Balancing act: NYPD tries to counter Islamic State online | Capital New York
In March, in the sunken well of a Rutgers lecture hall in Newark, the NYPD’s top counterterrorism official, John Miller, explained the new challenge posed by the Islamic State.
“These are people who are on Facebook, they’re on Instagram, they’re on Tumblr, they’re on Twitter, they’re living out loud,” Miller told an audience of about 100 law-enforcement types. “They’re posting where they’re going to lunch, they’re showing a picture of their plate, they’re saying ‘I’m on the way to the gym, this is me with my sister, here’s my vacation.’
“It’s not the secret place that al-Qaeda is,” said Miller, who as an ABC News reporter famously interviewed Osama Bin Laden from a mountaintop camp in Afghanistan in 1998. “ISIL is on Twitter. They’re on Tumblr. They’re on Facebook. They’re on social media. Their videos are on Youtube. They’re living out loud the same way the constituency they’re trying to attract is.”
The group’s online strategy has helped to swell its ranks with young recruits. An estimated 20,000 volunteers have joined the Islamic State from more than 90 different countries, with more than 4,000 of those coming from Western nations. Most recently, Islamic State claimed credit for a gunman’s attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.
It has also prompted “lone wolf” attacks across the globe, including in New York City in October, when a Queens man attacked four NYPD officers with a machete.
Source: www.capitalnewyork.com