Firm blocks controversial Web sites temporarily By ALAN BERNSTEIN Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle A Houston Internet company was entangled Wednesday in an international controversy about Web sites that feature Palestinian and Taliban fighting personnel.
It started when a radio station run by Israeli settlers in the war-torn West Bank broadcast a report about U.S. Web sites it said promote Palestinian and Taliban terrorism, in possible violation of U.S. law.
Three of the Web sites can be traced electronically to equipment at Everyone's Internet of Houston, an Internet service provider. The company said it never knew about the sites until Wednesday.
In fact, company chief Robert Marsh said, the sites do not do business directly with Everyone's Internet, whose services are sold and resold across the world and used to operate about a million Web sites.
Nevertheless, Everyone's Internet blocked operation of the three sites Wednesday after being contacted by the Chronicle.
But the company unblocked the sites later Wednesday after being contacted by the U.S. Customs Service, one of several agencies involved in the U.S. counterterrorist effort following the Sept. 11 attacks, company officials said.
Marsh would not comment on why the Customs Service, which guards the borders and enforces international travel and commerce laws, wanted the Web sites available to the public.
Marsh referred questions to a telephone number left by a customs agent. The number rang at the Customs Communications Center in Orlando, Fla., where an officer said he had no information on the case.
FBI and customs spokesmen in Houston said they too had no information.
The Web sites are:
· www.qassam.org, which carries Arabic text and photographs of armed Palestinian fighters;
· www.taliban-news.com, which carries extensive English text, including an anti-U.S. speech by an official of the exiled Taliban government of Afghanistan;
· www.assam.com, which was blank Tuesday and Wednesday.
Arutz Sheva (Channel 7), the Israeli settlers' radio station that publicized the list, is described as a religious, right-wing outlet. Its Web site is IsraelNationalNews.com, from which its report on the other Web sites was relayed by other news and political organizations.
Robert Marsh's brother Roy, chief financial officer of Everyone's Internet, said it was willing to block the sites -- even though there was a chain of middlemen between them and the company -- because of the suggestion they might promote terrorism.
Roy Marsh said customers who may have provided Internet service to the Web sites also expressed surprise about the alleged content. One middleman supplier was in the United States, another in the Middle East and another in the United Kingdom, he said.
Everyone's Internet said it has no information on who launched the sites.
The Houston chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism and other discrimination, said it is investigating the sites after getting phone calls from concerned people.
The Israeli consulate in Houston said it was unaware of the Web sites.
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 AIM: KDean75206 Buffalo Activist Network http://www.buffaloactivist.net http://www.yaysoft.com
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