Good for Jihadwatch. Since my business is Real Estate related I have a lot of time to read about the latest Outdoor-cat anti-Jihad activity. (This is not Armstrong's-Saudi-Pets-Watch.) However, I have a faint idea of what Bonhoeffer meant when the SS locked him up in a concentration camp and he said, "It's an unexpected sabbatical".

Posted by: Frank at October 26, 2007 4:32 PM

Sweet! I had to use a proxy to access the site during the period when it was blocked by SonicWall. The hilarious thing is, I just checked and the site of the phony "Reverend," who had worked so tirelessly to suppress Jihadwatch, is still blocked by SonicWall!

Posted by: Abu Allah at October 26, 2007 4:33 PM

Excellent News! Looks like the smearing and suppressing of this site is now much more difficult to achieve, as it should be. Exactly the right approach to take.

Posted by: alexon at October 26, 2007 4:38 PM

Robert: I am just about on my way out of the hotel room (no Pinot Noir in mine, Greg)...

But any Pinot Grigio :-)?

...to Dartmouth College...

Is that the same place where Kemery and Kurtz invented the computer language BASIC?

...

Good to know.

Posted by: UK Infidel Lover at October 26, 2007 4:41 PM

Kemeny.

Posted by: Hugh at October 26, 2007 4:45 PM

If they block anything, it should be limited to the comments ... even though that would mean that my deeply insightful posts are not available to the masses. I imagine SonicWall and other services are capable of this. If there are endusers who are particularly sensitive to unmoderated comments such as might appear here, this would, I think, be a reasonable compromise. Something to keep in mind if you end up dealing with stubborn and oversensitive blocking services, or those who have difficulty classifying you because of some nasty comments left by ... goodness knows who ... in the comment sections.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at October 26, 2007 5:29 PM

Hugh?

BASIC?

Posted by: Drewbenstein at October 26, 2007 7:34 PM

Good to hear.

Just a note on the Internet. There really is no constitutional issue here. The Constitution allows you the right to post commentary on news related to the Global Jihad. It does not prevent businesses from making their own decisions as to whether they will allow data from this site into their own networks. Your right to free expression ends where the receiving network begins.

Posted by: Monte Gardner at October 26, 2007 7:37 PM

Muslims Against Sharia congratulate David Horowitz FREEDOM CENTER and Mike Adams, Tammy Bruce, Phyllis Chesler, Ann Coulter, Nonie Darwish, Greg Davis, Stephen Gale, David Horowitz, Joe Kaufman, Michael Ledeen, Michael Medved, Alan Nathan, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Daphne Patai, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Prager, Luana Saghieh, Rick Santorum, Jonathan Schanzer, Christina Sommers, Robert Spencer, Brian Sussman, Ed Turzanski, Ibn Warraq and other speakers on the success of the Islamofascism Awareness Week.

Islamofascism (or Islamism) is the main threat facing modern civilization and ignorance about this threat is astounding. We hope that this event becomes regular and reaches every campus.

A great many Westerners do not see the clear distinction between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism). They need to understand that the difference between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism) is the same as the difference between Christianity and Christian Identity Movement (White Supremacy Movement).

Original post

Posted by: Muslims Against Sharia at October 26, 2007 8:59 PM

I can tell ya what sonicwall's problem was, but they're not gonna like it being mentioned...
it's the "sunnyvale clique" of programmers, a HUGE number of which are mOslems or sympathizers.
(Note- chances are the high level management wasn't even aware of it until it was brought to their attention-seems to be a common factor-hey can't keep track of everyone)

I stumbled onto this from another "person of interest" who was a programming engineer at PeopleSoft (on a government contract no less) who was rather vocal of his hostility towards US (ironic since we made him rather affluent by BEING here), and mysteriously disappeared 24 hours before 9/11...when the country didn't collapse into anarchy as he bragged it would (seems he reveres noam chomsky, too) he suddenly got married, and became a mild-mannered family man as if Clark Kent...and suddenly popped up at Oracle (only this time he's wondering why he can't work on government contracts anymore...lol)

Loose lips, ya know...and he has a mouth like a megaphone.
The entire tech industry is infested with them, and many of them are NOT friendlies...but they don't do a very good job hiding it either.
However, that's another story...

One thing for sure, you can bet SonicWall is now doing accountability as to how it happened, and who did it (there are always trackable "footprints" even on software).
;-)

Posted by: jcom972 at October 26, 2007 9:27 PM

Well, there is no freedom of speech, when Internet access is provided for work related information by a business to its employees, but when a campus network of a university reciving funds from the government blocks access for students, that IS a first amendment issue.

I still left my old work place for a better job as soon as they blocked access to everything gun related (museums included) as 'inappropriate content'. Gives whole new definition to 'gun porn', huh?!

