Watt: Are there increasing indications of links between this problem and terrorism? Have you found any of those links and would you describe them for the committee?

Holder: Yes, that's a very good question. It's something that's very worrisome. As we saw organized crime get into a variety of other businesses in order to support their efforts, we're now seeing terrorist groups getting into the theft of intellectual property. Again, to generate money to support what they're trying to do for their terrorist means. So we have to broaden our enforcement efforts, broaden the investigative efforts that we take, to examine what are the precise reasons why people are engaging in this kind of intellectual property thievery. And to consider whether or not there's a terrorist connection to it. This is a relatively new phenomenon, but one we have to be aware of.

Arguing that piracy is integral to such networks [organized crime and terrorism] means ignoring the dramatic changes in the technology and organizational structure of the pirate market over the past decade. By necessity, evidentiary standards become very loose. Decades-old stories are recycled as proof of contemporary terrorist connections, anecdotes stand in as evidence of wider systemic linkages, and the threshold for what counts as organized crime is set very low. The RAND study, which reprises and builds on earlier IFPI and Interpol reporting, is constructed almost entirely around such practices. Prominent stories about IRA involvement in movie piracy and Hezbollah involvement in DVD and software piracy date, respectively, to the 1980s and 1990s. Street vendor networks in Mexico City--a subject we treat at length in the Mexico chapter--are mischaracterized as criminal gangs connected with the drug trade. Piracy in Russia is attributed to criminal mafias rather than to the chronically porous boundary between licit and illicit enterprise. The Pakistani criminal gang D-Company, far from "forging a clear pirate monopoly" in Bollywood, in RAND's words, plays a small and diminishing part in Indian DVD piracy--its smuggling networks dwarfed by local production.

The US record isn't more convincing in this regard. Jeffrey McIllwain examined the Department of Justice’s IP-related prosecutions between 2000 and 2004 and found that only 49 out of the 105 cases alleged that the defendant operated within larger, organized networks. Nearly all of these were "warez" distribution groups for pirated software--hacker communities that are explicitly and often fiercely non-commercial in orientation. McIllwain found "no overt references to professional organized crime groups" in any of the DOJ's criminal charges (McIllwain 2005:27). If organized crime is a serious problem in these contexts, it should not be difficult to produce a stronger evidentiary record.

When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies.

“I’m not in reality, So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive).

(Expletive) a boston bominb wait till u see the (expletive) I do, I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!"

Today, Tuesday, May 1, 2013, at approximately 12:20, Methuen High School students reported to administration that they had received a Facebook phone message sent by a Methuen High School student with disturbing verbiage. The student made terrorist threats...

The administration acted quickly, contacted school service officer Jim Mellor, who then contacted the police department. The student was not in school but has since been located and placed under arrest. Administration working hand in hand with the Methuen Police Department, diffused the situation maintaining the best possible professional attitude.

These threats were in general and not directed towards another person or the school.

“He posted a threat in the form of rap where he mentioned the White House, the Boston Marathon bombing, and said ‘everybody you will see what I am going to do, kill people.”

“I do want to make clear he did not make a specific threat against the school or any particular individuals but he did threaten to kill a bunch of people and specifically mentioned the Boston Marathon and the White House. The threat was disturbing enough for us to act and I think our officers did the right thing."

D’Ambrosio also had disturbing photos and posts on his Facebook page including “Fuck politics, Fuck Obama and Fuck the government!!”

He also had a “disturbing satanic photo posted as well as a photo of himself on a “Wanted Poster” that reads “Wanted Dead or Alive” a quick perusal of his Facebook page shows D’Ambrosio’s unusual interest in gangs, violence and a criminal lifestyle.

So, unless the police are holding some information back, it looks as if they've managed to turn a harmless bout of stupidity into a terrorist threat. Chief Solomon even credits the "see something, say something" travesty for helping the MPD corral this dangerous rapper. But while we're used to displays of immaturity from the young, there's no excusing the dangerous stupidity of zero tolerance policies, "see something, say something" and the police department's willingness to conjure up a threat out of little more than the use of "Boston" in a badly formed sentence.

