Slashdot Mirror
UK Woman Charged As Terrorist For Computer Files
Terror Alert Brown writes "Reuters is reporting that a UK woman has been charged as a terrorist because of computer files on her hard drive. According to the article, these files included 'the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook.' She was picked up in connection with the plot stopped in August to detonate explosives in airplanes flying out of Heathrow airport. Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive."
She was linked to terrorists, and the files are evidence.
She wasn't arrested and charged BECAUSE of the files.
there is a difference.
I am hoping that there were other lines of evidence against this woman as this is what we need to be very careful about here in the US. The concept of a thought crime is not new and any society that starts prosecuting individuals for books they may possess or for studying things is becoming a a darkness right out of an Orwellian nightmare.
Hell, as kids we had copies of the Anarchists cookbook and manuals that the US government printed for crafting insurgencies and survival that had all sorts of directions for creating improvised munitions and such. It makes me wonder if we would have been suspects back then. Of course the early 80's were a different time when a couple of 14-15 year olds could carry a rifle out in the Texas countryside to shoot cans without even a second glance. Now, we have bastardized Republicans (Neocons) who are out to create National IDs, document any passage in and out of the country, search our personal information including credit files and library files, and some even propose to index all of the information on personal computers in an effort to screen out "enemy combatants" not to mention revoking Constitutional rights such as Habeus Corpus. It's a strange time.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
When the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook is outlawed, only outlaws will have the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook.
...that the EU rules on flight were strictened for basically no logical reason, but based on the horsecrap Blair is feeding to the UK and the world.
Basically the overwhelming majority of experts on the field confirmed that liquid explosives and things like dirty bombs are not feasible or existant.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Was there any other actual evidence besides some agent just saying she was involved?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I'm from the UK and heard this story on the radio today
My HD still has the anarchist cookbook and all sorts of shite in my home directory. Stuff I copied from friends on floppys back when I was a 13yo.
I am honestly getting worried where CCTV Blairs Britan is taking us.
No I've nothing to hide. I've nothing to share either.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Uh, if you'll excuse me, I need to go hide my D&D Player's Handbook. Yeah, it's first edition, but you can't be too careful, I guess.
"the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook."
I of course misinterpreted the acronym, but they sure do look like RPG manual titles, don't they? "Dungeons and Dragunovs". Did they read them? They'd feel rather silly I bet if they said "At level five, you can learn Mujahideen Sneaky Poison Attack that does 2d6 damage if you roll..."
Not to be flippant, but even the summary points out that she was arrested in connection with a bomb plot, and then these documents were found. Presumeably the prosecution's case will rely on drawing that connection, with the manuals as circumstantial evidence. Frankly if that's the best they have the case may fail, but if it's part of a larger collection of evidence (like that which lead to her arrest) then it may not. The justice system has held up fairly well as fair as maintaining standards of burden of proof even in terrorism cases, so barring something like false arrest I'm not feeling any rights violations here.
The enemies of Democracy are
Slashdot, the only place where a blow-coffee-through-nose remark gets modded insightful.
a terrorism icon.
Don't forget the missing intermediate steps of encrypting it, and then making a backup copy on secure, durable media.
Someone who has all these files on their hard drives is either a compulsive packrat or might be up to no good... certainly it might raise a few eyebrows. But it shouldn't be illegal to possess these things, and isn't, yet. If possessing certain types of knowledge becomes illegal in and of itself, that's when we'll need the Anarchist's Cookbook the most.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Unless she bought these at the neighborhood Al Qaeda bookstore and scanned them herself, they might be able to get her on copyright violations as well.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Not to be playing RPGs (role playing games). RPGs are likely to get you shot by a gun-toting law official who thinks you're Sauron even though you're pretending to be a well-armed hobbit.
I'm sure that you already know that the UK is the CCTV capital of the world, with more CCTVs per head than any other country, and people appearing on CCTV several hundred times per day.
You do know there is a new system comng together, I'd say it's about an estimated 10 years from fruition:
A little box plugs into each CCTV camera and uploads the data to a Home office server using wireless Internet technology.
