Introduction

Over the span of the last twenty years nearly 45,000 people died by terrorist attacks
in the United States alone. Amongst these 45,000 people nearly 15,000 were completely
innocent civilians and another 7,000 were security force personnel trying to fight for our
own wellbeing. Some of the most devastating parts of modern American history have been
caused by foreign and homegrown terrorists attacks on our soil. Completely innocent
civilians do not deserve to have their lives taken away based on the unjustified actions of an
individual or a group trying to amend societies views based on their viewpoint. The
definition for someone to be patriotic is expressing devotion to and vigorous support for
ones country. If we consider ourselves true Americans and want to uphold the values of
which this country was built on then we need to establish better preventative methods to
help stop terrorism in the future because with our society rapidly advancing terrorists are
becoming even more deadly and smarter.
With the rapid growth of our economy and the advancement of our society/nation as a
whole we have become much more dependent on technological devices such as
smartphones, tablets, interactive video chats etc. With this being said we rarely have face to
face conversations with people because of the convenience and speed that these technologies
bring us which can be considered revolutionizing in some ways and also a huge detriment if
used in the wrong way or in the hands of people that are intending to cause harm. Since so
many people nowadays have social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
etc. terrorist have taken advantage of this easy way of online communication through the
web. The terrorists use these platforms to spread their messages, recruit new members and
also to gather inside intelligence of what is going on inside different countries. The reason
terrorist have heavily gravitated towards the use of social media platforms is that it gives
them the chance to send messages directly to their target audience in real time versus
realizing messages through an intermediary, the accessibility, facilitates quickly etc. In this
paper what I will be adding to the conversation is how these terrorists actually get onto the
social media platforms and how they try to stay anonymous to the government. In the
paper I will also be going more in depth on the reasons why terrorists choose social media
and the benefits it gives them.
My personal tie to this subject and the main reason Im choosing to write about this is
because of how prominent this issue is with social media and the negative effects it can have
if used for the wrong case. It is quite scary how easily these terrorists can interact with us
within these social media accounts and how big of an impact they can have on some
individuals that fall for their tricks. I also find investigating the impacts of social media and
technology on our lives very interesting.
Literature Review
Terrorist have really evolved in how they perform activity and gather information
over the past century. Mainly organizations relied on inner circle connections to get jobs
done and ideas across, but now terrorists have advanced and conformed to modern society.
The new term coined and commonly used today is cyber terrorism explained by CNN in
the article cited below. [1] How technology makes us vulnerable - CNN.com, CNN.
[Online]. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/29/opinion/goodman-ted-crime/.

Commented [1]: Your introduction is very well thought

out. You include facts about terrorist attacks and you
also go into how they recruit new members in today's
era. You tie in how you're going to add new relevant
information to the topic as well which is dire to the
paper.
Commented [2]: When you use numbers or "stats" its
almost a requirement to use in text citations because
those numbers most likely did not come from you.
Other than that it is a strong intro that states your view
and sets the horrors of terrorism for the audience,
especially since you used stats to gain readers
attention. Also good observations made with
technology.

Commented [3]: Your lit review was very informational

with details that provides a lot of facts about terrorism
and how it was spread about the world. I also like the
fact that you said it's even harder in today's era to track
online terrorism due to how easily obtainable an online
account to anything is nowadays. Your lit review gave
enough information about terrorism so the reader
would not have any more questions which would lead
to confusion.

