets 

Koran and jihad in Koran in another way, in a peaceful way, and 

the radicals don’t like him. 

Mr. ROYCE. Tell me a little bit, real quickly. 

Somebody behind you wanted to make a comment, I guess. 

Ms. ALHANI. Yes, because you were asking him about Khales 

Jalabi, I would just add something he didn’t know maybe, that he 

is a Syrian writer. He writes—but, as you know, a writer. He is Islamic, but he is not a radicalist or criminalist either. 

Mr. ROYCE. I see. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Normally, we don’t hear from anyone sitting in 

the audience, but you are allowed to—but the one requirement is 

that the woman who just spoke needs to identify herself for the 

record. Can you give us your name, please? 

Ms. ALHANI. I am Fawziah Alhani. I am a human rights activist. 

I was attending another conference here. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you for your name. 

Mr. ROYCE. What I was trying to understand better was, in society, you went to a particular school and in that school these ideas 

were prevalent. Was the institution that you were in dissimilar in 

some ways to other schools or do you think this is sort of the 

mindset that many teachers have? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Yes. I went to college in Sudan, the International 

University of Africa. In that university there are students from all 

parts of Africa and the world. Actually, there are American students, too. 

That is an Islamic university. The things that they are teaching 

there are just anti-Western things; and, actually, one—many of the 

40

students at the time when I was there, they go and wage jihad. 

They are highly respected. They don’t have to attend any classes, 

and they would really pass the exams without anything. And, actually, one of my professors died—he lost his life in this jihad. 

So the Islamist Government of Sudan, doing this, you know, to 

spread their ideology, they want to have as many Islamic States in 

Africa or around the world. So they are spreading this through 

bringing students, giving them free scholarships to come to this 

particular school, and teaching them this anti-Western and antihuman rights and things. 

So the day of the 9/11, when the Towers hit, I was there. I was 

a student there, and all that you hear is the cheers and people 

were very happy, without knowing what happened, who did that. 

Just because America was hit, it’s something very happy for them. 

Mr. ROYCE. I have been to Sudan and Darfur. One of the concerns I have about the particular institutions that we are talking 

about is the way they push martyrdom but also the way they 

pushed sort of a genocidal campaign, originally in South Sudan, 

and now it is in Darfur. But in South Sudan that is when you were 

there, they were pushing this idea. 

And just to get off the topic for a minute, is it realistic to think 

that the government in Khartoum, with this recent history of promoting the type of jihad that we saw carried out, including the genocidal campaigns, would be willing to allow for the south to secede 

if that is the referendum’s outcome that is in Sudan? You don’t 

have to answer that, but I do wonder. 

The Sudan Government has made this agreement, but given 

what the old National Islamic Front Government did in terms of 

creating this atmosphere, I wonder if it is possible for them to live 

with the result of the referendum in the south. 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Well, right now, they are coming with some ideas. 

They actually are thinking of delaying the referendum; and, you 

know, they are really bothered by, you know, American support for 

the right for southern Sudanese to choose whether they stay united 

with one Sudan or have their own country. But for them that 

would be problematic, and I don’t think they would allow that to 

happen. 

Mr. ROYCE. One other quick question. In Saudi Arabia, how prevalent do you think the teaching in the textbooks and so forth—

what is the prevailing view on this kind of activity? What is the 

mindset in the schools? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Well, I was—I went to school in Saudi Arabia, and 

the textbooks are really—they are anti-Western things. They teach 

us that, you know, a Muslim and Jewish are enemies at the end 

of the day, and sometimes in the future they will fight each other. 

And even the trees and stone will help the Muslim kill the Jewish. 

So these things, I—you know, they taught me these things. 

Mr. ROYCE. Yes. 

Mr. AL-HADJ. And one of the things that, you know, I now feel 

really sorry about it, that, in the past, they taught us the story of 

our Prophet Muhammad killing a whole tribe, the Banu Qurayza 

tribe in Medina, because of treason or something. When I hear that 

story, when I was young, you know, it didn’t make any difference. 

41

I didn’t feel any sorry. I didn’t think that the Prophet, you know, 

had done something really horrible. 

So, you know, there is no way of questioning the history of Islam. 