The people in each frame are identified using facial recognition technology (based on the biometric information in passports and ID cards).
And each person's movements can be tracked and queried. The information will be available to police, home office, probation service, local authorities, courts, etc., without warrants.
The only reason is it's 10 years away, is it will take about that long until everybody's biometric info is collected thru the passport and ID card system.
The only people who won't be in the database are people like MPs whose security may be at risk if their minute to minute location is published. For everybody else, it's if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Some of us bought the book ( and others like it ) many years ago, when it was still legal to read, and information was not restricted. Now we may pay for exercising our rights back then since the rules have changed since then.
Once knowledge becomes a crime, freedom is gone.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...my copy of The Anarchists Cookbook is in print! Not that it wasn't stripped of any seriously bad info (if it ever had any) long before I bought it as part of earlier edits.
How long ago was it a capital offense to possess a written copy of the bible? Back then, that was considered to be just as bad, but we (society) decided that merely posessing information was not a crime. So, are we back to the dark ages? Shall we start destroying printing presses again? Maybe we should stop teaching children to read, since it apparently leads to terrorism charges.
Well pleased I just sold my Paranoia RPG manuals on eBay. "The computer is your friend, you must trust the computer" The one I was most disappointed to see sold was the form pack, including the wonderful "Form request Form" and how do you get a "Form request Form" simple, you fill out a "Form request Form". And if you use a "Form request Form" not issued to you then you have violated official's procedures so MUST be an enemy of the computer and enemy of the state. The game is great fun but since 9/11 and Blair/Bush and how they are trashing our rights some of it is coming true.
Good thing you are trolling. Anyhow, the article doesn't mention any link other than that she happens to have same manual on her computer. Interest in these *manuals* doesn't require a person to be a terrorist. She could be a hobbyist or a paranoid pschizophrenic. She was probably a source for the terrorists - and possibly had no idea what they were planning. Dont jump the gun.
In the meantime, if you are seeding any of those BT's maybe its time to del. =P
Experts have pointed out that the UK peroxide bombing plot, as discussed, was wildly implausible.
You are completely correct that both liquid and binary explosives exist. Nitroglycerin has been used as an explosive in the past.
However, the restrictions on carryon luggage didn't seem to be solving any actual security problem and don't really seem intended to. (If you're really worried about binary explosives, why make them pour the containers into the same bin, in front of what could be hundreds of people?)
Whats next?
Bücherverbrennung
Does it go on forever?
I think people are jumping to conclusions. It sounds to me like she has more on her then simply having the material that she had. The police say that she was connected with the terrorist cell that was busted up earlier. If she is just an innocent bystander with some sketchy reading material she got out of curiosity (not malicious intent), then I imagine nothing is going to come of this. On the other hand, if she is connected to a terrorist cell and has more then just some questionable reading material, let her burn. I personally will reserve judgment about whether or not this is a violation of her rights until after the charges have been made clear. The little blurb in TFA really doesn't give enough information to judge if this is an over reaction or not.
Allah Akbar!
Makes you wonder why she didn't just use TrueCrypt.
The road to hell is paved with Cat 5 cable.
Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive
NO! NOW it's time to fight for our freedoms to ensure we cannot simply be labled as terrorists because of what reading material we might own! There is NOTHING wrong with having that information. It doesn't make you a terrorist. Most of us know that if we picked up a metal baseball bat and went to work on someones skull with it that it would most likely kill them, eventualy, after enough swings. Does this knowledge make us all killers? Should we all be labled as such and thrown in jail simply for having such knowledge? NO! It's not the IDEA that causes the problem, it's the ACTION! There is nothing wrong with having such texts in your collection. There is nothing wrong with reading and understanding what is in such texts. It's when you DO something BAD with this info that you cross the line and deserve punishment. NOT before. And simply owning such material does NOT make your a criminal!
So, again, now is NOT the time to roll over and let our rights be further trampled upon. Now is NOT the time to puss out and destory information because we are affriad some law enforcement dick head is going to arrest us. No, now is the time to tell that law enforcement dick head to go read a copy of the constitution! Now is the time to intentionaly make copies of such texts and pass them around, just on general principal alone! We need to show the law enforcement bullies in this world that they cannot get away with such bullshit!
