In Montana, Casting A Web for Terrorists

Appearances deceive. At her Montana high school, Rossmiller was a cheerleader — a farm girl whose slight frame meant she was the one hoisted to the top of the human pyramid. Now 35, she is a mother of three, a part-time paralegal and a $23,000-a-year municipal court judge in a town north of here.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, she has found herself an unpaid night job. She uses the Internet to find terrorism suspects, she said, hunting for them while her family sleeps, spending the hours between 3 a.m. and dawn at her home computer. Her husband, Randy, a wireless network technician, keeps eight computers and two broadband systems working in their house.

Posing as an al-Qaeda operative, she has helped federal agents set up stings that have netted two Americans — a Washington state National Guardsman convicted in 2004 of attempted espionage, and a Pennsylvania man who prosecutors say sought to blow up oil installations in the United States. Rossmiller was a key prosecution witness against the Guardsman, who is serving a life sentence, and said she has been told she will be called as a witness in the Pennsylvania case.

I’m not sure it was a good idea to paste this lady’s name and picture all over the internet, but the work she’s doing (for free, on her own time) is simply amazing. This is the sort of effort that directly confronts the islamist radicals in their own territory. The government could learn a lot from this lady, and from the sounds of it, they are finally starting to realize that.

Kudos, Ms. Rossmiller, and everyone else doing similar good things – you’re a true patriot. Keep up the good work, and keep safe.