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London Tube Dangerous for Technophiles?
TsukiKage writes "Traveling on the London Tube is dangerous these days, it seems - and not because of terrorists. Quick as ever to try and protect against the attack that has just happened, zealous police will detain you at the drop of a hat." From the article: "The next train is scheduled to arrive in a few minutes. As other people drift on to the platform, I sit down against the wall with my rucksack still on my back. I check for messages on my phone, then take out a printout of an article about Wikipedia from inside my jacket and begin to read. The train enters the station. Uniformed police officers appear on the platform and surround me ... They handcuff me, hands behind my back, and take my rucksack out of my sight. They explain that this is for my safety, and that they are acting under the authority of the Terrorism Act."
He should consider himself lucky they didn't throw him on the floor and pop five caps in his head.
Sugar Coat = Deception? It's funny, that you would sugar coat it like the US does.
Either you detain them and we get stories like this poping up, or you don't and once it is a actual bomber or something and people looking for someone to blame start asking "well he was clearly suspicious, he should have been stopped, detained, and questioned. Had that happend we wouldn not be dealing with one of the worse tragedies of our time." Sad but true.
from TFA:
"I am carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept my rucksack with me at all times;"
This was deemed suspicious. (Aren't we told not to leave our bags out of our sight elsewhere?)
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I'm not one to immediately yell "constitutional rights!" anytime a peace officer attempts to do their job. I think under the recent circumstances it reasonable for a police officer to stop someone and ask them what their purpose is, and assuming its done in a non-discrimatory manner to ask to look through your concealed possessions.
However, the en-mass encirclement of a single person (unnecessary use of intimidation/force), and the incarceration (handcuffs!) of a citizen w/o any evidence of a criminal act is preposterous. I am unsure of the legal system available to those in the UK, but at the very least I would consult a barrister to confirm what you real rights are... many times police officers use their authority to intimindate people into compliance, even if their own behaviour is illegal.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
I'm about to hit 40 next January and when comparing my life now with how things felt in the 80s and 90s I realize how much the country I live in (U.S.) and the countries I was raised in (all over Europe) have changed in the last two decades. Just go to downtown London or any British city: cameras and microphones everywhere!! Do they prevent any terrorist attacks? OBVIOUSLY NOT! Any of us could come up with a plot and blow up some public building if we put our heads to it. What's a LOT more annoying than the remote chance of dying in a terrorist attack is the increasing curbing of civil liberties for the sake of 'public security'.
As Benjamin Franklin once argued: A nation that gives up freedom to gain security deserves neither.
... at least the author wasn't shot and killed.
I'd be scared to be wearing my mp3 player + headphones in the Underground. What if someone yelled "STOP!" and I didn't hear them?
On Thursday 7th July there were four bombers with backpacks.
On Thursday 21st July there were four attempted bombers with backpacks.
Are you really surprised that they were extra careful with people with backpacks on Thursday 28th July?
I do SERIOUSLY think the UK has gone too far. Taking DNA, fingerprints and more without serious reason (that was evident at the time of the 'arrest' in the story) is absurd, ridiculous and by all means totally out of proportion. If the arrest was valid and 'normal' in the UK the country is truly bonkers and out of whack. What will happen if the terrorism (not just the type done by the muslim fanatics) continues?
Oh. OK. So, not being executed is the gold standard of good treatment by police now? What if they beat him senseless in the process? Still OK because they didn't kill him? Broke a couple of bones, still all right? Permanently crippled someone, still A-OK because they're not dead?
