My mom and the mujahedin

Reader's Digest this month featured an article by Lynn Roselli called "Cybersleuth Mom" about Shannon Rossmiller, a woman from Montana who assumes alter egos online and uses the information she gains about al Qaeda networks to tip off the FBI.

While her actions are valient, to be sure, and patriotic, there was still an inherent comedy in picturing what this woman has done. A couple sample paragraphs illustrate the point:

"One night, she dared herself to post a message on a Saudi Arabian Internet forum known for its violent anti-American content. Within a few months, Rossmiller had begun to establish contacts among the mujahedin, the brotherhood fighting for jihad. She could entice would-be terrorists into e-mail "conversations," she realized, by promising money and weapons to support jihad. Maybe her efforts could even foil their plans and lead to their capture.

"In August 2002, she convinced a Pakistani arms dealer that she was interested in buying weapons. When he offered to sell her U.S. Stinger missiles, she turned the information over to the FBI."

Savvy as my own mother is with things like eBay and internet research, I still have a hard time picturing her brokering a black-market arms deal with terrorists from Pakistan. Then again, she has been lobbying for a faster internet connection lately...