Posted by: Charles Martel at October 26, 2007 9:29 PM

Robert,

Are you also looking into a defamation lawsuit against CAIR?

I have read that defamation lawsuits are often viewed as a losing proposition for the plaintiff, as they just bring more attention to the defamatory accusations, but that would be more of an issue if the defamation were something where just the publicity of the accusation, even if demonstrably false, would bring unwanted additional attention to the defamed. That wouldn't apply here, and it would seem to me that the opposite would apply. More attention to the various accusations leveled at you by CAIR would only serve to make CAIR seem more ridiculous.

There is also the money issue. You don't want to do something if it just costs you a lot and all you get is a Pyrrhic victory but you are out a lot of legal costs that are not recovered (esp. when the defamer does not have a lot of assets). But CAIR has such pockets and could stand to lose a lot, picking up your court costs and paying damages. Moreover, a taste of their own medicine could be just what is needed to bring some sanity to the present PC-crazed world. On the other hand, I can see that its deep pockets and on-staff lawyers also means that it would be a long and expensive fight.

I am not a lawyer, so I cannot give you sound legal advice, but it seems that you have a very strong case.

Respectfully yours,

Wimbledon Womble

Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at October 26, 2007 10:17 PM

Archimedes2, The technology is not there yet to block the comments. All website blocking technologies are a database of URLs. I work in the security industry and I don't see the technology ever going in that direction. Imagine the difficulty in accurately screening posts from ALL websites on the fly without having any advance understanding of the page layout and what parts to filter. The real question is, why is everyone upset that their place of employment is using a filter? The reason companies invest in this technology is to prevent lawsuits. Porn surfing has resulted in multi-million dollar settlements and a $30k piece of software vs $5M in damages seems like a reasonable investment for any business. The other option you have is find a job that doesn't filter or surf your leisure activities at home. At our office, legal, HR, and security have access to all sites and we can demonstrate a business case for IT to turn off the filters on an individual basis. If you need to read Jihad Watch for part of your job, then let it be known.

Posted by: Quan Tranh at October 26, 2007 11:35 PM

I was correcting an error, not supporting a claim.

Posted by: Hugh at October 27, 2007 12:58 AM

dear jcom -
a propos your posting, and more generally.

Given the number of Indians employed in every part of the cyberworld, surely it should be possible to try to identify and get 'on side' the braver NON-Muslim ones (Hindus, Sikhs, and yes the Christians too) for cyber counter-jihad of every imaginable kind, formal and informal, official and unofficial? No different from being the suburbanite who notices the next door house whose inhabitants act strange, or a cop who pulls up someone for speeding and gets a gut feeling it would be worth having a peek in the boot, or the clerk who wonders why someone needs quite so much ammonium nitrate.

Who knows, maybe someone like that - a jihad-aware non-Muslim Indian - is reading this right now. If so: go to it, hero. You're on a major frontline in the Defence of Humankind against the Jihad. Use your initiative.

Because, to tell the truth, initiative, creativity and, in the end, co-operation and innovation, are the things that the 'Universal Civilisation' (Naipaul's phrase) have on our side, against the Ummah. They think they're perfect already. So they're pre-programmed against REAL learning, real innovation. We KNOW we're not perfect - so we learn from our failures, we change endlessly, we vanish beyond their horizons again and again. Think of the endlessly developing musical lines and mathematical complexity of the raga, or a Bach Fugue, compared to the whirling dervishes or the howl of the muezzin. Think of the centuries of political improvisation that underlie most of our societies - no single Commonwealth country is identical, and none of us is the same as the USA, and all of us are still 'works in progress'.

The internet, the worldwide web, should be OURS, not theirs. If the OIC took over the world and turned it into a Caliphate, everything that makes it possible for me to sit here talking to people on the other side of the world, would ultimately fall to bits for lack of care and maintenance. How long do you think the satellite launch sites would stay functional? How long do you think it would be before the undersea cables got broke and there was no-one to fix them? Every time the Muslims have taken over a complicated civilisation, quite apart from the damage caused during the initial takeover, they have over the successive centuries run the thing hopelessly into the ground.

Recommended: R V Jones, "Most Secret War", on how England's best minds were mobilised against the Nazis. Lots of stuff about Enigma.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at October 27, 2007 1:40 AM

dumbledoresarmy,

As long as there are persons like you and Mr Robert Spencer , we are a liberated lot . Thank God , Jihadwatch is one place where there is total freedom and lot of intellect. I learnt Islam , Christianity , Hinduism, Buddhism ,Judaism and lot many others. My other source is Pamela's Atlas Shrugs. Think , Take the "Violence" and obsession with sex out of Islam and it will start gasping and die a natural death.

Posted by: Kash225 at October 27, 2007 2:51 AM

"If you need to read Jihad Watch for part of your job, then let it be known."

