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Bank Accounts of 5,000 UK Terror Suspects Tracked
Juha-Matti Laurio writes to mention an article over at the Guardian, reporting on the surveillance of over 5,000 bank accounts in the interests of terrorist tracking. Accounts at such reputable British banks as HSBC, Barclay, and Lloyds TSB are having their activity tracked for 'suspicious activity'. Financial details from these banks, it turns out, was part of the trail of evidence used to apprehend terrorism suspects in a plot to bomb airplanes last month. From the article: "However, the extent of the banks' involvement in neutering the terrorist threat has sparked a fierce backlash from some British Muslims amid claims of mistaken identities and the persecution of innocent account-holders. Ahmed Salama was stunned when his HSBC account was frozen nine days ago. He received a letter informing him that HSBC wished to end their relationship after 11 years. The decision left Salama unable to pay 12 bills and his mortgage. Despite repeatedly asking for an explanation, HSBC has only told him it detected 'suspicious' payments in his account."
Oh, yes...the 'liquid explosive' plot.
The 'plot' where the alleged terrorists had no plane tickets and no bombs, and some of them didn't even have passports .
The 'plot' which alledeg the terrorists' intentions to synthesize TATP on board an airplane...a procedure that is ridiculously farfetched and manifestly impossible.
Ah, yes...that plot. I feel much safer now, now that some poor slob who has the misfortune of having an Arab name won't be able to pay his mortgage. That'll show those terrists the strength of our resolve!
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
25% of British Muslims believe the 7/7 bombings were justified.
When asked, "Is Britain my country?" only one in four British Muslims it is. Thirty percent of British Muslims would prefer to live under Sharia law than under British law. Half of those British Muslims who express a preference for living under Sharia law say that, given the choice, they would move to a country governed by those laws.
Twenty-eight percent of Brirish Muslims hope for the U.K. one day to become a fundamentalist Islamic state.
Enough said. Keep monitoring those bank accounts.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I've made a rough appoximation of the chance:
Let's assume that The Troubles is an accurate representation of most terrorism in the UK between 1969 and 2001. Let's also assume that the average life expectancy has been 70 years in that period (It has been 50 in the first half of the 20th century and is 80 at the moment in Europe).
The period is 32 years and the total number of victims is 3,523, including both sides, civilian and military personnel aswell.
The current population of the UK in 2001 has been 58,789,194. Let's assume that if the conflict would have lasted for roughly twice as long, for 70 years, which is roughly the average life expectancy, then the number of victims were doubled.
This gives us (3523*2)/58789194 * 100 = 0.0119851957827488% chance of being killed in an average lifetime by terrorism.
(For reference, the chance of winning the UK National Lottery is 0.0193366388688181%, if we assume that you play for 52 years in your life, every week.)
And that is real terrorism. We didn't take it into account that the current terrorism threat is not seriously proven. There are other things we didn't take into account, like growing life expectancy, etc. in this guesstimate, but it was just a thought exercise of what kind of numbers can I come up with in five minutes.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The parent is correct and I would go as far as saying the UK banking system is more mature than the banking system in the US (having banked in the UK and US and knowing many people from both). When it comes to moving money around, everybody needs a bank account in the UK. Many services will allow cash payments but only through a long-winded payment process which typically incurs charges, whereas direct debit (basically a rapid, regulated, consistent bank transfer) will normally get you discounts. Credit cards are accepted by a lot of places for paying bills, but if you want to pay rent or a mortgage, 90% of the time there is no choice other than a direct debit (or a very hefty processing charge for cheques/money orders). There are many convenient things about having such an integrated banking system (no charges for cash withdrawals from the vast majority of ATMs, regardless of your bank and the bank of the ATM for one), but losing the ability to use cash to much of a degree is one of the downsides.
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