REPORTEDLY, the U.S. government wants to shut down this useful antiterror website, Internet Haganah, which identifies terrorist-supporting sites and then writes ISPs and asks them to shut off service.

This sort of thing seems like a good idea to me, and I’m surprised the government doesn’t like it. Here’s a column I wrote on the subject a while back.

UPDATE: Reader David May emails:

So you are surprised that the FBI is not happy about what that web site is doing?

Touches two big no-nos:

1. Flirts with some sort of “cyber vigilantism” (lets be honest, the ultimate goal is the shut down of the islamist sites by the ISP).

2. Can be seen to paint Islam in a pretty bad light.

Both bad ju-ju these days.

The government has been insisting over and over again that the public not be involved in the fight against Islamic terrorism, we’re just supposed to keep shopping.

Course, on the other hand, maybe the FBI would rather these sites stay up so that they can investigate them. I think that’s pretty stupid though, if the price of that knowledge is that some jihadist just learned to make a fertilizer bomb.

Yeah. It occurred to me that some of these sites might actually be run by the government, as lures for jihadists. But still. . . .

And at any rate, as best I can tell Internet Haganah is doing nothing illegal, or even unethical. And given the FBI’s rather spotty record in this area, and Bush Administration statements in favor of this sort of action, they should be glad for the help, instead of threatened by the competition.