[Accessed: 2015]. The article mainly describes how terrorist utilize technology to its fullest
and goes more in depth how ISIS is now recruiting members through social media.
Whenever involving technology in any situation means that there is going a downside that
goes along with all the benefits it brings. Some of the negatives commonly involve illegal
activity, hacking into accounts, stealing personal information etc. To help counter these
negative effects of technology we commonly use methods which help us go incognito to the
outside world. In reality however doing this may be a bad thing because the government
can no longer easily monitor what we are doing. This helps online terrorists to be more
proficient and disguised when planning and conveying what they intend to do.
Terrorist were always very unpredictable and dangerous with their actions however social
media amplifies the intensity even more because the possibilities are endless. In order to
help monitor and cut back on attacks we need to increase online security and cut back on
means of privacy.
Entering the conversation
In todays world privacy serves as a huge issue when dealing with the law and is a
very controversial topic. Within our modern society people often argue when there is too
much versus too little privacy. There is a very fine line between too much and too little
privacy because we want to give people the freedom to make their own choices and do as
they please without being judged but we also need to install some form of monitoring for
the people that will abuse their freedoms and try to commit illegal activities. We have laws
to protect us from people invading our privacy like searching with probable cause however
people argue against weather it is strict or not strict enough. When dealing with terrorism
privacy is one of the biggest values that the group must uphold against outside forces.
Without privacy instilled into a terrorists group of practice they would be much more
susceptible of being monitored or even caught by the government. In this article cited
below and published by CNN
[1] How technology makes us vulnerable - CNN.com, CNN. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/29/opinion/goodman-ted-crime/. [Accessed: 2015] talks about
how terrorists are now taking advantage of certain technological advances the most
prominent one being various social media platforms. This could potentially be a good thing
for U.S official trying to track down terrorist groups because online communication has the
tendency to be very traceable. On the other side however it has the potential to be the best
tool yet for terrorist groups because it has the ability to reach out to a huge target audience
for support. The effectiveness of the technology and social media platforms have a great
deal to do with how terrorists use them.
Despite physically having the technology the terrorists still need to know how to use
it for it to be effective. In the article cited below
[2] R. Hudson, THE SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF TERRORISM: WHO
BECOMES A TERRORIST AND WHY? Jan-1999. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/soc_psych_of_terrorism.pdf. [Accessed: 2015]
Shows how terrorist groups are set up in a broad sense. The structure of a terrorist group
is really important for their success and how efficiently they carry out their intended
actions. Some of the more sophisticated terrorist groups like al-Qaida have multiple leaders
within the system running separate parts of the operation. An example of this would be
somebody that is in charge of gathering Intel and reporting back with information on how
their target location is operated. This is a key way of how the terrorists groups get to learn

Commented [4]: I like how you gave a substantial

amount of information in your lit review. A lot of good
info and even how we counter terrorists and their
technology. In the lit review however, you may want to
give some of your personal perspectives, see the rubric
for more info.

Commented [5]: You opened up the conversation with

a topic that is very controversial. However to
strengthen it, you could possibly define what is privacy
and whether or not privacy even exists in today's era.
You can also possibly include in your perspective about
this whole situation.

Commented [6]: Its good that you included in text

citations however, you should be vary of things like
CNN. Try to use data base or npr for sources. Things
like CNN can be found through a straight google
search.

about the social norms and ways of interaction like social media so they can use it to their
advantage more strategically. This in a way is invasion of our nations privacy by the
terrorists because they are stealing valuable information from our society and using it to
cause harm. We need to establish more secure boundaries with the people we associate with
and also with who we interact with on the web because we never really know what the
person's intentions are. It is quite sad also because the group most affected by the online
terrorism acts are teenagers because they are the ones most involved with social media. We
definitely need to better our ways of prevention of online terrorism and need to make
teenagers more aware of the dangers the web can cause.
With the technology we have created today it is pretty easy to conceal our tracks on
the web and essentially go untraceable to anyone looking for what activity we are up to.
Going untraceable on the web has both its advantages and disadvantages. Some of the
advantages of going anonymous on the web include basic privacy of your personal life,
ordering legal products that you want to keep private, etc. Some of the negative impacts of
browsing and going incognito on the web include not being able to track and monitor
illegal activity such as drug trafficking, and not being able to see anonymous online threats
like terrorism. In the article cited below
E. Kaplan, Tracking down Terrorist Financing, Council on Foreign Relations, Apr-2006.
[Online]. Available at: http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-financing/tracking-down-terroristfinancing/p10356. [Accessed: 2015].
Talks about the active efforts of U.S officials trying to find out how different terrorist
organizations gather money to fund their expensive operations and equipment. The
officials found it exceedingly hard to track down where exactly the money is being
held/raised because of many private offshore accounts they think the terrorists are using
and also so anonymous funding/transferring cites online. Now that our world revolves
around online activity I think that we should make more strict rules on what people can do
and or make private on the web and also give the government more access of what we do so
they can help protect us against enemies trying to cause harm. This just goes to show how
much of an impact going incognito can really mean. It could very well be the line between
life and death.
Knowing that there are terrorists trying to conduct operations under the radar of
government officials it is pretty obvious that there are going to be people within the
government that are going to try to prevent and intercept these actions. One of the best and
most used tactics to intercept valuable information is through tapping phone lines of the
targeted suspect. This is what happened to al Qaeda in early 2002. The U.S intercepted a
very key meeting that al Qaeda was having over phone call and interpreted the location
based on the land line location. The U.S shortly launched heat sink missiles into the
underground cave killing many important personnel of al Qaeda including the commander
of military operations. Another method the U.S uses to get anonymous information is
hacking into or cracking passcodes of secured web pages, databases or whatever they are
trying to access. This process could however take a couple of days based on the security of
what is being breached because it has to create an algorithm. In the article cited below
Trends in terrorism in the U.S.: New report analyzes terrorist attack data 1970-2011,
Trends in terrorism in the U.S.: New report analyzes terrorist attack data 1970-2011, 2013.
[Online]. Available at: http://www.start.umd.edu/news/trends-terrorism-us-new-reportanalyzes-terrorist-attack-data-1970-2011. [Accessed: 2015].