It began when Ian Driscoll decided to post a picture to his Facebook page. It was of an Action Man doll, accompanied by a toy Alsatian dog. Why? you might ask. Well, "as a laugh", he says, because the Action Man figure looked a lot like him, and he had a real Alsatian -- which sounds entirely reasonable. What Driscoll did not note at the time, though, was that lurking in the background of the picture was another toy: a model mortar.

Luckily, Driscoll was there, and was able to defuse the situation by showing them the mortar in question. He was able to point out that it was in fact only slightly larger than the nearby Playstation that was clearly visible in the snap he had posted, and considerably smaller than the table that was also prominent in the Facebook picture. He might even have pointed out that the figure and dog in his upload were quite obviously toys to anyone who spent more than three seconds examining the picture. The police had presumably decided not to waste those precious three seconds before acting. Instead, as a spokesperson later said:

'We are sure that the community would rather we acted quickly on information given to us of this nature, in case it had turned out to be a weapon.'

That not only represents a huge waste of their valuable time and resources, it also perpetuates the corrosive idea that we should be constantly afraid and ready to report anything and anyone odd or vaguely suspicious, no matter how absurd it would seem to anyone looking at things rationally. This then creates a self-sustaining loop of public fear and police over-reaction. It's time to scale the rhetoric back, and to make common-sense judgments common again.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

YouTube sent the Observatory an email on Sunday that said its channels "syrianhro" and "almrsd" had "violated the policy of the site by publishing shocking and offensive videos," the Britain-based watchdog said.

The Observatory, which disseminates graphic videos on YouTube of atrocities from the bloody civil war the UN says has killed more than 60,000 people, condemned the closure.

"This is the second time in two months that the site administration has closed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights channel," it said in a statement, in reference specifically to almrsd.

In 2010 I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo to report on the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group. In 2011 I wrote a graphic novel script based on my reporting and artist Tim Hamilton agreed to draw it. Cartoonist Matt Bors edited the story and early this year the Dutch Website Cartoon Movement serialized the art online, following which book publisher Public Affairs acquired the paperback rights. And last month, the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control confiscated the majority of the advance payment, claiming that we were laundering the money for onward transfer to a terrorist organization.

Yes, you read that right: the feds believe Tim and I are terror financiers.

We cannot secure liberty and guarantee security simply by spending more and more money in the name of security. Every dollar misspent in the name of security weakens our already precarious economic condition, indebts us to foreign nations, and shackles the future of our children and grandchildren... We can only defend our freedoms by ensuring the dollars we spend on security are done so in a fiscally responsible manner, meet real needs, and respect the very rights we are aiming to preserve and protect.

The results of the investigation find that taxpayer money spent on homeland security grant programs has not always been spent in ways obviously linked to terrorism or preparedness. Importantly, this does not mean money was spent outside the bounds of what was allowed. The decision by officials in Michigan to purchase 13 sno-cone machines and the $45 million that was spent by officials in Cook County, Illinois on a failed video surveillance network have already garnered national attention as examples of dubious spending. Both were defended or promoted by DHS.

Other examples have not received as much attention. Columbus, Ohio recently used a $98,000 UASI grant to purchase an “underwater robot.” Local officials explained that it would be used to assist in underwater rescues.

Keene, New Hampshire, with a population just over 23,000 and a police force of 40, set aside UASI funds to buy a BearCat armored vehicle. Despite reporting only a single homicide in the prior two years, the City of Keene told DHS the vehicle was needed to patrol events like its annual pumpkin festival.

Some urban areas used their awards for local outreach, holding conferences, creating websites and posting videos on how citizens can spot signs of terror in their own neighborhoods. A video sponsored by the Jacksonville UASI alerted its residents to red flags such as people with “average or above average intelligence” or who displayed “increased frequency of prayer or religious behavior.”

In part, FEMA has done very little oversight of the program, allowing cities to spend the money on almost anything they want, as long as it has broad ties to terror prevention. In fact, according to a June 2012 report by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, “FEMA did not have a system in place to determine the extent that Homeland Security Grant Program funds enhanced the states’ capabilities to prevent, deter, response to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies before awarding more funds to the states.” Moreover, the agency failed to issue preparedness goals, intended to shape the use of UASI funds, until last year—nine years after the program was created.