The bottom line is a lot of police forces around the planet are turning into bands of thugs, and the reason they're getting away with it is exactly comments from people like "it's not so bad, they didn't kill him like the other bloke"
if a terrorist attack were to happen, the same people who would be complaining about the authority's actions now would complain about it's actions then as well. the point is simply that terrorism is not an easy situation to deal with, and all of the "you can't give up freedom to gain security" idealists are just completely missing the whole point: terrorism is real, and it has people concerned, and they're just doing their best. criticize constructively. empty headed criticism that flails histrionically at everyone and everything involved is not helpful.
so why some of you think it is more important to question the motivations of western authorities and not criticize terrorist's motivations instead is beyond me. do i trust the autorities with my freedoms? no. but i know they aren't the threat to me right now. i simply don't understand people who see more menace in western authorities than in terrorist's actions. and judging by who bears the brunt of the criticism after a terrorist action, you know exactly what i am talking about. how about criticizing the terrorists? i know, strange concept.
i now return you to your regular typical drumbeat of sith lords manipulating the situation for their powerbase and agent smith out to destroy your personal freedoms out of pure meanness and other derivative hollywood paranoid schizophrenic plots which passes for insightful analysis around here of the world we live in. pffffffffft.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm thinking a tourist, prepared for the event, could have fun.
1) look suspicious, but innocuiously so (like the author)
2) get harassed
3) scream for your consulate and turn it into an international fiasco.
4) sell your 15 mins of fame for . . .
5) profit!
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I just simply can't believe the British government would so unabashingly remove a British citizen's rights so quickly under an "Act". The British have always done this - the whole is more important than the individual. That is *exactly* the type of action that led to the American Revolutionary War when the Crown tried to tighten down more than the people were willing to let them.
It is sad that Americans have now, slowly but surely, allowed a domestic government to do the very same things that we fought for independance from.
Maybe he doesn't look "ethnic" enough to be mistaken for a Muslim.
He never said what colour his skin is. Seems like he would have when describing his clothes.
Socialist Republic? Are you smoking crack? It's not a Republic for one thing (the whole thing of having a monarch and no written constitution is a bit of a giveaway).
/. seem to lean a little to the left", I doubt you would actually know whether someone's comments were left or right leaning.
As for socialist? Well, only compared to the US. It's a social democracy, with much less of the "social" side than mainland Europe. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrat for a good explanation. Yeah there's a welfare state, but it's not comprehensive, there are merely aspects of it present. Mostly European countries are social democracies - they aren't actually massively left wing on a global scale - being centerist really. Ireland and Britain more so than the others. You could say "centre-right" and "centre-left", but really compared to global extremes (US, Japan, China, Cuba), Europe is pretty middle-of-the-road politically.
What does "restrictive gun laws" have to do with the idea of a socialist Republic? It's perhaps an indicator of authoritarianism rather than liberalism (although on this particular topic, I would say "sanity rather than insanity"). But your comments make no logical sense.
So as regards your observation that "posts here in
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
We have a constitution. It's just not written down in one place, so it allows the government and people to act with a certain amount of reasonable flexibility, while still allowing either one to be put in their place if they fuck someone/something over.
You sir, are certainly Anonymous. Even more importantly, you are definitely a coward.
1984, by George Orwell, is an excellent book and I suggest that everyone reads it. Reading 1984 would probably give you a good insight on what is happening in today's world with all of this security and propaganda that is going on.
It's actually kind of scary, I know they say if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, but that's just bull shit. The way things work, they make everyone who is innocent feel guilty.
By the way, if you're too lazy to read the book, there's a movie version of it that isn't bad and will give you the same ideas.
$fortune
Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest.
Yeah, we got the dogs in Salem too. I LIKE the dogs, because it's a meaningful, non-random search. And it's reasonable. My co-worker is Bolivian, and he gets stopped and searched on over 50% of the flight he takes. He's dark skinned -- and apparently that's enough to skew the statistics. That's non-meaningful, and apparently non-random, and thus, in my book, unreasonable.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I can understand the mistaken arrest, but not the way they seem to think that the offended individual should simply accept an apology while the authorities keep all the false accusations on record and fail to return confiscated posessions.
As far as I could tell from the article, the police weren't exactly acting like bands of thugs. I think they they did over-react, and arrest this guy on very little evidence. But, it sounds like, they are just doing what they are expected to do, as handed down by the politicians.
