My Cyber Counter-jihad

On September 3, 2004, a nine-member officer's panel at Fort Lewis, Washington, found Specialist Ryan G. Anderson guilty of five counts of seeking to aid the enemy during a time of war and attempted espionage. The court martial subsequently sentenced him to five concurrent life terms for his crimes. To date, the sentence represents the most severe penalty meted out to a U.S. citizen in President George W. Bush's global war on terror. The case also marked the triumph of the new field of cyber counterterrorism, which I helped develop. Working from my home computer, I enabled Anderson's capture. There have since been more than 200 other cases although many of these were intelligence cases that, for various reasons, did not result in criminal prosecution.

Discovering Jihad Online
Before 9-11, I had no experience with the Middle East or the Arabic language. I was a mother of three and a municipal judge in a small town in Montana. But the terrorist attacks affected me deeply. I wondered how it could happen. What kind of people could carry out such an atrocity and why? I began to read vociferously about Islam, terrorism, extremist groups, and Islamist ideology.[1] Some of the books satisfied; many did not.
The Middle East Fourm