Dealing with the risk of attack requires understanding our limitations and focusing on the best things we do to prevent one—a concept referred to often as “buying down risk.” For programs like UASI that means establishing a framework for conducting a risk analysis and allocating resources where they are most likely to make the biggest difference.

Unfortunately, DHS and Congress have often let politics interfere, diluting any results. Instead of sending funds where they can have the biggest impact, money is spread around to parochial political interests. This ensures fewer complaints and broad political support, but does not necessarily mean we are safer.

Describing it as “a mistake,” on May 19, 2011, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation sent a letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano objecting to the Department’s decision to end UASI funding for the Providence metro area saying that Rhode Island is home to 1 million residents and is at greater risk of a terrorist attack because of its proximity to Boston and New York...

Often, those lobbying for large awards cited unlikely worst-case scenarios to inflate the threats they face. Legislators and some in the responder community from smaller cities argued that funds should be disbursed not only to obvious targets like New York City, but also to smaller locations. Some argued that since “terrorist attacks tend to start in smaller locales” and sometimes remote U.S. towns, these areas also need homeland security grants to help protect their communities...

This argument was made by officials from the Oxnard/Thousand Oaks area in California. Arguing against legislation offered by several lawmakers to limit the number of UASI-funded urban areas to 25, officials from the Oxnard/Thousand Oaks UASI asserted that “since most terrorists do not live or plan their attacks in the same city that is being targeted, [eliminating funding] may actually decrease the protection of other […….] Urban Areas.”

• Texas took in $1.1 billion in homeland security spending in 2011, which covered such purchases as a $24,000 latrine-on-wheels, a hog catcher for Liberty County, body bags, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and two 2011 Camaros at $31,000 a piece.
   
• A HALO Counter-Terrorism Summit held at a resort and spa, with an entrance fee of $1,000 per person paid with UASI funds. Counter-terrorism training was back-burnered in favor of tech demonstrations by visiting contractors. The only training that took place was a mock exercise utilizing "Hollywood magic" and a set with special effects, pyrotechnics and "state-of-the-art structures." The "terrorists" being "countered?" Zombies.
   
• In Louisiana, Jefferson Parish spent $45,000 on license plate readers -- which have been used solely to catch car thieves. Ascension Parish received $2,700 for a teleprompter, which was characterized as a "national priority to expand regional collaboration."
   
• The FDNY claimed $143,000 in "backfill" overtime expenses based on estimates rather than actual hours worked.
   
• The 13 sno-cone machines mentioned earlier? $6,200. Allowable because FEMA stated that could serve a dual purpose -- filling ice packs in an emergency.
   
• $45.6 million to Chicago for Project Shield, a network of surveillance cameras covering 128 municipalities. The program was ultimately shuttered.

There's much, much more in this thorough report, which details exactly how much money is being spent on a program with no end in sight that uses fear as leverage for additional funding. What started as a hurried response to a once-in-a-lifetime event has now become a vehicle for pork barrel spending, rights erosion and hundreds of "security" fiefdoms with their hands out.

I have reviewed several of the social media web sites for KABIR, SANTANA, DELEON, each of whom has posted radical prom jihad content on their respective pages. Additionally, portions of the social media show that DELEON and SANTANA "liked" postings on KABIR's Facebook page as early as May 2011.

Public items posted by KABIR to his social media accounts include photographs of himself, non-extremist content, radical Islamist content, and items reflecting a mistrust of mainstream media, abuses by the government, conspiracy theories, abuses by law enforcement, and the war in Afghanistan. KABIR's radical postings include videos and links to videos of Al-Qa'ida leader Anwar Al-Awlagi and his lectures, jihad--based videos regarding Afghanistan and elsewhere, videos depicting mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and elsewhere, videos depicting terrorist training camps and related activities, videos depicting improvised explosive device attacks, and articles regarding the death of American soldiers in Afghanistan. For example, on July 6, 2012, KABIR shared a video to his public Facebook page entitled "Knights of Khorasan Islamic Emirate Operation Against an Army Base in Margha." This video, which I have reviewed, depicts a suicide bombing operation against a large base wherein the suicide- bomber drives an explosives-laden truck into a base and detonates it. The video bears the symbol of As-Sahab, Al-- Qa'ida's media wing, in the lower right corner.

