ETHICS OF THE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION REVOLUTION: RESPONDING TO AL- QAEDA'S CYBER-JIHAD AND ELECTRONIC-JIHAD MILITARY OPERATIONS

摘要

The rise of cyber-terrorism and the increasing access of global terrorist groups to the integrated computer networks and technologies of major corporations, government bureaus, universities and other high-valued institutional targets in the United States and the international community of nations is a very destabilizing outcome of the strategic social transformations produced by the information and communication revolution. The policy issues associated with the information and communication revolution in the domains of global terrorism and national and international security indicate major problems for decades to come. In this context, developing the appropriate countermeasures to fight cyber-terrorism, information warfare, and discourage and/or prevent the systematic cyber-war use of e-mail, encryption technology, the Internet, computerized files technology as well as the continuous reconnaissance of critical U.S. infrastructure by Al-Qaeda and other global terrorist organizations has become a major objective(s) driving U.S. and western counter-terrorism strategy. In this context, Al-Qaeda's understanding and expert utilization of advanced and non-advanced information and communication technologies to support its "cyber-jihad" and "e-jihad" military operations against the United States is a negative ethical outcome of the Information and Communication revolution. The research study evaluates the ethical dynamics of the information and communication revolution in responding to Al Qaeda's cyber-jihad and e-jihad military operations against the United States.