Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Thursday called for “stricter rules” about what can be posted on the Internet in order to prevent the spread of radical jihadist ideology.
“The one constant, in all of this, has been the Internet,” Kelly said at a national security conference in Washington. “And I’m not blaming the Internet, but I think probably we need to step back and say, maybe, [there should be] stricter rules on what is hung on the Internet.”
That statement went beyond the recommendation offered by a senior House Republican, who suggested that government lean on Google and other private companies to censor radical propaganda. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, noted that a private-sector solution would avoid questions about government censorship, but Kelly seemed to imply that’s not enough.
“The industry folks are doing a fair amount for us,” Kelly told McCaul at the conference. “I think though, kind of the rules and thinking that they’re operating under, that frankly our country has been operating under, is probably five or 10 years old and this threat has definitely morphed.”
Government control over what kind of content can be published online raises thorny questions about the limits of the First Amendment, but Kelly suggested officials should shut down extremist websites with the same efficiency that they target child pornography distributors.
“So, just like in terms of child pornography sites that are taken down just like that, we need to have probably a stricter set of rules to look at some of these sites and bring them down maybe faster,” he said. “I know the Europeans, particularly in the last five months … they have really stepped back from their thinking, as I think we should.”
In the meantime, Kelly said, there’s little he can do to prevent people from becoming terrorists, beyond trying to expand cooperation with local communities who can warn of a growing threat.
“Everyone has a right to go one whatever websites they want to go on, generally speaking, so the fact that people are on websites that happen to be — whether they’re white supremacist, anti-Jewish or neo-Nazi, or Islamic radicalism — until they do something generally speaking, all law enforcement can do is watch,” Kelly said.