KABIR has "shared" several postings with SANTANA and/or DELEON, both of whom have "liked" or commented on several other postings by KABIR, including the following:

a. On December 7, 2011, KABIR posted a video entitled "Black Flags of Khorasan: Part 2" that he later "shared" with DELEON.- (Based on my training and experience, conversations with other agents, and research of publicly available information, the black flag or banner refers to a traditional flag flown by Muhammad and later by Islamic military leaders. More recently, several jihadi groups and terrorists have adopted the black flag as a symbol for jihad and mujahideen fighters.)

b. On or about January 5, 2012, KABIR shared a link regarding negotiating with the Taliban. SANTANA "liked" the post and SANTANA and KABIR engaged in a public exchange of comments. SANTANA said, "they messed up know?" KABIR followed SANTANA's comment with a comment that appeared to include excerpts of a "Statement of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," which discussed the Taliban's desire to expel the United States from, and establish their own government in, Afghanistan. SANTANA replied to KABIR's comment by writing "Oh yea!!!!"

c. On January 5, 2012, KABIR posted a photo on his Facebook page depicting a veiled and covered woman leaning on an assault rifle. DELEON and KABIR exchanged comments on the photo wherein DELEON said "...hey bro are coming back? whats goin on? how long gona stay there?" KABIR replied "Naa.. not comin back... movin 4wd.... =D.... 1/2 way 2 my destination.. =D."

(Based on the context of this statement, including the fact that KABIR was then in Germany, I believe that KABIR intended to inform DELEON that he had commenced his journey to Afghanistan.)

d. On January 19, 2012, DELEON "liked" a shared link posted on KABIR's page of a video entitled "Dua of Sheikh Muhammad al Mohaisany masjid al haram makkah." The video, which I have reviewed as posted on KABIR's page, appears to be a prayer for the success of the mujahideen and features various photos including Al--Qa'ida leaders Usama Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, 9/11 attacks, bloodied adults and children, and Islamic fighters. The video also calls for the liberation of Al-Aqsa, the mosque referenced in the 1998 Al-Qa'ida fatwa described above.

e. On February 13, 2012, SANTANA "liked" two shared video links on KABIR's page, including one for a video entitled "Imam Anwar al Awlaki -- A Story of Courage."

f. On May 28, 2012, KABIR posted two stories regarding the death of Al-Qa'ida leader Usama Bin Laden. DELEON "liked" both stories; SANTANA "liked" one.

g. On June 16, 2012, SANTANA "liked" a video, produced by Al--Qa'ida's media wing, As-Sahab, shared by KABIR to his Facebook page entitled "Ghuraba." This video, which I have reviewed, appears to depict life as a mujahideen fighter and includes several interviews. The video also features mujahideen fighters firing artillery.

h. On July 5, 2012, KABIR posted a photo featuring Al-Qa'ida leader Anwar Al-Awlaqi which contained a quote from Al-Awlaqi. DELEON "liked" and "shared" the photo.

i. On September 16, 2012, DELEON "liked" KABIR's shared link to a video entitled "The Truth Has Come and Falsehood has perished Part 1 Urdu." This video, which I have reviewed, is a production by As-Sahab and begins with footage of Al-Awlaqi and discusses the war in Afghanistan. The video also features current Al-Qa'ida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

On September 17, 2012 SANTANA "liked" KABIR's post of an article entitled "A Public Talk by Ustadz Abu M Jibriel AR: The Truth of The 9/11 Jihad Operation, The Plots Of The Enemies and The Zionist Conspiracy."

Seven House Republicans asked the FBI in September to demand that Twitter take down the accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Somalia's al Shabaab. The letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who said Wednesday that the recent events vindicated the request.