That having been said, if this person really is linked to a terrorist cell then so be it, she deserves punishment. But let's be VERY CLEAR in this process and make sure her ACTIONS are what we take offence to and NOT her reading material! Because if we are going to start attacking people for what they read where will it end? How long before people who own a Bible are being arrested simply because there is talk of killing and violence in THAT book?
Books, guns, knives, baseball bats, none of these things in and of them selves kill people. It's PEOPLE that kill people!
I think the most terrifying aspect of this whole thing is that she was arrested not because of anything she did, but rather because of her association with others the government doesn't like.
This isn't justice; it's not even close. It's more like vigilantism with official sanction.
How long will it be before merely showing an interest in "Terrorist Causes" or "Terrorist Methods" - however defined by the government - is enough to get one arrested? Or has it happened already?
Democracy in Britain is officially dead.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
ed2k://|file|Al%20Qaeda%20Terrorist%20Manual.pdf|8 946592|2822E92FF0658D2020B13703A8748A00|/9 0|D4487A1A4CDC4BF73E8443CB94EEF74C|/2 0Manaul.pdf|411648|B65D11D0C0955FA9D923B10F4B06301 8|/
ed2k://|file|Mujahideen_Poisons_Handbook.pdf|1748
ed2k://|file|SVD%20Dragunov%20Sniper%20Rifle%20-%
Couldn't find 'The Firearms and RPG Handbook' and 'The Terrorists Handbook'.
Now those are all well and good but the day you wake up and the world is looking too much like your favourite dystopian novel, you will be looking for this one:
http://25thaviation.org/history/id541.htm
Viva revolution
The Cookbook and plenty of others that won't help you accidentally kill yourself are available quite legally.
Maybe this will help:
I can buy lockpicks and lockout tools legally. I can buy manuals to unlock any vehicle, also legally.
If I'm busted for conspiracy to steal (as opposed to lawfully repo) cars, that stuff becomes evidence along with the rest of the evidence supporting the charges.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
They story implies she was linked just beacuse she shared a common interest in documents.
And since when is carrying a book and night-vision goggles illegal? Again, no concrete reasons were implied in teh story except for the 'evil' books.
Perhaps there is more meat to this and there is a real link between them and a real reason to be arrested, but the story i saw has nothing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Someone who has all these files on their hard drives is either a compulsive packrat or might be up to no good...
Funniest thing I read all day. So being curious is dangerous ?
If possessing certain types of knowledge becomes illegal in and of itself, that's when we'll need the Anarchist's Cookbook the most.
pedantic bore, you have been identified by our automated communi^M^M^M^M^M^M^Mterrorist identification system. Interrogation agents will come to your house in the next 96 hours. Until then, you must go outside, on your knees and put your arms in the air. If you do not comply to those instructions, you will be shot at view.
To enter a plea of not guilty, please visit this web site: https://www.nsa.gov/all_my_base_are_belong_to_the_ nsa
Failure to enter your plea of not guilty within the next 15 minutes will result in you being placed in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp until further investigation.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Your friends at the NSA
Link to a dodgy website. AVG better be working.
Great, so now *READING* is a crime? WTF?! As a 13-14 yr old I made some acquisitions from Paladin and Loompanics which made for some very interesting reading. Was I going to build any of that stuff? No (well, besides the smoke bombs - they were fun...). But there was nothing wrong with reading it.
Learning is not something to be feared....
And possession of a "hand to hand combat" techniques book does not make one a terrorist - but rather one who does not wish to become a victim when walking home down a city street late at night...
Mere possession should not rise to the level of a criminal act. Now if this person was indeed a member of a terrorist cell, then I could see the concern, but then again handing a training manual to someone and saying "study this... Then take test... Then you certified" almost sounds like some big corporation here in the US... SURE - you read the stuff, but you're a Paper- - you don't actually know jack shit... And a "book smart" terrorist or "paper terrorist" almost sounds too ridiculous to take seriously...
I'll keep my copy of the Anarchists Cookbook. Those pigs have no right to tell me what to read, much less arrest me for it. This goes for ANY government.