Thing is, from the article, it seems to me like, at least at the start, it wasn't necessarily completely unreasonable for the police to stop the guy and check his things. Although, it does seem like they should have had a bit more cause than just that he didn't give them a smile going through the gate, and had a rucksack and jacket.
The point of unreasonableness came when they inspected his stuff, found NOTHING, and still arrested him. And then, going through his apartment, taking his stuff, building up this dossier and putting it in the national computer, all when he had done *nothing* wrong.
If the police stopped me in a subway or bus station, checked the contents of my bag and frisked me, sure I'd be a little upset about the treatment, but I'd get over it, realizing they're just trying to keep everyone (including me) safe. But to just carry on the way they did when they determined he wasn't a threat, seems truly unreasonable.
But that unreasonableness comes down from the politicians, it sounded like, from the Terrorism Act that was passed by them, not from the police themselves. Sounds to me like they were just doing what they were instructed to do from above.
Oh, and, I think the grandparent was being sarcastic, man. Not serious.
The following is a beautiful quote which i find as relevant today as more than half a century ago...
"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." Quote by Martin Niemoller
Here, most of the educated folk realize the folly of the patriot act (voted in, even though most of the voters had not even read the document). My professors, collegues, bosses, all educated people know the damage acts like the patriot act can do and are yet silent.
As the article seems to imply, the day isnt that far away, when THEY come for YOU!
Staying one step ahead!
Now, eventually you might find yourself in the position of having to defend yourself from foreign nationalists bent on paying you back for some of the supression, meddling, back-alley dealing, intimidation, bombing, killing, etc.. that you got you to the top of the food chain in the first place. Well, all those nukes you built won't help you there - unless you find a single country to drop a few onto. But that country you just invaded provides a great launching point for even 'more' meddling and 'democratization' - it'll cost you a fortune but you're hooked on oil and after all, the end justifies the means. We're the mighty and proud United States of America after all - the land of the free!
Damn, I'm so fucking pissed at this world - I could puke everytime I watch the news...
The reason Slashdot posters tend to lean a little to the left is because the average slashdot reader is educated and reasonably intelligent. They tend to seek out news for themselves without automatically accepting the news that the media spoon feeds them which just so happens to echo the corporate/political party line. I am not aiming this at republicans or democrats instead these are general statements. Becoming politically and socially conscious will expand your mind and tend to change your point of view.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
What did this guy do that was "clearly suspicious"?
If you had read the article, you'd see that the cops grabbed him because of him using a cell phone then pulling out a piece of paper and a lap top while he was wearing a jacket and a ruck sack.
This is what is known a "stupidity" because the next round of terrorist attacks will involve guys dressed in suits and carrying briefcases. That way, they will get past the idiots doing the "profiling" who don't have any idea how to profile correctly.
It is easier to get past a badly done profiling system than it is to get past a system of random checks.
If I were that guy, I'd do a quick test and wear the same outfit to a different station, do the same things BUT wear thick glasses and a yarmulke and see if he gets picked up again.
If he does, then the cops are being consistent (even if they're doing it wrong).
If he does not then the cops aren't providing ANY protection against ANY attack.
Were this mans rights violated? I did not see anything in the article that he wrote that would have violated American law. I do not know British Law. I also did not see anything that would have violated his basic human rights. Everything he owned was returned to him. He was not physically or mentally harmed or tortured. He underwent a little (in his mind a great deal of ) hassle, but he was not debilitated in any way. This comes down to the fact that he was acting suspiciously (at least under the given circumstances) and the police had a responsibility in the heightened state of awareness to follow up on that suspicion. They also have a right, and responsibility, to maintain records of their actions. The statements of the officers, as long as they are accurate and not purposely altered, are absolutely necessary to maintain an auditable account of the situation. He may be arrested again for something and find that those records insturmental in proving he has no prior record of wrongdoing. If they were maintained in his possession he would have a much harder time validating they are genuine. I think this case is a model of what should be done. Note he was not whisked away to some unknown location and denied legal counsel...in fact the article makes no mention of legal counsel being offered, requested, or denied. This is a fully acceptable and encouraging account of how a terrorist prevention system should work. The investigation was thorough, quick, and ultimately vindicating. He was let go in a reasonable time frame and the investigation was concluded. I am sorry for his inconvenience, but I think the officers were justified in their actions and were respectful of his rights.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Still, quite chilling. Among other things, they (apparently) searched his flat without getting a warrant from a judge, took DNA samples (among other things), kept the SIM card from his phone (has he gotten that one back?), and will keep records on him in their database, which probably will be shared with other nations' police agencies, too (thanks to Interpol), even though he's innocent.