“Allowing foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas to operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy,” Poe said in an e-mailed statement to The Hill. “Failure to block access arms them with the ability to freely spread their violent propaganda and mobilize in their War on Israel.

The FBI and Twitter must recognize sooner rather than later that social media is a tool for the terrorists.

“Twitter maintains that it will take down any account requested by the FBI,” seven Republican members of Congress wrote to the FBI last month. “As of this writing, the FBI has not made a single request to Twitter to take an account down.”

“Not one account has been shut down, unlike on YouTube and Facebook,” Poe told the Free Beacon.

“Twitter is not going to take it upon themselves to shut them down,” which is why the FBI needs to take action, Poe said.

FBI Special Agent Jason Pack told the Free Beacon, “The FBI received the Congressman’s letter and will respond to it appropriately.”

Poe speculated that one reason the Obama administration has not pursued the issue is because terrorists’ Twitter pages are a rich vein for the intelligence community to mine.

Poe, however, said that this is not a good enough reason to give these radical actors free rein on the Internet.

“If that’s [the administration’s] only way of knowing” what terrorists are up to, “we’ve got some serious problems with our intelligence service,” Poe said.

The Free Beacon's Republican slant inadvertently suggests that Poe may just be kicking around Twitter because its "best friends" with Obama.

Twitter’s Washington D.C. lobbying team is comprised of several Obama administration confidants and former Democratic Hill staffers. Adam Sharp, the site’s top government liaison, formerly served as deputy chief of staff for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.). Its global public policy official, Colin Crowell, was a senior aide to Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), while Twitter’s head of international strategy, Katie Jacobs Stanton, once worked with the Obama administration on new media strategies.

Since 2011, several individuals who list their employer as Twitter have donated primarily to Democrats, including the Obama campaign and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Possible indicators of terrorist behaviors at hotels: The observation of multiple indicators may represent—based on the specific facts or circumstances—possible terrorist behaviors at hotels:

- Not providing professional or personal details on hotel registrations—such as place of employment, contact information, or place of residence.

- Using payphones for outgoing calls or making front desk requests in person to avoid using the room telephone.

- Interest in using Internet cafes, despite hotel Internet availability.

- Non-VIPs who request that their presence at a hotel not be divulged.

- Extending departure dates one day at a time for prolonged periods.

- Refusal of housekeeping services for extended periods.

- Extended stays with little baggage or unpacked luggage.

- Access or attempted access to areas of the hotel normally restricted to staff.

- Use of cash for large transactions or a credit card in someone else’s name.

- Requests for specific rooms, floors, or other locations in the hotel.

- Use of a third party to register.

- Multiple visitors or deliveries to one individual or room.

- Unusual interest in hotel access, including main and alternate entrances, emergency exits, and surrounding routes.

- Use of entrances and exits that avoid the lobby or other areas with cameras and hotel personnel.

- Attempting to access restricted parking areas with a vehicle or leaving unattended vehicles near the hotel building.

- Unusual interest in hotel staff operating procedures, shift changes, closed-circuit TV systems, fire alarms, and security systems.

- Leaving the property for several days and then returning.

- Abandoning a room and leaving behind clothing, toiletries, or other items.

- Noncompliance with other hotel policies.

Prepared by Lt. Timothy Carroll
FDNY Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness

Shamiur Rahman... who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture." He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.

Police recruited Rahman in late January, after his third arrest on misdemeanor drug charges, which Rahman believed would lead to serious legal consequences. An NYPD plainclothes officer approached him in a Queens jail and asked whether he wanted to turn his life around...

In an Oct. 15 interview with the AP, however, Rahman said he received little training and spied on "everything and anyone." He took pictures inside the many mosques he visited and eavesdropped on imams. By his own measure, he said he was very good at his job and his handler never once told him he was collecting too much, no matter whom he was spying on.

He said he sometimes intentionally misinterpreted what people had said. For example, Rahman said he would ask people what they thought about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, knowing the subject was inflammatory. It was easy to take statements out of context, he said. He said wanted to please his NYPD handler, whom he trusted and liked.

