Futile to control Internet terrorist recruitment, witnesses say.

• Position: SECURITYBEAT

* Experts have compared the use of the Internet by terrorists and their propagandists to jungle warfare. Sometimes enemies hide in the dense foliage to their advantage. Other times, friendly forces can do the same. The jungle is neutral in such conflicts. It's not going away unless someone chops down every tree.

The Internet is not going to disappear, and neither are the thousands of websites devoted to terrorist causes, witnesses said at a recent House hearing.

"We're not going to stop Internet recruitment and radicalization. It's not going to happen in the world of the Internet and the information age," said John Philip Mudd, senior research fellow at the New American Foundation.

The House Homeland Security Committee's intelligence, information sharing and terrorism risk assessment subcommittee has held a series of hearings on homegrown radicalization. The latest gathered a half-dozen experts from think tanks and academia to sound off on the topic, "Internet Terror Recruitment and Tradecraft: How Can We Address an Evolving Tool While Protecting Free Speech?"

What can be done? Not much, those testifying agreed.

There are currently some 7,000 terrorist group websites, said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Attempting to shut them down is futile and has been compared to a game of whack-a-mole, he added.

Further, free speech is protected by the Constitution, and radical thought is just that--thought There has to be some kind of action before a law is broken. Looking at a website that advocates violence or downloading bomb recipes off the Internet, are not against the law.

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