Commented [7]: If we were to be weary with who we

interact with over the internet, wouldn't everyone be
extremely paranoid and no one would trust anyone? I
do agree that teenagers are the most gullible, but what
about them makes them that way? Is it because they
trust too easily? Is it because they haven't matured
yet? All of these are factors that you could include in
your paper.

Commented [8]: You actually do not have to declare if

you are citing a source or not. If you used the
information simply cite the source next to the end of the
sentence where you used that information. This goes
for the rest of the sources as well.

Commented [9]: Isn't this essentially a breach of

privacy? What do you personally condone as privacy?
Should the government be able to look at everyday
conversations just because they can? Or should they
do it based off of probable cause like how the police
operates? Most people would probably not like the idea
of letting the government take over their lives.

It talks about that the new wave of terrorism is mostly online and how important it is that
the government ramps up cybersecurity.
When terrorists get access to social media accounts and different modes of
technology there are endless things that they can accomplish. Some of the advantages for
terrorists when they use social media platforms is the ease and accessibility to communicate
too many of potential candidates that they want to recruit to join their actions. Another is
the speed that the message is sent out at. Social media is instantaneous and people receive
the message almost immediately. The source cited below describes
ISIS recruiting US terrorists on social media, ABC7 Chicago, 2015. [Online]. Available
at: http://abc7chicago.com/news/isis-recruiting-us-terrorists-on-social-media/534911/.
[Accessed: 2015].
Some of the reason intended for the use of social media. The two main reasons include
funding and recruitment into their organization.
Conclusion
The intended purpose of the research paper I conducted was to further evaluate and
confirm the new up rise of several social media platforms and technologies used by
terrorist to further advance their activities. I also wanted to contradict some of the articles
perspectives on modern day technologies including social media and how it can actually
cause as much harm as it does well. The research being stated in the articles cited below
talk about how social media has been a revolutionary component of terrorism mainly
because of the fact that it can reach out to so many individuals at almost instantaneous
speeds in order to project their views to them. The main point I have added and
highlighted throughout the paper is the anonymity the terrorists have to integrate and keep
in mind when using various forms of online communication. Being anonymous is one of the
key values that makes a terrorist more powerful and effective and there are many ways to
do this through the internet nowadays. In order for terrorist to fly under the radar
knowing the ins and outs of being anonymous online are key. Without having the intellect
and capabilities to go anonymous these terrorist cases would severely drop due to the
government shutting them down. Is having the capability to go anonymous really worth it
in our society today?
Bibliography
R. Hudson, THE SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF TERRORISM: WHO
BECOMES A TERRORIST AND WHY? Jan-1999. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/soc_psych_of_terrorism.pdf. [Accessed: 2015].
E. Kaplan, Tracking down Terrorist Financing, Council on Foreign Relations, Apr-2006.
[Online]. Available at: http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-financing/tracking-down-terroristfinancing/p10356. [Accessed: 2015].
R. Aslan, How strong is the link between faith and terrorism?, CNN, 2014. [Online].
Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/26/opinion/aslan-islam-doesnt-cause-terrorism/.
[Accessed: 2015].
ISIS recruiting US terrorists on social media, ABC7 Chicago, 2015. [Online]. Available
at: http://abc7chicago.com/news/isis-recruiting-us-terrorists-on-social-media/534911/.
[Accessed: 2015].
Trends in terrorism in the U.S.: New report analyzes terrorist attack data 1970-2011,
Trends in terrorism in the U.S.: New report analyzes terrorist attack data 1970-2011, 2013.

Commented [10]: Excellent conclusion, you did a

good job summing up everything in your paper. You
also did a good job restating what you were trying to do
and where you were taking the research in future. I
liked how you ended with a question so audience can
ponder about where all this can go to next.

[Online]. Available at: http://www.start.umd.edu/news/trends-terrorism-us-new-reportanalyzes-terrorist-attack-data-1970-2011. [Accessed: 2015].

Terrorism - Goals of Terror Tactics, Terrorism - Goals of Terror Tactics. [Online].
Available at: http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/terror/goals.html. [Accessed: 2015].
How technology makes us vulnerable - CNN.com, CNN. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/29/opinion/goodman-ted-crime/. [Accessed: 2015].
M. Christopher, Assignment one, Sep-2015.