Smith targets internet extremism


Ministers want to stop youngsters from being targeted on the net.
The home secretary is to outline plans to target websites promoting extremism, as part of efforts to stop people being drawn towards radical groups.

Jacqui Smith says she wants to use technology to stop "vulnerable people" being "groomed for violent extremism".

"Stopping people becoming or supporting terrorists is the major long-term challenge we face," she will say in her first major speech on the issue later.

Ms Smith will discuss the plans with members of the communications industry.


It's widely perceived that the... effort to prevent people being radicalised and going on to become terrorists has proved difficult
Gordon Corera
BBC security correspondent

She will say: "We are already working closely with the communications industry to take action against paedophiles.

"I believe we should also take action against those who groom vulnerable people for the purposes of violent extremism."

The home secretary will meet internet service providers and members of the Muslim community to discuss measures to block websites that promote terrorism.

"An effective response to terrorism depends on us - on the active commitment of individuals and communities to certain rights and responsibilities, to shared values which apply irrespective of religion or culture," she will say at a new international centre for studying political violence.

Roadshows

Next year the government will provide more than £500m to fund security and counter-terrorism measures, rising to nearly £600m over the following two years.

It has also given backing to roadshows around the country at which leading Muslim scholars and opinion formers talk about extremist ideology.

Ministers estimate that about 60,000 people have attended so far and an associated website gets 50,000 hits a month.

The government hopes that by encouraging more interaction between opinion formers in the UK and in predominantly Muslim countries, misunderstandings about Islam can be corrected.

Higher and further education centres are also set to receive guidance on how to help increase community cohesion and prevent violent extremism.


It's the young who are particularly adept, skilled and involved with the internet... the vulnerabilities for them are enormous
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said that for the past five years, the government's counter-terrorist strategy had been based around the "4 Ps" - protecting, preparing, pursuing and preventing.

"It's widely perceived that the last of these - the effort to prevent people being radicalised and going on to become terrorists - has proved most difficult."

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of specialist operations at Scotland Yard, told BBC Two's Newsnight that it is young people who must be the focus of attention.

"Many of the people we're seeing getting involved in [extremism], or falling prey to extremists, are very young," he said.

"And of course it's the young who are particularly adept, skilled and involved with the internet. So the vulnerabilities for them are enormous.

"And when you look at some of this material out there you have to say it's pernicious."

They do need to sort out some sites and groups out there. Won't be long before things like Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), combating child abuse images and criminal material online start coming to, problem is that the servers are often in foreign countries where they cant touch them.

Listen man. This internet free round table talk soon done. Too much information. Too much truth out there. And too little control from media.

The only way I see it surviving is it becomes the means by which we hang our own necks//i.e a survellianace tool.

But give it 10 years max and these dfays will be the good old days of the internet when you could get any info you virtually want. That free paper soon burn.

Yup.

They're going to crack down on downloading and all that as well and would have created another market for music and software.

if the internet had been created during the cold war, and 'jihadists' were calling their fellow believers to join them in their holy war against the soviets in Afghanistan. do you think this legislation would be enforced within the west? ( we all know the answer is NO! ) ...


and what about Palestine? many in the western world have sympathy ( INCLUDING TONY BLAIRS WIFE) if not agree with the armed resistance ( that even George bush acknowledges is ) against israels occupation of palestine
Bush calls for end to Israeli occupation | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

and what about support for the palestinian authority ? are they considered A terrorist entity too? i will never stop supporting the PLO, they are a valid resistance group. comparable to the south Africans ANC. and like the ANC, they were called terrorists by many within the British and American governments too.

There I said it
I SUPPORT TERRORISTS

i agree... the problem is the free information available out there, especially that which the govrnment does not want people exposed to, the kind of stories they would rather keep out of the public domain, whether they are true or false, but just that they can make people think, ,cause where there is a plus, a minus becomes evident.

they have already retarded and spoilt the web a lot according to my experience of it. it could have been much better thann it is. the measures they have taken are not deemed enough. there will be a major clamp down very soon, after some major terrorist attack that kills more people than 911.