Cyberterrorism: Media Myth or Clear and Present Danger?

Abstract

The Internet is the instrument of a political power shift. It is the first many-to-many communication system. The ability to communicate words, images, and sound s, which underlies the power to persuade, inform, w itness, debate, and discuss (not to mention the power to sl ander, propagandise, disseminate bad or misleading information, engage in misinformation and/or disinf ormation, etc.) is no longer the sole province of t hose who own printing presses, radio stations, or television networks. Every machine connected to the Internet is potentially a printing press, a broadcasting statio n, a place of assembly. And in the twenty first cen tury, terrorists are availing of the opportunity to connect. The Internet is an ideal propaganda tool for terror ists: in the past they had to communicate through a cts of violence and hope that those acts garnered sufficie nt attention to publicise the perpetrators cause or xplain their ideological justification. With the advent of the I nternet, however, the same groups can disseminate t heir information undiluted by the media and untouched by government sensors. In 1998 it was reported that 1 2 of the 30 terrorist organisations identified by the US Sta te Department had their own websites. Today, a majo rity f the 33 groups on the same list of Designated Foreign Te rrorist Organisations maintain an official online p resence (see Conway 2002). 1 The question that then arises is this: Are terrori st groups who use the Internet in such a manner ‘cyberterrorists’? The answer hinges on what constitutes cyberterrorism. The term cyberterrorism unites two significant mode rn fears: fear of technology and fear of terrorism. Both of these fears are evidenced in this quote from Wal ter Laqueur, one of the most well known figures in terrorism studies: “The electronic age has now made cyberterr o ism possible. A onetime mainstay of science ficti on, the doomsday machine, looms as a real danger. The conju nction of technology and terrorism make for an unce rtain and frightening future” (Laqueur 1999, 254). It is not only academics that are given to sensationalism . Cyberterrorism first became the focus of sustained analysis by government in the mid-1990s. In 1996 Jo hn Deutch, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), testified before the Permanent Subco mmittee on Investigations of the United States’ Senate Governmental Affairs C ommittee: