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Shannen Rossmiller: Terror Tracker

How a mother of three became an FBI intelligence asset

By Daintry Duffy

October 17, 2007 — CSO —

How a mother of three became an FBI intelligence asset

On September 11, 2001, Shannen Rossmiller, a 30-year-old mother of three and then a municipal court judge, slipped and fell in her rural Montana home. Being laid up for over two months was bad luck for her but astonishingly good luck for U.S. intelligence agencies. Absorbed by news reports and footage of 9/11, Rossmiller spent her convalescence reading about the Islamic world, its culture and language. Unbeknownst to family and friends, she started frequenting chat rooms where terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers talk jihad. Since 2001, Rossmiller has used her growing knowledge of Arabic and understanding of the legal system to build and present cases to the FBI on at least 60 terror suspects, including National Guard Specialist Ryan Andersen, who was arrested and court-martialed after trying to make al-Qaeda connections in an Arabic Internet forum, and Michael Curtis Reynolds, another American accused of trying to blow up oil and gas pipelines. Now officially classified as an intelligence asset by the bureau, Rossmiller spoke to CSOs Daintry Duffy about the challenges of her work, what it will take for her to quit and the things that still surprise her about the terrorist world.

CSO: How do you go about infiltrating these chat rooms?

Rossmiller: I cant touch on sources and methods, but one of the tactics is using elements of human nature to your advantage. If an individual has administrative privileges within the Internet forum, one key is to gain their trust so you can receive invitations to access some of the private portions of those Internet forums.

What kinds of online personas do you use?

Ive only got four active right now, but over the years Ive had about 30 other personalities that I have used on different cases. I have some that are just lost young men in the Islamic part of the world looking for jihad. Ive got other personalities that are far more prolific that take on the more dangerous side: weapons, getting involved with the jihad preparation encyclopedia.

A recurring theme this election season will be whether we are safer now than pre-9/11. From your unique vantage point, what are your thoughts?

I believe that in a lot of ways we are safer. But our Achilles heel in this country is our ability to forget. Time goes by, and we get desensitized and disassociated from things. 9/11 is just far enough in the past that people forget the importance of that day and how its impacted our world. Until we recognize that [terrorism] isnt going to go away quickly, the element of surprise will continue to bite us from behind. A lot of people have moved on from 9/11; I just cant seem to. It seems like a wrong that never has a remedy.