Greg Martin

Shannen Rossmiller was a retired judge-turned cyber vigilante who infiltrated jihadi groups after 9/11. Shannen was living a quiet life in rural Montana when she watched in horror as the events of 9/11 unfolded. Unlike most people though, she was determined to join the fight. In her spare time, she learned Arabic, studied the Koran, and located potential jihadi chat rooms online. Over the course of the next five years, Shannen built multiple personas online with in-depth backstopping, using them to fully identify and report jihadis to the FBI and other agencies. She taught herself techniques such as sending keyloggers to her contacts hidden within JPEGs so as to pass their online activities over to the FBI. As a private citizen Shannen was able to participate in many online activities that law enforcement agencies could not at the time, due to bureaucratic inertia, funding, and legal restrictions. Two of Shannen’s biggest victories were the arrests and successful prosecutions of Ryan Anderson, a Washington Army National Guard soldier who wanted to help teach Al-Qaeda how to blow up M1 Abrams tanks in Iraq, and Michael Reynolds, who intended to destroy gas pipelines in the United States. She even convinced an overseas arms dealer to send her pictures of himself sitting on crates of stolen Stinger missiles as proof that he could actually deliver on the merchandise he was offering for sale online. By 2007 Shannen had built profiles on over 640 potential jihadis online and passed more than 200 of them to the FBI. She worked closely with the FBI field office in Great Falls, MT. These victories came at a cost. Shannen received many death threats over the years, and her car was shot at on at least one occasion by persons unknown. Nevertheless, she remained dedicated to the fight against terrorism, both at home and abroad. In November 2020, Shannen passed away from complications related to Graves’ disease. #covert #clandestine #vigilante #cybervigilante #tradecraft