And, actually, right now, one religious guy in Saudi Arabia, he is 

one of the writers of the textbooks, the new textbooks. He is really 

radical, and he actually wants to have like separation in the grand 

mosques so women can be, you know, on one side and men can be 

on the other side, and he is one of the people who is writing the 

books for kids. 

So it is in there, and it needs to be reformed. 

Mr. ROYCE. If I could ask one more question, and I will ask that 

of Dr. McNeal. 

You mentioned in your testimony, Dr. McNeal, that Treasury has 

not aggressively attempted to cut off cyber services to terrorism 

supporters, not even key al-Qaeda facilitators. I was going to ask 

you why, and what grade would you give that effort in the last administration as well as in this administration? What is afoot here? 

Mr. MCNEAL. I would be hesitant to give a, grade only because 

I haven’t seen all the papers before me to grade all of them. But 

Treasury can do more, and it is obvious they can do more. In my 

written remarks, I highlighted a Web site of a key al-Qaeda 

facilitator who is still receiving domain-name services from a company in Oregon. This was as of Monday, I conducted the search 

and found the Web site myself. It included some Google-translated 

passages of advocacy of jihad. So that suggests to me on the surface 

that there could be a resource issue or a focus issue. 

So that is not meant to disparage the efforts of those at Treasury, but, rather, suggest that maybe greater direction or focus 

needs to be placed on this problem. And I don’t think across the 

executive branch there has been a focus on these Web sites, as indicated by both your opening remarks and Congressman Sherman’s 

opening remarks. So it is a matter of motivation rather than a matter of desire, I think. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. 

I am out of time. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Royce. 

I should point out that Congressman Ellison may be back. He is 

not a member of this subcommittee, but he does have the great 

honor of serving on the full committee, and he will be allowed to 

ask questions of the witnesses after members of the subcommittee 

have completed their questioning. 

With that, I will recognize Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Al-Hadj, your testimony and your comments are both enlightening and yet troubling, because it seems to me the culture of 

many of our Muslim countries and the whole attitude of the younger generations that are coming along, the anti-West, anti-United 

States, anti-Jewish sentiment appears to be growing instead of receding. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. AL-HADJ. I think so, yes, because of many things. These 

things, they are in the saying of the prophet. And the media in the 

Middle East is always trying to show the U.S. as the cause of every 

problem on Muslim people around the world. So it is an anti-Western notion that really keeps on growing. And something that the 

42

Muslim community here in the United States are not doing is to 

speak out and go and tell people that we are not disenfranchised 

here in America. We enjoy all the freedom and things. 

I came to this country 5 years ago. And when I chat with my 

friends, they ask me, Hey, are you allowed to go to the mosque? 

Does nobody cause you any problems? Are Muslims hated in America? But this is not true. I don’t see an anti-Muslim thing. But 

when you see the media and the Muslim activists or Muslim organizations when they appear in the media, they are always trying 

to make themselves as victims, and there is really anti-Muslim 

things going on in America, but this is not true. 

Mr. SCOTT. There has to be some element of responsibility taken 

by the leadership in some of our more moderate Muslim countries. 

What is holding that back? Is there a fear, there is a reluctance? 

Because no matter what we do—I mean, if somebody hates you because you are Jewish or if somebody hates you because you are 

from the United States, no matter what we do, we are not the instrument that can change that. 

Something has to change within the culture over there, and I 

just don’t see positive forward leadership on the part of people who 

you would feel—educated, who work with this country, have relationships with it—not taking the leadership in these Muslim communities to correct this perception. No matter what we do, we may 

get interception dealing with the Internet, but that is not going to 

stop until we can change some attitudes and reverse this trend of 

anti-Americanism and anti-Israel and Jewish feelings within the 

Muslim world. 

Quite honestly, the tragedy of the situation is that if it does not 

happen, we are headed down a very, very dangerous road here if 

we don’t get some cooperation from the Muslim world and the leadership to help correct this perception. Because if what you say is 

true of how these younger people are just getting this hatred, unfounded, we are not the answer to that because we are the devil 

to them, we are the Satan to them. It has to come from the Muslim 

community itself. 

I don’t want to belabor that, but I hope we have some signs of 

hope there. Do we? Do we have some signs of hope that we can get 

some counter—to me that is the best counterterrorism we could 

have, help coming from the Muslim communities to straighten out 

a lot of the misinformation that is formulating these attitudes that 

make these young people ripe for recruitment. 

