Would you describe people like Nidal Hasan and Hosam Smadi, the Dallas bomb-plot suspect, as being jihobbyists?
To me, jihobbyism stops when you cross over that line from thought to action. That’s not to say they’re passive, because these guys are very active in the consumption and production of ideology online and in their daily lives. But it’s when they start stepping toward making something violent happen — including when you knowingly fund a terrorist organization — that crosses the line from jihobbyism to material support for terrorism. How does al-Qaeda’s central command react to all of this freelancing and co-opting of their movement? At first, there was a lot of tight command and control by al-Qaeda, but they’ve started to loosen that. … In the past four to five years, al-Qaeda has transformed from a terrorist organization that uses the media into a media organization that uses terrorism. … Everyone knows al-Qaeda is the big boy on the block, but now you’ve got to build your base, and that’s only done through videos and spreading the ideology. Media serves as a force multiplier because,
