The Islamist enemy seeks to operate in the shadows - either out of sight behind false id's or busy behind frontline distractions, such as structures like Hizb ut Tahrir or CAIR. While the security services are rightly spending all their resources on preventing 9/11s and transatlantic airliner plots, it is up to the public and the media - Muslim and non-Muslim - to be out there investigating; finding out how the cancer of extreme Islamism is spreading and who its next victims are.

There have been some brilliant investigations into the problem area already, which have led to law changes and certain Islamists being taken out of their abusive roles in government, the police force and even the intelligence services. But there are not enough - and governments should be looking to invest more in public broadcasters' investigative programmes (a very inexpensive undertaking) as well as putting provisos attached to any investments; that the money must be used to investigate certain areas of Islamist incursion and never touch the hands of politically correct or weak-minded producers, who are unlikely to risk undercover work or want to understand the subject matter in the first place.

Investigations such as Channel 4 Dispatches' Undercover Mosque, which looked, with shocking effect, into what allegedly moderate British mosques' imams were saying behind closed doors - these programmes change the way government legislators think. Likewise, the BBC's flagship investigative programme, Newsnight, has been at the cutting edge of exposing the Islamists - with its various investigations into Al Muhajiroun, Hizb ut Tahrir, 7/7 links, Radical books in libraries and many other vitally important areas - and News night is having its funding cut not increased. US channels such as CNN, CBS and Fox have done well also, though there is less to investigate on the ground in the US than there is in the UK or Sweden for example.

There needs to be more communication between European investigators and security checks should be paid for by the EU to ensure there is no infiltration. Private investigative networks, like VIGIL, Black Flag and others need to better co-ordinate their areas of focus to maximise effect.

Those massively politically incorrect investigators need a tap on the shoulder to put them straight, a word of encouragement and the occasional cheque. Diplomatic protocol - inhibiting certain governments' foreign military attaches from speaking to allied governments - needs to be circumvented, if necessary by trusted private networks acting as middlemen.

There are plenty of Muslims who offer themselves as informants to media and private investigative networks. These people need to be trained better - less investigation done on the hoof. Reliable translation services need to be made available to these Muslims so that recordings made and tape filmed can be verified and double-verified so as to placate media regulators.

After Channel 4's Dispatches was slapped on the wrist for its aforementioned Undercover mosque investigation, there seem to be less programmes about Islamist subject matter appearing, certainly on British TV. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come. I cannot help but think that if governments armed broadcasters, such as the BBC and Channel 4, with healthy budgets specifically for delving into extreme Islamist behaviour, Britain and Europe would be a lot better places to live, and a lot less under Islamist threat.

To break the ideologies of the Islamist extremists we need to adopt myriad strategies. Right up there is the Free World's requirement to engage in sound, irrefutable fact-gathering. Investigate, investigate, investigate - until we need investigate no more.

Jane Blunt is a British lawyer specializing in counter terrorism.

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