Facebook to the rescue over International terrorism

The latest use of social media gets the attention of the Independent this morning.

The paper reports that

Intelligence agencies are building up a Facebook-style databank of international terrorists in order to sift through it with complex computer programs aimed at identifying key figures and predicting terrorist attacks before they happen.

adding that

By analysing the social networks that exist between known terrorists, suspects and even innocent bystanders arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, military intelligence chiefs hope to open a new front in their "war on terror"

Surely terrorists have better things to do than sit around watching telly?

Did the non-stop television coverage of the terror attack on Bombay reveal operational details of the commando operations, endanger the lives of hostages, intrude into the personal lives of victims and relatives, etc?

asks Sans Serif.

During the attacks there were unsubstantiated rumours that the Indian government had asked Twitter to turn off their updates as they believed that the terrorists were using them for access to information.

In today's Indian Express,the founder of India TV, Rajat Sharma writes that he invited a former army chief to address the staff “to understand, whether news channels went overboard in their coverage”, and what precautions, if any, producers, reporters and camerapersons should have taken while showing “live” action.

However

Frankly, I expected him to echo what some have been saying—how terrorists got valuable clues on the commando plan by watching our channels. But sample what he said: “Do you think that terrorists holed up in a hotel facing commando fire had time to watch TV?”

Lustig on our international news values

A good piece by the BBC's Robin Lustig who takes a look at journalism's new values over at his excellent blog

We journalists are good at reporting sudden events. We're good at surprises, the bigger the better. We call them "news".
We're not so good at things that happen slowly, or over a long period of time. We're also not very good at things that happen in places that are dangerous or difficult to reach, where there's no reliable power supply to recharge our cameras, mobile phones and satellite transmission equipment. In other words, we're much better in big modern cities

He is referring in particular to coverage of Zimbabwe and DRC ongoing crises that have claimed many lives but doesn't necessarily take the headlines

(Interestingly as I type this Zimbabwe is the first story on Radio 4's PM-Maybe someone at the BEEB is listening to Lustig)

Back to Robin who points out that in the five major terrorist attacks starting with 9/11 and ending in Mumbai,around 3,500 people died whereas

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the other hand, an estimated five million people have died as a direct and indirect result of conflict. In Darfur, an estimated 200,000 people have died. In Zimbabwe, we don't even have an estimate

Search engines not up to scratch

Martin Belam has done some quick work looking at the response of the search engines to the overnight news from Mumbai.

His conclusion......"they are not performing very well"

Google has says Martin

some news results inserted into the one word search for 'mumbai', but they are not in the top slot. Searching for 'india' had the story down in fifth place, underneath some video content unrelated to the attack.

and as for Yahoo

The extensive terrorist attacks haven't yet managed to dislodge a story about George W. Bush and Thanksgiving turkey from the UK homepage

Meanwhile according to Dad blog

the Indian government asking for live Twitter updates to cease to protect their operations. For all sorts of reasons, this seems to be significant.

You can get tweets at #Mumbai at Mumbai

The battle for hearts and minds

Dan Bennett's recent post on the frontline blog is well worth a read.Dan is a PhD student researching the impact of blogging and new media on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.

He look at how How Insurgents Shape the Media Landscape following his attendence at the insurgency research group

There were some interesting comments reported,including the Beeb's Gavin Estler who said that

the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ should be a central strategic consideration in combatting insurgents and noted that Osama Bin Laden believed 90% of the struggle with the West would be waged in the media.

He makes one very good point about the new media landscape though

One of the major new difficulties here is the vast canvas of the media landscape. No longer can audiences be divided into ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ as they have done in the past. Anything that is published can be potentially viewed by either the domestic or the international audience or in fact a multitude of different audiences with a variety of compositions.
And yet, the old view still prevails in a number of communications campaigns. This comes unstuck when your international audience views your domestic output.

Interestingly the Mirror this morning uses the arrest of its journalists yesterday to point out the fallability of Gordon Brown's proposed new terror laws

Says the paper

The disquieting experience of these two Mirror journalists raises hugely worrying questions

TWO Daily Mirror journalists were arrested under anti-terror laws, and their homes raided at midnight by police, after they tried to test security at a rail depot.
Reporter Tom Parry and photographer Roger Allen were held for 12 hours and quizzed at length under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
Meanwhile their family homes were being searched and computers, photographic equipment and even personal possessions seized by British Transport Police officers.
The heavy-handed response shows how the Act could be misused to intimidate journalists on a legitimate assignment - and raises questions over whether the authorities can be trusted with new powers under Gordon Brown's 56 day detention proposals.

Really?

The Mail gets a scoop this morning with the news that

"Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda.
Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. "

It has managed to get its hands on a secret list drawn up by Mi5 and the paper believes that the site of the second bomb in London may have come about after these insiders obtained information about evacuation procedures

"

The Daily Mail can reveal that the second device parked near
Haymarket was left at a designated "evacuation assembly point" where civilians
and the emergency services would have gathered had the first bomb gone off.
Investigators are trying to establish whether the bombers knew the
significance of the location

The paper adds that

it is understood that a policeman was removed from his post
after concerns about his conduct in the aftermath of a major anti-terrorist
operation in the past two years.
For legal reasons, the Mail cannot reveal
any more about the case.

Express has a decent lead!!!!

It is rare that this blog congratulates the Express on its front page but this report may well have an element of truth in it.It appears to have come from a source in the US Police who are often more revealing in information to journalists than their British counterparts.

Thr report seems to arise from ABC news which was reporting that

"The London bomb plot allegedly planned by a cell of doctors failed early last Friday morning because a medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism caused a malfunction, ABC News has learned.
According to nonclassified documents reviewed by ABC News, and confirmed by multiple sources, both mobile telephones initiated firing mechanisms rigged inside a Mercedes E 300 parked several yards from the front door of Tiger Tiger nightclub failed despite multiple calls to the cell phones designed to remotely trigger the devices. "