Meet Shannen Rossmiller. From the Seattle Times, with thanks to ahoymite:
CONRAD, Mont. “” Shannen Rossmiller finds early mornings are best for hunting terrorists.
When it’s 4 a.m. in this one-stoplight prairie town, it’s 3 p.m. in, say, Karachi, Pakistan, the sweltering hours just before the evening call to prayer. That’s when Rossmiller, while her husband and three children sleep, finds the Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards frequented by radical Muslims and jihad warriors are busiest.
It is when Rossmiller pursues her deadly serious hobby: citizen cyberspy.
Two success stories of “freelance” anti-jihadists:
Spc. Ryan Anderson, National Guardsman: Fort Lewis soldier charged with attempting to aid the enemy. Private citizen Shannen Rossmiller posed as a terrorist on the Internet and lured the 26-year-old soldier into an FBI sting operation. The Army arrested Anderson in February and plans to court-martial him, saying he tried to provide information to the enemy as his unit prepared to deploy to Iraq. Anderson, a Muslim convert, could face the death penalty if convicted.
James Ujaama, former Seattle resident: Thirty-eight-year-old prosecuted for planning to set up a terrorism training camp in Bly, Ore., in 1999. Videotapes provided to the FBI by a self-proclaimed “freelance intelligence agent” in London, Glen Jenvey, played a significant role in the 2002 prosecution. Jenvey infiltrated the Finsbury Park mosque in North London to obtain the tapes, which showed Ujaama sitting alongside radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and talking about jihad. Ujaama pleaded guilty last year and has agreed to testify against Abu Hamza, who was arrested last month in London and is accused of aiding al-Qaida.