Hosting Them Over Here to Spread Propaganda Over There

Decidedly not the way to fight terrorism or extremism:

On March 25, a Taliban Web site claiming to be the voice of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" boasted of a deadly new attack on coalition forces in that country. Four soldiers were killed in an ambush, the site claimed, and the "mujahideen took the weapons and ammunition as booty."

Most remarkable about the message was how it was delivered. The words were the Taliban's, but they were flashed around the globe by an American-owned firm located in a leafy corner of downtown Houston.

The Texas company, a Web-hosting outfit called ThePlanet, says it simply rented cyberspace to the group and had no clue about its Taliban connections. For more than a year, the militant group used the site to rally its followers and keep a running tally of suicide bombings, rocket attacks and raids against U.S. and allied troops. The cost of the service: roughly $70 a month, payable by credit card.

Amazing what Americans will put up with in a bad economy. But to their credit, ThePlanet did pull the plug when they realized that the Taliban was using their space for, um, recruiting. Of course:

The firms acknowledge that it is not always easy to spot militants' activity. Tulix boasts more than 1 million clients, while ThePlanet is the country's biggest supplier of Web-hosting services, with nearly 16 million accounts. Yvonne Donaldson, spokeswoman for ThePlanet, said the firm cannot afford to monitor every site and instead reacts to complaints, as it did in the case of alemarrah1.com. "If the complaint is credible, we notify the authorities," she said.

Hmm. You would think a massive warrantless wiretapping program would be able to detect something like this. You would think.