Considering that all he did was wear a "suspicious" jacket, look at the stairs he was walking down and carry a rucksack, that's quite a lot. What if he had looked like someone from an Arab country and ran to catch a train, too? I wouldn't at all be surprised if some over-eager officer had decided to shoot him dead in that case.
What may be even worse is that nothing's actually gained this way. Sure, there was a terrorist attack on the tube this summer, but honestly, do you think that the terrorists are gonna attack it again now? I don't know, but if *I* was a terrorist, I'd target something else next - an amusement park, a sports arena, a shopping mall, but certainly *not* the tube again; it's obvious that that one's being watched much more closely now.
But that's just the point: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Guarding the tube doesn't do *anything at all* as far as the overall threat is concerned - it merely makes it more likely that other targets will be selected.
What's more, this story makes it clear that the police are pretty much running around like the proverbial headless chickens - that they're acting completely irrationaly. And *that* is something that makes it all that easier for the real terrorists.
Do you feel safer now? I certainly don't. I feel less safe because of random idiotic police actions like this, and I also feel less safe because I know that those responsible are not looking at the big picture and resorting to ineffective measures - counter-effective ones, even, as stuff like this not only not makes things safer, but actually makes everything *less* safe.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Actually, it had the opposite effect on me. I distinctly recall sitting in my kitchen, listening to Bach, and reading the book while eating a breakfast of buttered toast, eggs, coffee and orange juice, and when I got to the part about the coffee, I suddenly truly appreciated for the first time how good I had it, and the luxury I was living in, in grand context.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Are you people really serious?
First of all, so what that the terrorists had backpacks? The next set could have bombs in the soles of their shoes (US Flight that had that happen after 9/11). So anyone with shoes is suspect? The terrorists could've had an egg salad sandwich. All egg salad purchases are suspect? This makes NO sense. How many people go through the Tube each day with a backpack? It can't be that few!
Similiarties do not constitute guilt, and should not constitute suspicion.
... and we've only heard one. Bear that in mind before you blame the police, or profiling, or whatever.
-everphilski-
You really think the next bombing will be people carrying cellphones, laptops and rucksacks? No. The next bombing will be people who are completely outside the narrowminded profiling the police are using.
This actually makes the population less safe because police are focusing their attention on the wrong things and wasting precious resources chasing shadows. While they are busy jumping all over innocent bystanders, it will provide the real criminals the distraction they need.
Way to go!
Profiling is a dirty word because people let the liberals make it so..
No, profiling is a dirty word because it is an asinine way to investigate criminal activity. Only an idiot would follow a profile once it has been established, and the ability of determined criminals to evade the profile is relatively simple. In this particular example, a terrorist now knows to make eye contact with the station police, stand in and blend with a crowd (don't go to the wall and drop your pack to search its contents), and act just like everyone else on the train platform. What exactly did the police gain from their profile other than an innocent man's DNA and fingerprints?
The reason profiling has such a bad history in the US is that too often minorities were charged and convicted of crimes based soley on the color of their skin and the perception of the white majority about what to expect from colored people. As noted above, the net result of that behavior is to convict the innocent and let the guilty go free.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
It's tempting, because profiling based upon race, gender, age, religion, and political affiliation are effective measures for combatting crime from specific and known types of person. For example, men are a couple orders of magnitude more likely to commit any violent crime than women are, so at first glance it seems to make sense to focus all your investigative efforts on men; it'll yield the most bang for you enforcement buck, right?