"I was trying to get money," Rahman said. "I was playing the game."

Rahman, who was born in Queens, said he never witnessed any criminal activity or saw anybody do anything wrong.

ISPs may require users to provide identifying information prior to accessing Internet content and services. The collection and preservation of identifying information associated with Internet data, and the disclosure of such information, subject to the appropriate safeguards, could significantly assist investigative and prosecutorial proceedings. In particular, requiring registration for the use of Wi-Fi networks or cybercafes could provide an important data source for criminal investigations. While some countries, such as Egypt, have implemented legislation requiring ISPs to identify users before allowing them Internet access, similar measures may be undertaken by ISPs on a voluntary basis.

The development of a universally agreed regulatory framework imposing consistent obligations on all ISPs regarding the type and duration of customer usage data to be retained would be of considerable benefit to law enforcement and intelligence agencies investigating terrorism cases.

The promotion of extremist rhetoric encouraging violent acts is also a common trend across the growing range of Internet-based platforms that host user-generated content. Content that might formerly have been distributed to a relatively limited audience, in person or via physical media such as compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs), has increasingly migrated to the Internet. Such content may be distributed using a broad range of tools, such as dedicated websites, targeted virtual chat rooms and forums, online magazines, social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and popular video and file-sharing websites, such as YouTube and Rapidshare, respectively. The use of indexing services such as Internet search engines also makes it easier to identify and retrieve terrorism-related content.

Particularly in the age of popular social networking media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and blogging platforms, individuals also publish, voluntarily or inadvertently, an unprecedented amount of sensitive information on the Internet. While the intent of those distributing the information may be to provide news or other updates to their audience for informational or social purposes, some of this information may be misappropriated and used for the benefit of criminal activity.

In order to provide effective criminal justice responses to threats presented by terrorists using the Internet, States require clear national policies and legislative frameworks. Broadly speaking, such policies and laws will focus on:

(a) Criminalization of unlawful acts carried out by terrorists over the Internet or related services;
(b) Provision of investigative powers for law enforcement agencies engaged in terrorism-related investigations;
(c) Regulation of Internet-related services (e.g. ISPs) and content control;
(d) Facilitation of international cooperation;
(e) Development of specialized judicial or evidential procedures;
(f) Maintenance of international human rights standards.

In the terrorism context, in China there are provisions criminalizing different forms of terrorist activities, including article 120 of the Criminal Law, which criminalizes activities related to organizing, leading and participating in terrorist organizations. This broad criminalization provision covers a wide range of terrorism-related activities, including those carried out over the Internet.

The Subcommittee investigation found that DHS-assigned detailees to the fusion centers forwarded "intelligence" of uneven quality - oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism. The Subcommittee investigation also found that DHS officials' public claims about fusion centers were not always accurate. For instance, DHS officials asserted that some fusion centers existed when they did not. At times, DHS officials overstated fusion centers' "success stories." At other times, DHS officials failed to disclose or acknowledge non-public evaluations highlighting a host of problems at fusion centers and in DHS' own operations.

The Subcommittee investigation also reviewed how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a component of DHS, distributed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to support state and local fusion centers. DHS revealed that it was unable to provide an accurate tally of how much it had granted to states and cities to support fusion centers efforts, instead producing broad estimates of the total amount of federal dollars spent on fusion center activities from 2003 to 2011, estimates which ranged from $289 million to $1.4 billion. The Subcommittee investigation also found that DHS failed to adequately police how states and municipalities used the money intended for fusion centers. The investigation found that DHS did not know with any accuracy how much grant money it has spent on specific fusion centers, nor could it say how most of those grant funds were spent, nor has it examined the effectiveness of those grant dollars. The Subcommittee conducted a more detailed case study review of expenditures of DHS grant funds at five fusion centers, all of which lacked basic, "must-have" intelligence capabilities, according to assessments conducted by and for DHS. The Subcommittee investigation found that the state and local agencies used some of the federal grant money to purchase: dozens of flat-screen TVs; Sport Utility Vehicles they then gave away to other local agencies; and hidden "shirt button" cameras, cell phone tracking devices, and other surveillance equipment unrelated to the analytical mission of a fusion center.