I just came from a trip over into Africa and went into the Casablanca area. And that country, Morocco, surprisingly, is a leading 

country in recruiting terrorists. And supposedly it is our friend. I 

mean, we give money there, Rick’s Cafe is there; a great American 

movie was named for it called Casablanca—you probably don’t remember that—starring Humphrey Bogart some years ago. 

But anyway, I would hope that this committee hearing can at 

least—we can make a dramatic statement that we need to get 

greater cooperation from the moderate Muslim leadership in the 

world to help us in this. I think that is going to be the way it will 

do. 

But let me ask you, Mr. McNeal, in your testimony you wrote 

that independent watchdog sites stand in the best position to monVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:50 Dec 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\TNT\092910\61516 HFA PsN: SHIRL
43

itor jihadi extremist sites. Let me ask you in relationship to that, 

what is being done to ensure that independent watchdog sites are 

acting legally and appropriately? 

Mr. MCNEAL. It would be difficult to imagine how, short of them 

shutting a Web site down themselves, how they would be violating 

the law. Generally, these independent watchdog sites monitor these 

Web sites and then use shaming techniques to try to get the Web 

sites shut down. 

We heard Mr. Al-Hadj’s example about—I think it was 32 out of 

50 or something, pretty good result, of Internet service providers 

who, once they are notified that these jihadist Web sites are 

present on their servers, they shut them down voluntarily. And so, 

short of these watchdog groups engaging in some sort of denial of 

service attack, there isn’t a violation of the law there. 

And I think actually that these watchdog groups should be encouraged in that respect, because the Web is so expansive, the Web 

sites are so dynamic in switching servers that the Federal Government wouldn’t be able to do it on its own. This is sort of the equivalent of your local neighborhood watch providing tips to law enforcement about crimes being committed in the community. 

I think the shortfall is that when these Web sites inform law enforcement—or Treasury, let’s say, about the presence—when these 

watchdogs inform law enforcement about the presence of these Web 

sites, it is not always followed up on. And we have tools to issue 

cease-and-desist orders to Web hosts who are providing services to 

designated groups; however, if it is a nondesignated group, it is 

just a person advocating jihad, there is currently no law which allows us to have that type of material removed from a Web site. The 

YouTube examples that were cited earlier are a prime example of 

that. But I think for the most part these groups, unless they are 

conducting direct attacks against Web sites, are not violating the 

law. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. Let me go back to you for a moment, Mr. 

Boucek—I don’t mean to murder everybody’s name up there, but I 

did get McNeal right. I could handle that. 

You wrote that to get ahead of al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism 

more broadly, we will need to shift to be proactive and not just reactive. 

That brings me to the point I mentioned first in my questioning 

with Mr. Al-Hadj; and that is, what more can we do to encourage 

the moderate voices? Because I sincerely believe this is the key 

going forward. We have got to figure out a way to break down this 

wall and to turn this attitude around or else we are just chasing 

our tail here. 

What do you think more we could do to encourage the moderate 

voices in the Arab and Muslim world, some that have already, to 

a degree, spoken out against violence and extremism? What more 

can we do, or should we be doing to encourage this? Are you satisfied with where we are? 

Mr. BOUCEK. Thank you very much. 

I think this is an excellent question. I think there is an awful 

lot that we can do, because there are an increasing number of moderate voices speaking out against violence in the region. I think you 

could come up with a huge list of clerics and sheiks and officials 

44

throughout the Muslim world, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who 

have spoken out saying that violence and terrorism is wrong and 

have taken action to criminalize these activities. 

I think there are things we can do to help get that message out. 

I think we can begin by probably starting from a position that we 

need to know more about them so we can talk about them. But also 

I think there are ways that we can help get those messages out by 

promoting cooperation amongst different countries. So sharing best 

practices and technologies for how to get these messages out, how 

to do education. I also think there are probably ways that you can 

manipulate search results and do other things, which is far beyond 

my technical education. 

I think another interesting point that I think leads to something 

you mentioned earlier in your remarks is this issue of this rising 

anti-American or anti-Western sentiment. I think there are lots of 

causes for that. And I think it is not just religious motivation, I 

think it is a whole range of things from social conditions, governments, education, corruption, that feed into this process. So I think 

we need to step back and say that there is a much larger cause for 

it. 