It works, but the price is too high. I have much greater fear of living in a society where it's a crime to be male, or young, or dark-skinned, or muslim, than a society that suffers very rare and mild terrorist attacks. (Killing Americans at 0.001% the rate of common car accidents.)
Well, actually, that's not such a bad way of going about it as might first seem. (Before I get flamed, that's randomly choosing people to spot check I'm talking about - not randomly choosing to give 12-hour detentions for people for whom the spot check failed to turn up anything incriminating, and not shooting people in the head; and only in the context of it being an alternative to using a fixed set of profiling rules to distribute the same number of spot checks). As Bruce Schneier said: "Whenever you design a security system with two ways through -- an easy way and a hard way -- you invite the attacker to take the easy way. Profile for young Arab males, and you'll get terrorists that are old non-Arab females."
The average US civilian is more likely to be killed by someone in his/her own family than by a terrorist.
ANY US citizen is more likely to be killed in a car crash than by a terrorist.
But terrorism is the current boogyman that various governments are using to extend their control. Check out the "Red Scare" and Joe McCarthy to see what we went through before.
And anyone talking about how other people would say that the cops were wrong if they didn't stop a terrorist is and idiot who has no understanding of security or statistics.
Distinction without a difference. If a person's race is one of the factors used to determine whether a person is searched, detained, arrested, etc., then it's racial profiling. Beyond that, it's just a matter of degrees.
"Driving while black" is exactly the same thing you're describing. Police think that young black males are more likely to commit crimes than the average person. So they arrest, detain, harass, and pull over young black males more frequently. According to your reasoning, this makes perfect sense because statistically, you should be eyeing those who are most likely to commit crimes.
The reason we shouldn't be doing racial profiling are threefold:
1) Pragmatic: Racial profiling focuses the attention of authorities on people and stereotypes that hold for those people. It's generally more effective to be focused on actions.
2) Moral: Every person, regardless of their membership in various categories like race, age, or gender, deserves to be treated as an individual under the law. This holds true regardless of whether a given stereotype has any statistical basis.
3) Pragmatic/Moral: Mistreating entire groups for the actions of individuals simply alienates members of the group, possibly making them more willing to become criminals, terrorists, or whatever.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Mods, you have it wrong. This is *exactly* the topic.
Slashdot has had problems with anonymous postings from a subnet, so anything coming from that subnet is denied the right to post anonymously. I realize slashdot is not a government authority, but this is exactly the problem we are complaining about. No authority should feel they need to stop people who have done nothing wrong, whether they are trying to board a train or post a comment.
And personally I don't care if they have a 4-digit UID or 7-digit. Or if they come from an IP in Nigeria or Redmond. Or if they're wearing a t-shirt that says "Die, caucasians, die!" and carrying a large and obviously heavy box with biohazard stickers on it. When you are stopping people in case they are going to commit a crime, you have crossed the line into being an enemy of freedom.
I think that being a coward would be someone who is scared of being searched, someone who wants terrorists to be able to bomb up whoever they want because they can't be searched.
I think someone would be a coward if they were so willing to hand over control of their daily life to the "authorities" in the vain hopes that somehow they would be protected from all danger.
It doesn't take a lot of courage to bend over in front of any authority figure who claims to be "keeping the children safe".
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I kept re-reading the article over and over again, but I couldn't find the part where the writer was beaten to a bloody pulp, shocked with a cattle prod, and where he had his fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers. I'll go back and re-read it again because I'm sure it's there...somewhere.
After all, it would be just silly if everyone was so up in arms over the fact that someone was take aside, temporarily restrained, searched, and then allowed to proceed. He wasn't abused. No one beat a confession out of him. He wasn't shot.
