Social networking for terrorists

It was inevitable that al Qaida would attempt to recruit on social network sites.

Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites.

One goal is obvious: outreach to English-speakers. Al Qaida has long wanted to recruit Caucasians in order to bypass ethnic profiling.

Roche told the court how he traveled to Afghanistan in March 2000 where he met al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, underwent explosives training, and agreed to identify U-S and Jewish targets in Australia for the terrorist network.
Roche carried out surveillance on the Israeli Embassy in Canberra and tried unsuccessfully to recruit Caucasian Muslims into a terror cell.

The first piece doesn't mention some obvious reasons besides free speech that such terrorist recruitment efforts are left to function. Having such sites in plain sight permits Western authorities to determine recruiting information flows and tactics. Videos posted on the web could be analyzed for forensic clues to the location and identity of terrorists. As well, it opens up the potential, given international cooperation, to track the recruitment network across cyberspace. Besides, if they weren't out in the open, they'd be on the net using hacked sites.