I think we also need to recognize that as there are many pathways of how people do get into violence or radicalization, people do 

step back from it. There is a growing body of research to suggest 

that people do leave militant groups and terrorist organizations. 

Once we understand this better, we can help facilitate that process, 

I think. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I will now call upon Mr. Ellison for 5 minutes of 

questioning. 

Mr. ELLISON. Well, let me thank Chairman Sherman for this 

hearing. I think it is very important. Unfortunately, due to multiple demands, I wasn’t able to hear all of the testimony, but I appreciate the work that you all have done. I think it is important. 

I think that we don’t know nearly enough, and the pursuit of 

how to be more effective in countering violent radicalization is 

something we all have to devote more time and energy to. But 

since I didn’t get to hear everything, let me just throw out a few 

ideas I have had and perhaps I can get your reaction. 

I think that what needs to happen most of all here is that these 

Web sites need to have some competition of ideas. And what I 

mean by that is that if you suppress a Web site—and any Web site 

that is proposing violent radicalization or how to—I think you just 

get rid of it and that is the right thing to do. But one that is just 

offering these extremist ideas, I think it may be more effective to 

compete with their ideology rather than simply suppress it. And 

the reason why is that these people who—it seems to me their essential argument is that America is at war with Islam. America is 

not at war with any religion. America is at peace with all religions. 

But if they want to argue that America is at war with Islam, the 

most effective thing to do is not simply to suppress the argument, 

but to actually take that argument head-on by talking about a 

number of things like our Constitution and freedom of religion, by 

talking about how Muslim Americans are doing, actually prospering pretty well; by talking about how leaders like Michael 

Bloomberg have stood up and said that the Manhattan Islamic 

45

Center has as much right to be there as any other institution does; 

how the President stood up and spoke on this issue; and how leaders—Muslim, Christian, Jewish of various faiths—said that the 

threatened Koran burning was reprehensible. 

I mean, I think that we should take on this claim that America 

is at war with Islam, because I am clear that it is not; and yet if 

we just suppress it and don’t really offer a competing vision, then 

we may be missing an opportunity, and we might even hand these 

people an opportunity to say, See, this is just them trying to—they 

don’t want you to hear our side, kind of, argument. 

Let me also offer you these ideas because I know the title of this 

hearing today is Jihadist Web sites. Personally, I don’t like the terminology. And the reason why is that, to a Western audience the 

word ‘‘jihad’’ is a foreign word, it sounds scary, it is certainly used 

in a scary way, and so it whips us up over here in America. But 

to the Arabic-speaking world, it is much more akin to the term 

‘‘freedom fighter.’’ So why would we let——

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Ellison, in my opening remarks I did comment on the preferred term being something along the lines of ‘‘terrorist’’ or ‘‘extremist,’’ and discussed how the word ‘‘jihadist’’ 

might——

Mr. ELLISON. Yes. And that is not meant as a critique, and I appreciate your acknowledging that, Chairman Sherman. And let me 

just say this quite simply, and you all may agree or disagree, from 

the standpoint of Anwar al-Awlaki, he wants to associate what he 

is talking about with Islam so that he can go out to the Muslim 

world and say, I am the standard bearer for Islam and I want you 

to do this in defense of Islam. Well, we should strip them of that 

and say, You are not representing Islam, you are representing murder and killing. And so they would love to use Islam as a veneer 

to sort of market their ideas, and I think we should really figure 

out how do we deny them that. 

I was making this point with somebody a few months ago and 

they said, Well, this is what they call themselves. I said, Well, that 

is exactly why we shouldn’t call them that. None of us would say 

that Timothy McVeigh is a freedom fighter, even if he called himself that; we call him a mass murderer. Well, we should call Anwar 

al-Awlaki a promoter of mass murder and we should call Osama 

bin Ladenan actual mass murderer. 

So whenever we say Islamic terrorists, Islamic—we are always 

associating it with Islam. I think that we think we are standing up 

against the bad guys, but I think we may unwittingly be actually 

helping to reinforce their argument. 

