They dismissed any notion the sites could be related to the terrorist attacks, declaring: "Given the prominence of New York, the prevalence of violence and horror in our popular entertainment, the millions of domain names registered over the years and the fact that the World Trade Center had already been attacked in 1993 [in the bombing that killed six people], that a handful of expired domain names used one or more of these elements should be no surprise."

But Snopes left out many facts included in the CNSNews piece that may have given the article more credibility. For one thing, the belief that these sites may have been related to the attacks was not mere speculation on the reporter's part, but the view of renowned terrorism expert Neil Livingstone, chief executive officer of the Washington-based counterterrorism and investigation company Global Options LLC. "This wasn't just some man off the street," says Johnson, CNSNews congressional bureau chief. Livingstone has written on terrorism for the New York Times and Washington Post and appeared on Nightline and Meet the Press.

Livingstone was quoted in the article as saying that terrorists like to take credit for their work and might have wanted to set up Websites for a propaganda campaign when they didn't know how successful the attacks would be. Johnson noted that bin Laden says on one of his videotapes that even he didn't think the strikes would be so successful. One of the main points of the article was Livingstone's outrage that the registration companies apparently didn't report the domain names to the FBI.

Snopes made much of the fact that the few date-related domain names did not refer to Sept. 11, but to Aug. 11 and Sept. 29. However, CNSNews had paraphrased Livingstone as saying these two dates "may have indicated the window of opportunity during which the attackers planned to strike."

CNSNews executive editor Scott Hogenson also says that Snopes mischaracterized the article as saying the sites were related to the terrorist attack when the story only raised the question of whether they might have been related to the attack. He tells Insight he e-mailed the Mikkelsons three times to correct the record and never received a reply. "They got it wrong, and they didn't even have the ethical fortitude to respond to detailed, accurate, polite queries. I think that's just low class," Hogenson says. "

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