On 4/20/07, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/21/07, George Herbert
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
One should not negotiate with terrorists.
We don't do ourselves any good by applying such labels to those with
whom we are in dispute.
I thought long and hard about whether the label was appropriate or
hyperbole in this situation, and then decided to use it.
It's hard to describe a campaign to identify and widely publish the
real-world identities of people operating pseudonymously online, and
specific threats and attempts to cause termination of education or
employment, as anything but terroristic online activities. The
intention is to cause behavior changes in a community by wanton
disproportionate destruction.
Whether we then label the perpetrator as a terrorist or not is just a
matter of semantics.
There are plenty of ex-terrorists in the world who have moved on to
better ways of life, both online and in real life. And online
activities like this aren't comparable to the real-world life and
death terrorists. But the term is a term of art for grand strategy of
coersive individual and group acts, and doesn't require that the acts
be loss of life.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com