I haven’t dropped it yet, but I am actually really sort of thinking 

a lot about perhaps a study bill on violent radicalization. I know 

Jane Harman has done this in the past. It was met by many people 

in the civil rights and civil liberties community with opposition, because they thought it would lead to violation of human and civil 

rights. 

I guess I am running out of time, but if I may, could I wrap up, 

Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SHERMAN. You may. 

Mr. ELLISON. I think that we don’t know enough about the topic, 

which is why we profile, which is why we stop the guy with the 

46

worry beads and the beard and kick him off the plane, when we 

are letting the other one go by who is the real danger. 

I have pontificated long enough. Thank you very much for listening. And if there is ever any time, I would love to hear your views 

on what I said. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

I would comment that in my district, a mosque is being built, 

and the only controversy is whether it has enough parking spaces. 

An article in the Case Western Reserve University Journal of 

International Law discusses the strategy for containing and removing terrorist material through a process of shaming those who provide the Web sites to extremists. Limiting the countries which host 

these Web sites, they argue, will make it easier to track and control. 

Dr. Boucek, is the strategy of just naming, shaming, viable? And 

in particular, in your testimony you talk about YouTube, and apparently al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a site. I know I 

have a site, Keith has a site, David has a site. Is that site still up 

just because nobody has bothered to contact YouTube, or is it up 

because YouTube has decided to leave it up? 

Mr. BOUCEK. Thank you very much. 

Taking your last point first, I cannot tell you why it is still up. 

At least earlier this week, on Monday——

Mr. SHERMAN. Are you aware of anybody who has contacted 

YouTube and said, ‘‘Hey, do you know about this?’’

Mr. BOUCEK. There are some people who have mentioned this before. I don’t think it is very well known that there is this site. Probably more disturbing, the video content that is available has been 

replicated across any number of other sites now. The very concerning thing to me, though——

Mr. SHERMAN. You obviously find these sites. When you personally find them, do you drop a line to YouTube? Do they read their 

mail? 

Mr. BOUCEK. In this case, no, I have not. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, homework assignments are not limited to 

law professors. To start this out, give me a list of the sites. I will 

put a letterhead on top of it just to make sure that it is read by 

somebody at a more senior level and we will see what happens. 

Mr. MCNEAL. Chairman Sherman, just on that point, may I 

interject? 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. MCNEAL. About a year ago, Senator Lieberman sent letters 

to YouTube requesting this, and their response was they will evaluate content that is flagged as inappropriate, but they value individuals’ free-speech rights. So we have a legal limitation because 

under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Web providers, it is up to them whether or not they can take something 

down and determine whether or not it is obscene. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, this is not obscene; this is put up by a terrorist organization. This seems to have some of the content of alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is the official site of alQaeda. I don’t think there is any doubt that our terrorism laws do 

not allow U.S. corporations to do business with terrorist organizations. 

47

Mr. BOUCEK. I am able to explain why this particular YouTube 

channel is still available. 

Over the summer, in July——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, we have a law professor here as well. Let’s 

say somebody is inspired by this site, and let’s say they kill somebody; are you certain that YouTube would escape civil liability? 

Mr. MCNEAL. I am certain they would escape criminal liability. 

I am not certain if they would escape civil liability. I believe the 

issue and the argument that was put forth by YouTube, when this 

came up last year, is that it is difficult for them to isolate the identity of who it is. And so their site may say, We are the official 

YouTube channel of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But 

YouTube is unable to verify that, and therefore their policy is one 

of openness and dialogue and shout-down, that type of thing. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Terrorism laws would be absolutely meaningless 

if you could do business with a terrorist organization operating 

under its own name and say, ‘‘Well, there was no certified letter 

from a deity proving that there was in fact a terrorist organization.’’

Mr. MCNEAL. Chairman Sherman, we are in agreement on this. 

I think that more action needs to be taken and screws need to be 

turned against these service providers, whether they are the biggest, YouTube, or the smallest——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, I don’t know how much money YouTube 

makes and how much its executives make, but they are endangering people throughout America for their own profit. And it is not 

out of great loyalty to the concept of the First Amendment, it is out 

of great loyalty to money. They feel that if they let everybody on, 

that just makes a little bit more money for them. And for them to 

endanger lives nationwide for that reason is a decision that they 

have made. And if they want to take down my site, they are welcome to. As a matter of fact, this will be up on my site. 

