Bringing terrorism to the masses

So what is the 'new' version of Al Qaeda all about, really? I'd say it's about bringing egalitarianism to the realm of terrorism. No longer do we see terror attacks carried about by small, elite cadre extensively trained and indoctrinated in one of a few camps. And no longer do we see terrorism as simply an extension of state policy.

Like the trend of 'citizen journalists,' smaller businesses, and individual entrepreuers, we now have more and more 'citizen terrorists.' And this exposes the downside of technology to us. For all of the benefits instant communications, the Internet, and individual choice in information sources have brought us, we now see much more clearly the downside.

I previously discussed the myriad 'lessons learned' from Vietnam - generated by the explosion of the Information Revolution. As more information from more sources becomes more readily available, it becomes far easier to question authority, to search for what an individual believes to be the truth, and to stumble across anecdotal evidence to support even the most outrageous claims. At the same time, this wealth of information allows more people to acquire more dangerous skills.

Quite the dilemma, really. So what's the next stage we can expect to see? How about more cases of secular or Western vigilantism built from this same base of knowledge? Secular 'warriors' (or 'Crusaders,' or 'jihadits,' whatever term strikes your fancy) turning these same tools against these citizen terrorists. In other words, citizen 'anti-terrorists' (defined as defensive measures meant to prevent or mitigate the effects of an attack) and, more dangerously, 'counter-terrorists' (defined as offensive action designed to disrupt or destroy terrorists' ability to conduct operations).

And you know what's really scary about this? As we have seen from governments scrambling to counter a nimble, network-centric threat with hierarchical solutions, it is likely that 'grass roots' citizen-anti/counter terror efforts will be far more effective than government responses. And so power will continue to slip out of the hands of governments. And so, in the long term, this has the possibility of further weakening the rule of law - even as governments desperately move to increase their authority in an attempt to protect their citizens and preserve the realm of anti and counter terrorism as a state function. I think I need to go back and re-read my Gibson....

Tags:

Citizen terrorist
Information Revolution
Vigiliantism