I'll do what I damn well please.
Infact, just for this, I'll go buy "steal this book 2.0".
she was arrested in connection with someone else who was bringing a night vision scope into the country
what would you do? excuse her?
a lot of those commenting here who say how this is wrong, would be the first to say that a big problem with terrorism is ineffectual law enforcement: that 9/11 was a us intelligence failure, for example
so you're a cop, and this guy is bringing a night vision scope into the country, and a computer in the possession of his wife/ sister/ girlfriend/ mother is loaded with literature that isn't exactly about butterfly catching
what would you do if you were that cop?
which way do you err?
you can err on the side of caution for the general public, and detain her, and risk jailing an innocent person
or, you can err on the side of caution for individual rights, and free her, and risk that she does something since law enforcement is closing in
what do you do?
a lot of you howl with righteous indignation in your armchairs, as if it's so obvious and cut and pat and easy. heaven forbid you are on the frontlines, and actually have the responsibility of protecting people from real terrorism
terorrism doesn't exist? it isn't a threat?
look again at the details surrounding her case. you tell me what you would do
go ahead and pepper it with armchair analyst morally indignant certainty, go ahead
it's all so clean and simple and obvious, right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The write-up is wrong. Now is the time to download ALL the above-mentioned documents, and share them. Let them try to arrest all of us.
...the Mujahedeen Poisons Handbook poisons you!
For 40 dollars it should be. Hey-oh!
And buying a bunch of the books will get you put on the watched list. Remember they now track purchases in the US, and i damned well guarantee they include book titles.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Here is a good one.
This all reminds me of the "pre-crime police" in Phil K Dick's excellent book/movie Minority Report. I'm glad I live in Mexico where you have to do the bad stuff before they get busy.
Zen tips: Pay attention. Don't take it personally. Believe nothing.
.. man was charged as a murderer after they found a human head in his fridge.
I'm living in Canada, and I am clearly not a terrorist. I am a university student. The police seized my laptop about a month ago based on some "Intelligence" they had gathered (somethings I had said that had been taken completely out of context, pretty much a movie quote pertaining to a large body count). They then proceeded to interview some people that had been involved with me over the past few years to gain evidence to support "reasonable cause". Everyone interviewed had stated that I was not the kind of person that would be capable of terrorist activities. They included many of those comments in their request for a search warrant, along with the fact that it would be reasonable to believe I had documents relating to terrorism and a variety of other things. It'll be funny to see how this turns out, especially as I'm studying for a degree in chemistry and have documents that pertain to explosives and other such things (mostly pdfs of my coursebooks). It's becoming a crime to even have a thought about terrorism. Word to the wise don't think if you watch the news, even a brief thought about the subject could cause a huge investigation to be launched against you.
Notice the word might in the sentence you quoted.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Quick google on the list goes:
a hideen_Poisons.pdf
n ade
al-Qaeda Manual = http://www.disastercenter.com/terror/
The Terrorists Handbook = http://www.capricorn.org/~akira/home/terror.html
The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook = http://www.thedisease.net/arcana/nbc/chemical/Muj
Dragunov sniper rifle = http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/manual/english/svd/
and....
RPG = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propelled_gre
I didn't find the handbook though.
The poisons one is quite interesting. Has a poison to make from horse excrement...
^M is newline, you know...
That's right, my friend, you are walking on thin ice at the moment. We'd best start keeping tabs on you, filling our vast databases with data about you, use flawed software to tirelessly, ruthlessly find links between you and terrorist cells in your city, or terrorists who's names begin with the same letter as yours, or whose social security numbers share more than two digits with yours.
Let's not even get into your lack of judgement and your very evident gullibility, which might easily be exploited by terrorists to help them carry out some heinous act. Or by politicians. Whatever.
It's a trap! At that close range we won't last long against those Star Destroyers.
I could be charged with being heterosexual for the pr0n on my hard drive...
you had me at #!
Funny, that crazy meth-proliferation-think-of-the-children-act made it illegal to possess or disseminate any information pertaining to the production of methamphetamine. I hardly see the difference.