I have been selected for a random search when boarding airplanes over the last two years. Each time I thank the screeners, and I am quite enthusiastic about being searched. When the search is done, I thank the screeners again, for I know they're doing something to protect me. They aren't trying to trample my rights, they're trying to keep me alive.
One thing conspicuously missing from the writer's "account" of the search was why he was handcuffed. This kind of thing does not happen to everyone who has a knapsack in the London Underground, but it does happen if you're belligerent when they ask to search you. Of course, if the writer was belligerent or combative towards the police, do you think he'd actually mention that fact? Of course not. That would get in the way of the agenda.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It could be evidence that she is cute?
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
The police state grows out a desire for power on the part of the state (obvious) and the inability or unwillingess of the populace to draw boundaries of acceptable limits of authority. The difference, especially in the US, is that the liberals think the government should provide support but not exercise authority, while the conservatives believe that the government should exercise authority but not provide support.
HA - I wish the military gate searches where "random" like they say... I get searched, litterally, 10 times more than my wife. The german contractors love the fact that my car isn't sold in Germany and they like to look at it. They also know (from the sound) that I've played with it a little and like to look under the hood. Her car: A toyota Carrola - mine: Saturn SC2
The fact that while I'm at work, I drive a van to haul equipment, I get searched almost everytime with that. I can partially understand that, but someone is more than likely to attempt to blend in than come in with a van.
But seriously, the best "random" search I've seen have been dogs. They don't care about my car (although they aparently like the leather), they don't care about how I look, etc...
I would argue the reason most slashdot posters are slightly left leaning are they are from major urban areas.
I don't agree that education is the sole determining factor. I believe the difference is rural vs urban.
I am a City Councilman in a small town in Idaho (population 5,000). My experiances in this office have colored my opinions about how people approach government. I experianced life in major urban areas only during my 6 years in the military. I am college educated. I am the child of college educated parents. My father was a social worker, my mother was a teacher.
My thesis is that urban populations are raised more dependent on government services. Water, roads, public transportation, schools, recreation, police, fire, social services and so on. When there is a problem, it is usually government related and they expect government to solve the problem. To a smaller extent, rural populations see less government in their daily lives. Local governments have leaner budgets and there is never enough money to go around. So rural people learn to look to themselves and their neighbors for solutions first.
I'm sure its more complicated than that, but that basic viewpoint is very strong. The personal belief that less government is better vs more government is better is very strong. Two people the same education and opposing viewpoints can look at the exact same incident and arrive at diametrically opposite opinions about what was the root cause of the problem and what would be the best solution. And in reality both may be exactly right. What is the proper solution to fix the problem in an urban environment vs what would fix it in a rural environment.
That is why I am an advocate of States rights and local governments. Federal solutions and programs tend to be monolithic and are compromises. They rarely, if ever, meet the needs of everyone. Local solutions tend to be better tailored for their communities. But again, my opinion is colored by my experiances. But I am open minded enough to admit that.
I think the direct cause is terrorists. Or, have you forgotten about the attacks? They are clearly winning because you've turned on your own country.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
You can't change human behavior. That's the core fallacy. The best you can do is incarcerate. And the only way to properly do that is through finding probable cause, collect evidence, and arresting people. The only thing new laws are designed to do is make it easier to collect this evidence by giving a broader definition of probable cause. And as stated, this is just a trade-off many people are not willing to take.
Maybe you would, but those of us who live in the Reality-Based community want the police and government to use effective techniques against terrorists, not facades of action that serve simply to show they're "doing something" [ineffective], while violating our rights in the process.
If you wish to give up your rights as a citizen and allow the government unrestrained power, please move to a country that is more aligned with your viewpoint, such as North Korea, Sudan, or Iraq, as your sheepish acquiescence serves only to weaken the greatest country on earth.
Yeah, right.
See, with a constitution you get cool stuff like the following:
Makes for tough guys, builds character and teaches you some respect for the gouverment, you pansy-ass whimp!
