Everyday Heroes: The Terrorist Tracker

From her home computer, Shannen Rossmiller helps take down terrorists.

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On 9/11, after watching the horror of the falling towers on TV in her Montana home, Shannen Rossmiller was so enraged, she began a new career—scanning jihadist sites on the Internet. She studied Arabic and posed as a member of Al Qaeda to entice would-be terrorists in e-mail exchanges.

In August 2002, she tracked down a Pakistani arms dealer and turned him in to the FBI. In 2003, she exposed a National Guardsman who wanted to sell weapons secrets abroad. After her identity was disclosed at his court-martial in 2004, Rossmiller began to get death threats. The mother of three shakes it off. "With anything important," she says, "you have to take risks."

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From Reader's Digest - March 2007

 

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