Yes. 

Mr. BOUCEK. I think the only point that I can contribute to this 

is that in the beginning of July there was the release of this 

English-speaking magazine, ‘‘Inspire,’’ that you had alluded to in 

your opening remarks. Shortly thereafter, this channel appeared. I 

think one can draw the conclusion that there is a connection. As 

of this week when I checked this channel, all of the videos are still 

available, and this person is accessing this site frequently and updating this material. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So this is a secondary site that is taking its content from the site of YouTube——

Mr. BOUCEK. No. This is the YouTube channel that we have been 

discussing. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. So this is a channel that brands itself as 

the official site of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. 

Mr. BOUCEK. That is correct. It brands itself as the media arm 

for AQAP. And the very concerning thing, which I think we have 

all highlighted, is that you no longer need to have much knowledge 

or language capacity to access this. You can get all of these videos 

and you can consume them, just knowing English from anywhere. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Now, does the content of this site advocate violent 

action against Americans? 

48

Mr. BOUCEK. I think al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been 

very clear about its positions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I know what their positions are, but in terms of 

what they have chosen to put up. 

Mr. BOUCEK. In some of the videos they have been advocating violence against American interests, American allies, American partners. I think that there is no reason why this should be available. 

I can’t give you an answer on that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And is there material there that provides useful 

information to those who wish to be terrorists as to how to make 

a bomb, how to sneak in a bomb? 

Mr. BOUCEK. Just real quickly I would say, as opposed to ‘‘Inspire’’ magazine that provides actual tactical information—how to 

assemble explosives, what to bring on jihad, how to engage in operations—what this does is provide you with the theological and ideological justifications to get you to that point. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. But it is a little bit more provable that 

something is reprehensible when it says, Here is how to make a 

bomb, rather than, ‘‘Here is why American foreign policy is so bad 

that you should hate America.’’ There are aspects of U.S. policy 

that I personally hate. 

Let me hear from Mr. Al-Hadj. 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I was coming to this hearing, one of the jihadi Web sites 

linked its site to a Facebook account. And the last thing I saw was 

a post on how you can make a car bomb like the one Faisal 

Shahzad did. And they are encouraging people, like specific details 

on how you can make——

Mr. SHERMAN. I am going to ask you to suspend for just 1 second. 

Please proceed. 

Mr. AL-HADJ. Yes. As I was coming here, there was this post on 

Facebook——

Mr. SHERMAN. And let me just remark for the record, the U.S. 

Government does have efforts to put things up on the Web that are 

part of our public diplomacy program to debunk what terrorists 

have to say. I know that is important to the gentleman from Minnesota. 

As to whether there will be further efforts is something I can 

talk to him about on the floor. But I do think the record should reflect that while we are discussing what the terrorists are doing on 

the Web site, we are of course using the Internet to communicate 

a much more wholesome message. 

The gentleman will proceed. 

Mr. AL-HADJ. So Facebook was posting the same post that was 

on this jihadi Web site, encouraging lone wolves or individuals who 

want to persecute an operation or a suicide mission, how specifically—with small details how to make a car bomb, what should you 

buy, like materials, easy materials, very accessible to everybody—

how you can make a car bomb and do it. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So you go to Facebook, and then that refers you 

to a site that gives you not just ideology, but ‘‘how to’’ practical information for terrorism. 

49

Mr. AL-HADJ. You go to the jihadi Web site and there is a 

Facebook sign on it saying, ‘‘You can join us on Facebook.’’ So once 

you click there, you will receive whatever they post in there. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. McNeal, we can always ask somebody to take material down. 

Some sites in certain countries won’t do that. How easy is it for us 

as a technical matter to just use cyber attack and take the site 

down? 

Mr. MCNEAL. We have the capacity. There was an example I 

think that you alluded to in your opening remarks that was reported in the Washington Post about a site that was known as—

the term in the field is a ‘‘honey pot.’’ It is purposefully set up to 

bring in terrorists and track them. This was a joint operation between the CIA and the Saudi Government. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And that is the one we took down? 

Mr. MCNEAL. That is the one we took down. But actually, the debate over it was a healthy one that we should be having more of. 

