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Terror Twitter
A group of lawmakers has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to order Twitter to remove from the micro-blogging site the accounts of multiple U.S.-designated terrorist groups--and has warned that Twitter's failure to do so could be a violation of U.S. law.

Twitter hosts scores of Muslim clerics and organizations, including al Qaeda, designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as "terrorists." The groups use the micro-blogging site to recruit extremists and distribute radical materials, according to the lawmakers, who petitioned FBI Director Robert Mueller to crack down on these illegal virtual activities.

By providing material support to these organizations in the form of a communications platform, Twitter is illegally allowing a once-disjointed community of anti-American religious extremists to coordinate, recruit, and hone their terrorist activities online, potentially posing a risk to the U.S. and its interests abroad, the lawmakers and other experts maintained.

"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."

These various extremist accounts have thousands of loyal followers across the globe.

"U.S. designated terrorists continue to use an American company to spread its propaganda to the world, encouraging violence and garnering new recruits to continue the cycle of violence that kills innocent civilians around the world," states the congressional letter, which was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R., Texas), a member of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Most puzzling to some observers is Twitter's apparent apathy about the matter.

Since its inception in 2006, Twitter has not shut down a single "jihadi or terrorist organization's account," according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which tracks, translates, and codifies terrorist groups' online presence.
Posted by: Omerong Angeregum8930 2012-10-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=353104