The inappropriate reporting appears to have been a regular problem. An April 2009 email from an alarmed senior I&A official stated: “[State and Local Fusion Center officials] are collecting open-source intelligence (OSINT) on U.S. persons (USPER), without proper vetting, and improperly reporting this information through homeland information reporting (HIR) channels,” wrote Barbara Alexander, then director of the Collection and Requirements Division, which oversaw HIR reporting. “The improper reporting of this information through HIR channels is likely a result of a lack of training on proper collection and reporting procedures . . . they are inadvertently causing problems.” In an interview with the Subcommittee, Ms. Alexander said she recalled being told the Reporting Branch was “flooded” with inappropriate reporting. “A lot of information was coming in inappropriately,” she remembered. “The information was not reportable.”

[....] Ms. Schlanger’s presentation, a copy of which DHS provided to the Subcommittee, indicated that areas in which DHS intelligence reporters had overstepped legal boundaries included: Reporting on First Amendment-protected activities lacking a nexus to violence or criminality; reporting on or improperly characterizing political, religious or ideological speech that is not explicitly violent or criminal; and attributing to an entire group the violent or criminal acts of one or a limited number of the group’s members.

Adel Daoud, 18, was arrested following a months-long FBI undercover investigation. He was taken into custody after he parked a Jeep Cherokee in front of the bar Friday night and walked into a nearby alley where he tried to detonate the device, court documents allege.

The bomb, which was inert and had been constructed by FBI technicians, didn't explode, according to federal authorities.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Police hoped the Demographics Unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism. And if police ever got a tip about, say, an Afghan terrorist in the city, they'd know where he was likely to rent a room, buy groceries and watch sports.

Months passed. People noticed that Craig was acting more devout. He began reciting prayers aloud, dressing in traditional robes, and showing up so early for 5:00 AM prayers that he'd get there before the person who unlocked the mosque every morning. They also noticed something else.

Yassir Abdel Rahim - Slowly and surely enough, during some times when we were having coffee, came the question of jihad.

Mohammad Elsisy - He invited me once to lunch, yes. And he focused the topic in the lunch about jihad. And I keep turning his attention into the essence of Islam. And he keeps, again, bringing it back to jihad. And he kept asking about jihad over and over and over. And I told him, Farouk, get over it, get over it, get over it.

After they parted ways with Craig, Mohammad and Niazi talked about what had just happened. They decided they had to do something, so they did what all Americans are supposed to do in this situation, what law enforcement officials tell us we should do when someone says he has access to weapons and wants to use them. They reported Craig to the FBI as a potential terrorist.

But what's interesting about Niazi's arrest is what he wasn't charged with. He wasn't charged with associating with terrorists himself. He wasn't charged with plotting an attack. And he wasn't charged for anything he'd ever said to Craig over the course of months of recorded conversations.

Sam Black - Did Niazi ever instigate this kind of conversation with you?

Craig Montielh - No. No, I did. Every time.

Operation Flex didn't just make people suspicious of law enforcement. It made them suspicious of each other. So many people I talked to say they stay away from new converts now. They have a hard time believing people are who they say they are. Here's Ayman, the Egyptian guy who first befriended Craig.

Ayman - Really, what they did is they made everybody in the mosque not trust everybody. Nobody would talk about it, but nobody-- you would see some weird looks, you know what I mean? People are looking at each other weird. I don't know. Maybe I was sensitive, but I can tell that the way they looked at me was just different.

Of about 500 terrorism cases since 9/11, about 50 defendants have been involved in cases where the informant came up with the idea and provided all of the means.

In struggling with this conflict, the Court is reminded of the classic dilemma of Odysseus, who faced the challenge of navigating his ship through a dangerous passage, flanked by a voracious six-headed monster, on the one side, and a deadly whirlpool, on the other. Odysseus opted to pass by the monster and risk a few of his individual sailors, rather than hazard the loss of his entire ship to the sucking whirlpool. Similarly, the proper application of the state secrets privilege may unfortunately mean the sacrifice of individual liberties for the sake of national security.

I know the Greeks laid the foundation for modern democracy, but perhaps we shouldn't base our decisions on their epic tragedies.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg pledged to do everything to ensure the country's core values were not undermined. "The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation," he said.

There have been no changes to the law to increase the powers of the police and security services, terrorism legislation remains the same and there have been no special provisions made for the trial of suspected terrorists. On the streets of Oslo, CCTV cameras are still a comparatively rare sight and the police can only carry weapons after getting special permission. Even the gate leading to the parliament building in the heart of Oslo remains open and unguarded.

"It is still easy to get access to parliament and we hope it will stay that way, " said Lise Christoffersen, a Labour party MP.

Cato Shiotz, a senior criminal lawyer, says having an open trial has enabled the Norwegian people to make their own informed judgement about Breivik.

"I think Breivik has done more harm to the radical right than he has benefited them," said Mr Shiotz. "His ideas now have less support than ever before."

"The only way to really combat terror is to show that we are better than them," says Jan Egeland, a former official in the Norwegian foreign ministry and now deputy head of Human Rights Watch.

"Their (the terrorists') whole point is to create shock and fear and get us to leave our liberal values…and lure us over to their shadowy part of the playing field… we should not let them win."

Mr Egeland is highly critical of how other countries, particularly the United States, have dealt with the terrorist threats they face, arguing that methods such as extraordinary rendition, the creation of the special prison for terrorist suspects in Guantanamo and the sanctioning of what is generally viewed as torture, have all been counter-productive.

"The whole (US) struggle against terror lost the moral high ground, You could see how public opinion was lost in Turkey, in Jordan, in moderate countries all over the Middle East," he said.

The program, called Viral Peace, seeks to occupy the virtual space that extremists fill, one thread or Twitter exchange at a time. Shahed Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department and Viral Peace’s creator, tells Danger Room he wants to use “logic, humor, satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists], but to undermine and demoralize them.” Think of it as strategic trolling, in pursuit of geopolitical pwnage.

Gallo must be a little taken aback by this turnaround: from easily pushing through her Report with its harsh proposals against copyright infringement, she now finds herself increasingly marginalized within the European Parliament on the subject of ACTA precisely because of its disproportionate measures designed to deal with copyright infringement online. A fascinating interview in PC INpact (original in French) gives us an insight into her state of mind at the moment..

As you might expect, she speaks of the "the disinformation campaign we have been enduring for the past months", the standard line taken by the European Commission and its allies. She also makes the interesting claim that "We're supposed to represent citizens, but since they are busy with other things, we are supposed to think for them!" But she reserves her choicest words for the people who have dared to disagree with the pro-ACTA camp:

It's not only a disinformation campaign. It's a soft form of terrorism that frightens people. People are being scared. It's a fantasy. ACTA has become a fantasy. And that, that's propagated by the whole Internet network.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

On balance, it seems that cyberwar capabilities have real potential to deal with some of the world's more pernicious problems, from crime and terrorism to nuclear proliferation. In stark contrast to pitched battles that would regularly claim thousands of young soldiers' lives during Robert E. Lee's time, the very nature of conflict may come to be reshaped along more humane lines of operations. War, in this sense, might be "made better" -- think disruption rather than destruction. More decisive, but at the same time less lethal.

The contrasts are extraordinarily instructive. When federal law enforcement agencies take an affirmative role in staging the crimes, the U.S. Justice Department then prosecutes, leaving more clear-and-present dangers relatively unbothered, the State is singling out ideological enemies. Violent white supremacists are not one of these enemies, apparently – because, as David Neiwert, probably the nation’s top journalist on the subject, told me, the federal government has much less often sought to entrap them, even though they are actually the biggest home-grown terrorism threat. That is unconstitutional, because law enforcement’s criterion for attention has been revealed as the ideas the alleged plotters hold – not their observed violent potential.

1. Protecting government computer systems against hackers and criminals (74 percent)
2. Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks (73 percent)
3. Homeland security issues such as terrorism (68 percent)