Terror Media: Free Speech or Dangerous Weapon?

Terror Media: Free Speech or Dangerous Weapon?“We need more [martyrs], so if you could encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors and anyone around you to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us.”—“Abu Mansoor the American” in a recruiting video for Al-Shabaab, April 2009

With the communications explosion, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the PKK, and others have used their own media outlets to glorify suicide bombings, incite violence, recruit terrorists, and fundraise online. Should governments shut down these media outlets to protect their citizens from harm? Should terror media be shielded as “protected free speech”? And how can new media be used against violent extremists? The distinguished panel exploring these issues includes: Juan Zarate, former deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism and former assistant secretary of the Treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes; Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has helped shut down Hezbollah and other terrorist owned-media around the world; Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who has spoken out in support of free speech regardless of viewpoint; and Todd Stein, legislative director for Senator Lieberman, and formerly a lawyer on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, who wrote the seminal document for the U.S. Congress exposing how terrorist organizations use online media to disseminate their message.