Germany Plans Tough Measures for Stopping Terror on the Web

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has identified the Internet as a "textbook" for terrorists and has announced that action will be taken to prevent the increasing number of manuals on bomb-making being made available online and block Islamist forums espousing violent jihad.

Jörg Ziercke, the president of the Federal Crime Office (BKA), has added his weight to Schäuble's calls by demanding that Internet providers do more to stop such material from going online and is prepared to back stronger laws to enforce this. At the moment, providers are not legally required to block users or remove content.

Experts believe that the power of the Internet in the hands of terrorists should not be underestimated. "There are enough reports from the police, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and news services that say that the Internet is the most popular medium for communication between Islamic groups," said Bernd Carstensen, acting chairman of the Federal Alliance of German Detectives (BDK).

Estimates put the number of radical Islamist Web sites at around 5,000, not including the many thousands of chatrooms in which terrorist groups and individuals keep in contact with each other.

Huge increase in Islamist Web presence

The menace is growing. According to Gabriel Weimann, a communications expert in Haifa and author of the book "Terror on the Internet," there were only a dozen or so terrorist Web pages online in 1998. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, experts point out that the terrorist presence on the Internet has vastly expanded.

Terrorists have clearly discovered the huge potential for spreading propaganda online. "As well as dominating most areas in society, the Internet has also expanded the possibilities for radical groups," said Carstensen. "Since the Internet offers the technical possibilities of chatrooms, forums and password-protected areas, it is an attractive proposition for terrorists. They can remain anonymous and secure on the Internet."

German police and secret services currently have limited powers to prosecute individuals or groups responsible for spreading Islamic propaganda on the Internet. They have, however, filed a number of suits, although there are no official figures.

New technology and training needed

According to the BDK, the police and security forces have teams of operatives monitoring the Islamist presence on the Internet, but more personnel would be needed if the interior ministry gets its way in securing more wide-ranging powers. "These operatives would have to be specially trained to search for and analyze results in Arabic," says Carstensen.

These specialist teams would also have to have search technology that would allow them to reach the outer limits of the Web that terrorists inhabit. They would also need technology to efficiently record what they find. Currently, screenshots and saved data are the only evidence. When further investigation -- and the confiscation of hard drives -- is approved, sometimes after days or weeks, the incriminating data may have already disappeared.

But the new laws the interior ministry are hoping for are by no means guaranteed. A special meeting of state interior ministers on Sept. 4 in Berlin will address the possibility of granting powers like those in place in Britain, where phone, video and Internet monitoring are all part of the fight against terror.