The reason we took it down is that our commanding general in 

Iraq, General Odienero, said that this site was in fact costing 

American lives. And there was an interagency fight between DOD 

and the Intelligence Community on whether or not to take the site 

down. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Was it taken down because it was a site sponsored by the U.S. Government and they just flipped the off switch, 

or did we cyber attack a site that another government agency was 

paying to put up? 

Mr. MCNEAL. From the public reports, we took out a site that 

was run by the Saudi Government, with the cooperation of the 

Central Intelligence Agency. The rationale for it was that the site 

was providing information about how to conduct coordinated attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. And what happens in these types of 

interagency——

Mr. SHERMAN. Did we use a cyber attack to take it down? 

Mr. MCNEAL. Yes, it was a denial-of-service attack. The collateral consequences of that, though, were that not only was this site 

taken down, there were some sites in Texas and other places that 

were affected by taking out the server. 

The reason these debates come up is—it was partly alluded to in 

my written remarks, in that there are many who believe that keeping these sites up provides an intelligence value. And so the fight 

between DOD and the Intelligence Community was that if you 

leave it up, we could continue to observe and learn more about 

what these individuals are doing. And that is the primary push 

from the Intelligence Community’s perspective is always to gather 

more information to connect the dots. 

It was healthy, I think, that we had that debate between taking 

it out and leaving it up, but it was an ad hoc one through a task 

force, rather than an agency or a division within an agency structure to force us to have that type of communication. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Now, with regard to sites that are not maintained 

by ourselves or other governments that we are cooperating with, 

are we able to determine at least the e-mail address of those who 

are visiting the sites? 

50

Mr. MCNEAL. Not necessarily the e-mail address, but IP address 

logs, server logs, can tell us——

Mr. SHERMAN. That is only if the Web site server and provider 

cooperates with us. So if there is, for example, in Iran a Web site 

server and the Iranian Government chooses not to cooperate with 

us, then by monitoring the site we can know what the terrorists 

want to say, but we have no idea who they are saying it to. 

Mr. MCNEAL. For the most part, that is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

There are people who, through covert methods, can infiltrate networks and find information out irrespective of the location of the 

network. 

The bigger challenge, I think, is that, particularly with regard to 

foreign Web hosts, is that because they are beyond the reach oftentimes of U.S. laws, we don’t have a lot of ways to turn the screws 

to them, unless we were to back out sort of one level from that site 

and, almost like a trade embargo, say that you, Web provider, can 

no longer do Internet business with U.S. service providers if you 

continue to provide service to that Web site. 

And then the Iranian company, to use your example, would have 

to choose between supporting this one Web site or losing all of its 

commercial traffic from the United States. I think that would probably be an easy choice. 

Mr. SHERMAN. But the argument is gathering intelligence versus 

taking down the terrorist site. And the question is, are we really 

able to gather valuable intelligence? And there are two aspects of 

this intelligence: What do terrorists want to say? Second, which individuals seem interested in what terrorists have to say—which, by 

the way, includes many people in this room. 

And you are saying that the second type of information is probably available only with the cooperation of the site Web provider. 

Mr. MCNEAL. These are more forums than Web sites, so unless 

an individual posing as a member of the forum could get inside and 

be seen as a legitimate person who is communicating and supporting ongoing activities. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And even if you knew somebody was part of that 

forum, they might not use their real name. 

Mr. MCNEAL. Right. But the goal, Mr. Chairman, would be to engage that person in conversation about operational plots they 

might want to take part in, and then go from the cyber world to 

the real world. There are some examples of us doing this in cooperation with law enforcement in Europe. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, I think we end this hearing with more specific knowledge, but we end this hearing in the same position; and 

that is that we will use the Internet for our own public diplomacy 

effort. We will certainly monitor what terrorists have to say, and 

that will help us with our own public diplomacy. And we will occasionally be able to detect who on these sites mean us harm. 

But we are unsuccessful in taking down sites—often we are unsuccessful—by sending people letters, and we are manifestly unable to take down these sites through cyber attack, because we are 

constrained by our own politeness. And being polite is good as long 

as it doesn’t cost American lives. 

So I thank everyone for coming. Additional statements can be 

made for the record. I believe we are being called for a vote. I want 

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to thank our vice chair and our ranking member for being here at 

the hearing. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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