So, quit the whining and get youself a constitution you mince-pie eatin' sissy!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Hmmmmm.... Governments violating the rights of its citizens. Police shooting/detaining/beating innocent people. People thats the point of being a terrorist. To spread terror. Only they have wised up over the years. Now all they have to do is do one or two suicide bombings a year and let the government finish the job of terrorising the citizens.
For all we know, British Intelligence may have tipped the police off that an attack was likely on that route, sometime soon. In which case, you're dealing with an entirely different scenario to one where the police were acting spontaneously, without due cause.
This makes it ok? Jesus Christ we are all doomed... What happened to this guy is NOT ok even if they knew for a _FACT_ someone was going to blow up a subway line. I would rather die free- killed by a terrorist- than live in the sort of society that condones these actions as acceptable. There use to be a time when the majority of Americans felt this way- nowadays? I guess not.
Benjamin Franklin said it best:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-sirket
So let me get this straight: You're saying that a) you think you can control humans and change their behavior, and b) you also think that it's a good idea for you to do so.
I don't think I need to add anything.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I'm certainly not advocating that we just fire all the security guards from everything, or that ALL security impairs freedom. My argument is that when extra security DOES deminish freedom, we should err on the side of protecting our rights. Even if the current government wouldn't abuse its power, a future government might. The more power government has, the more it will attract people who would abuse that power. Protecting citizen's rights is what keeps our government honest. If you give the government the ability to violate peoples right, eventually someone will find their way into government and do it.
And every other person is carrying a fat backpack or suitcase. They all look out of place and/or suspiciously foreign.
Many carry curious electronic gismos and have difficulty with the english language. Some are obviously looking for high security Physics departments.
That's the problem with non-random targetting. It lacks context.
The train enters the station. Uniformed police officers appear on the platform and surround me ... They handcuff me, hands behind my back, and take my rucksack out of my sight.
Lucky bastard. If he had gotten on the train, they would have had to empty a magazine into his head.
That is because one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Listen closely, Mr. Deluded Greedertarian, for I will try to go slowly: there is no 'police' but instead social justice and increased economic efficiency, among others, in univesal healthcare. Nor there is any 'police' in mass transportation, but there is sane energy policy and infrastructure for increasing employment and small business opportunities. No 'police' in public education either, but there is an equal opportunity to those born in unfortunate circumstances, opportunities for personal growth, not to mention improving the quality of workforce for the economic engine of the society: business. No 'police' in arts (government sponsored or otherwise) and only a delusional, far out lunatic would even associate 'police' with arts.
In short, you just made shit up to try to associate all the obstacles to your personal greed and desire to dominate others with something which is nearly universally acknowledged as evil. As a matter of fact, you do not have any problem with police states, as long as you would be the one doing the policing, that much is clear from your position of extreme selfishness, sociopathic delusions and greed.
As to the rich and the corporations, they already have private thugs, they call "private security force". You merely want to remove from those private armies any restrictions that might still exist on them. And of course hope (vainly) that you will to get to own and command such an army, accountable to noone but you, and you are, in your libertarian greetopia, accountable to noone but your most base animalistic instincts which you term "individual rights to defense" (read: wanton agression towards and subjegation of those weaker then you). And spare me cries of "libertarian non-violence pacts" and similar nosense because you believe none of that crap and are merely trying to remove any obstacles to perpetrate all sorts of violence on others, physical and economic both. Had you the control of the government, police state would be first thing you would do, one powered and financed by a band of rich fascist cohorts. Just like the ones established by the various tin-pot dictators in Latin America, which took your template and applied it literally: no healthcare, no education, no arts, no taxes for the rich. Just kleptocracy and fascism.
And as to IngSoc, the term "Socialism" as it was understood by Orwell has far more to do with Germany's National Socialism, aka Fascism, a very close cousin of Radical Repulican Neo-conservatism, which have about as much common with modern forms of socially-aware democratic governments as you do have with the concepts of wisdom and intelligence, which is next to nothing.