I think it would be hard to make the case that anyone but (certain) journalists or political activists, half of them critical, would need to read JIhad Watch or any other political/social/salvational site for work.

The question is why some political sites, particularly liberal ones, would not be blocked, while others, more conservative ones, would be. If a business wants to block all non-business-related sites, that's fine and good luck (as that's just not possible). The thing here is not that businesses are blocking certain sites, but that the filtering services they subscribe to are blocking some sites over others.

It seems that a lot of businesses are less concerned with a small amount of lost productivity to web surfing than the possibility of offensive material, especially porn, coming down the pipes and causing another employee to file a lawsuit against the company for "creating" a hostile environment. Fine.

But if a company then chooses to contract with a filtering company to block some content and not other content, the issue of what is filtered and what is not shifts to the filtering company. And that's where the present issue arises. Why is it that filtering companies block content from "right-wing" sites while not blocking content from "left-wing sites" that are just as offensive (to left- or right-wingers, respectively).

It's because in the present climate, things that may potentially offend leftists are given more attention than things that may offend conservatives. And this is often preemptive, where those filtering content, because of their own biases or their own understanding of how leftists are more easily offended and vocal and prone to initiating lawsuits than conservatives, simply block anything considered "too" conservative, while doing nothing about even the most crazy liberal sites.

When it's an anti-jihad site, the businesses and filterers are not just afraid of angry liberals who might sue, but also and probably a lot more afraid of angry Muslims who might sue.

So the issue is one of double standards that are there because of biases or because of fear. If you filter right-wing sites but not left-wing ones that is simply discrimination.

Fortunately, it seems that SonicWall may be aware of this fact and so is taking actions to correct the selective anti-conservative and anti-anti-jihad blocking that it was practicing. I guess we'll see if this is sincere and lasting or not and whether it extends to other conservative sites as well that are not represented by lawyers.

As a final note, I think by and large lawyers love Islamists, because lawyers love business. So Robert is lucky to have a pro-bono lawyer on his side or, if the lawyer is not pro bono, I hope he has the money to pay for legal representation. Whether good or bad, most lawyers really only value the green back $!$!$!$!

Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at October 27, 2007 4:28 AM

I called SonicWall sometime ago and complained about my message board being rated "violence/hate/racism", they did return my call They apparently think that “anti-war liberal scum” (this is in reference to what the anti-war creeps did to the wall) is hate.

Of course, http://www.dailykos.com/ is considered Web Communications. huffpo and DU are non hate sites as well islamicworldnews-islamicstudies.blogspot.com gets a pass as well.

BTW, that was the first time that I’ve seen SonicWALL actually go to my web page. Never before has there been any indication that they have ever gone to my page.

Posted by: Lady Predator at October 27, 2007 4:53 AM

""If you need to read Jihad Watch for part of your job, then let it be known."

I think it would be hard to make the case that anyone but (certain) journalists or political activists, half of them critical, would need to read JIhad Watch or any other political/social/salvational site for work."

Wimbledon Womble,

I will give you a few examples of how my office operates. Our physical and IT security departments, legal, and HR, read Jihad Watch and other similar sites. Legal has cited a risk that if we don't keep up with what is happening in the world then we could he held liable if an employee is kill while on business.

It could be as simple as sending someone into an area where a hurricane is about to hit or a more recent example when a sales team had to go to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. If someone dies on company business their family will take you to court. The best approach is to avoid risking the lives of your employees unnecessarily.

Our physical security department has to coordinate with FBI, DHS, and State Department officials and then provide additional safety to our employees when traveling overseas. It isn't just about keeping people out of your overseas offices. You have to protect your workers. We also contract with local security firms and we have kidnapping insurance to pay for rescues or ransoms. IT Security monitors local chat boards in regions where employees travel and also monitor employee activity on the internet while at the office. Human Resources is the ultimate accountable entity when it comes to employee safety. They make the call on when to pull employees out of potentially hazardous situations, and determine if a worker's online activities are against policy or pose a threat. Simple examples of the latter are an employee smoking a joint in their MySpace or Facebook picture album (we have a no drug policy except in Holland), someone in their LiveJournal threatening to come to the office and blow away someone else for having an affair with their spouse, or a contractor in a foreign country blogging about how he hates the infidel and wants to blow them up.

We're not a big IBM sized company. We're actually in the Small-Medium Business size range. I consider it somewhat frightening that there are bigger companies than us that do not take security and safety of their workers seriously. I kind of wonder what people do in other companies if their days aren't full of activities like I described.

Posted by: Quan Tranh at October 27, 2007 4:32 PM

Congratulations!

I was so pleased to hear about this that I even depicted a little "virtual victory party" here:

Censorship Update 10/28/07: SonicWALL unblocks Jihad Watch!

Posted by: 1389 at October 28, 2007 10:29 PM