Key Graphs:
"Once her son is off to school, Laura Mansfield settles in at her dining room table with her laptop and begins trolling Arabic-language message boards and chat rooms popular with jihadists.
"Fluent in Arabic, the self-employed terror analyst often hacks into the sites, translates the material, puts it together and sends her analysis via a subscription service to intelligence agencies, law enforcement and academics.
"Occasionally she comes across a gem, such as when she found a recent Osama bin Laden video — before al-Qaida had announced it.
"'I realized, oh my gosh, I'm sitting here, I'm a fat 50-year-old mom and I've managed to scoop al-Qaida,' said Mansfield, who uses that name as a pseudonym because she receives death threats. . .
"There have been times when an impending video release has kept her from a planned shopping trip with her daughter.
"'It gets really challenging when you're trying to do that and cook spaghetti at the same time,' she said."
HT: The Most Significant Thing
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