As to taxes, rich are are required to pay more because they use the graces of society more. And that is on top of the wee little issue of the capitalist engine of free-market simply shutting down when excessive accumulation of wealth occurs, the very reason for which things like inheretance taxes exist in the first place. A lesson in basics of the capitalist society, learned the hard way at the time of the Robber Barons, a lesson which you are hell-bent on forgetting and repeating, with all the pain and sufferring it brought back then, in the hopes of somehow profiting on the way.
You Sir, disgust me deeply.
That certainly is what they say. Personally I don't intend to be the guy who tests that bit of PR.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
This guy is an ex-writer for exe magazine, and he works for a respectable technology company now. Sure, there was a firearms hoax there, but my wife's company have had 3 bomb hoaxes in the last year. Does that mean she's a terrorist ?
/. geek.
Also, note what the police have said caused them to pursue the case... The fact that he had a shortwave received and an RS-232 breakout box.
This guy could have been almost any
We don't really need the London police's side of this story because we know their frame of mind around the time this action was taken. Around this time, they held an innocent man down on a tube train and put at least 5 bullets in his head and chest at point blank range. At the time they made all sorts of outrageous claims, many of which have found to be stretching the truth, and some of which have turned out to be outright lies.
I don't trust my police force any more, so I'm more inclined to believe the 'victim' of this tale.
How the terrorists won? Set off a few bombs, and we get a police state.
Don't complain too much, you voted them in.
The terrorist no longer need to target the tube, the police have taken over the job of scaring the general populace.
The police don't want to do this. But they'd rather do this than stand by as people get blown up. There were a lot of "indicators" here.
Personally, I'd rather live with the extremely minuscule chance of being blown up than have my civil liberties threatened as the article describes.
The sole point of a terrorist organisation is to create terror in a population, despite the fact that they are a threat to few if any members of it. After reading the article, it seems clear that the "War on Terrorism" is over, and that the terrorists have won.
Very well said.
/., but if you knew my family and the love we have for each other, you would realize it is not loaded at all. Nothing wrong with living at home, I did it from 0-18 and then for six months post divorce.
I refer to this phenomenon as the living with the parents syndrome. I know this seems like a very loaded statement, especially on
The thing is, you are not the same person living at home as you are living on your own. You don't quite change your beliefs, but very often you bite your tongue. Won't bring up gun control tonight, Mom is making that awesome chicken dish and she even cleaned your room while you were gone. You actually start drinking diet sprite. Not because you like the taste, but it always seems to be there. No smoking in the house. "But mom smokes..." "I can't kick your mother out of the house." Point taken.
It is very natural to have deference to those who give you food and shelter. It is also very natural to reach a point of resentment and total powerlessness. Don't have ice cream, it's your mom's fault. You gave her money for ice cream and gas. She was shopping anyway. What I am I supposed to do, drive to the store myself just for ice cream. That soon seems as likely as milking a cow, besides there is still some of that old sherbet left in the freezer. That stuff can't go bad, right? Quickly the choice becomes total submission or escape.
Living in the city is like living with your parents. Life is way easier and more convenient. You never feel alone. Great food is always available with little to no effort. Need a twenty spot. No problem, Dad has got you covered. You always feel smart because your Mom tells you how smart you are at least five times a day. Of course there are downsides. Can't catch a buzz without a towel shoved into the door crack on the floor. The number 3 on your stereo volume has a little piece of masking tape stuck there for a reason.
I decided to leave the city, not because I don't love my parents, but because I can help them more by living alone. I am under no illusion that my choice is the right one for anybody but me. This is also not a decision based on a dog eat dog perspective of the world. I have every intention of once again living with my parents. The next time though it will be under MY roof and revenge, like a nursing home meal, is a dish best served cold. Whaaahhaaahaaa (just kidding mom)
You said all of this much more succinctly and without judgement or the crutch of silly metaphor. I tip my hat to you. Wait, I'm in the country so it must be a John Deere or a Skoal baseball cap.
I also raise a drink to the new states rights movement. This time based on freedom, not slavery.