"The cops don't just go searching random computers hoping they'll stumble on some terrorist then they can arrest them. "
Are you so sure? Isn't this exactly what the administration was asking for in the most recent inception of the patriot act? Searches without warrants? That's all this is... the police looking around through lots of data on every computer hoping they'll catch some terrorist.
And didn't the president just argue that he has the right to listen to any phone call without a warrant because as commander in chief he answers to no one in the conduct of a "war"?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Just about every machinist I know considers the manufacture of a firearm to be one of the pinnacle tests of skill. Not only must you master the machining element, you must also comprehend the materials and the mechanics to an expert level. Consequently, there are typically discussions about firearms manufacture on the metalworking discussion forums. So if possession of a how-to manual for creating a firearm from scratch constitutes terrorist behavior ... well, you might want to stock up on ammo.
The bottom line is that it's all about the intent. I own a hammer. If I intend to pound nails, there's no issue. It becomes a problem when I intend to pound heads. Possession alone isn't enough, even for potentially objectionable materials. When possession becomes the only criterion, I'd expect to see violence on a large scale.
A civil servant who built home-made bombs in his bedroom has been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence.5 612.stm
He downloaded instructions from the internet and bought chemical ingredients to make the explosives, which he stored at his family home. He also filmed himself creating explosions.
He has since been dismissed from the Home Office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/613
Do I have to delete the new version? All I wanted to do was make a giant inflatable cthulhu, and the instructions on the giant inflatable bear were close.
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
I am in full agreement. If reading this article scares you into deleting your text files, then the tyrants running our governments have won, and the citizens have lost.
Now is the time to download and collect as much information on these subjects as you can. Voice your opinion through your actions. If "We the People" believe, in our so-called democracies, that holding such information shouldn't be a criminal offense, then our governments do not have the right to tell us that it is.
Unless, of course, you all disagree...
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
Well, there are actually places out there for people who wish to learn, like RogueSci - A weapon of mass instruction; for everything else, there's fearmongering and misinformation. Posted Anon.
Aside from the obvious suggestion to simply delete it all -- which amounts to saying I should not read up on my own industry while I'm in the hotel each night on the road -- what are some good cross-platform solutions for encrypting whole sets of data?
Inquiring minds want to know, and google turns up either too much or too little with my fat fingers. At this point, when I'm travelling to places where I might be hassled on my return, I'm tending towards a dummy Windows installation on C: with an an obfuscated and encrypted set of VMware images on a VFAT partition that I load using a bootable CD with Knoppix. Not the best (it keeps the TSA drones at bay) but I'm interested in more elegant and simple solutions.
-J
I think not...(*poof*)
Like wise the other way round, so whom is wrong and right?
Just accept it, the government is a legalized mafia, they are TOP DOG, and sometimes above the law.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Better be careful, carrying lock picks in certain jurisdictions is a crime. Including Washington D.C.
Try this: google for "cia manual"
You find things like:
KUBARK Coercive Questioning - Counterintelligence Interrogation (Torture)
A Study of Assassination (Assassination)
Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (Terrorism)
and so on.
Now, I wonder how much material on her hard-drive came originally from the US?
I am not sticking up for her or for terrorists or for barnyard sodomists, but I do have to wonder about karma.
For fun, you can google for "School of the Americas"
For extra points: go to Wikipaedia and look up "Mujahideen". Look under "Afghan Mujahideen". See who organized, financed, armed and trained them.
Shake your head and marvel at how stupid OUR governments can be.
http://www.truecrypt.org/
On-the fly encryption with mountable volumes. I saw someone else post it a few months back, I picked it up, and it's wonderful.
an arrest requires "probable cause" that a statute has been violated.
I don't know UK law, but as a matter of opinion none of the facts mentioned in the article justifies yanking someone out of their daily life and putting them in jail.
This sort of incident is what motivates privacy advocates. Their reasoning is that the more government knows about you, the more they will misinterpret. Someone in Franco's Spain asked a partially non-evil secret policeman how to avoid getting in trouble. The answer wasn't "do nothing wrong", the answer was "be invisible".
So ... who's going to provide a link to where we can all download said handbooks?
Allegedly, the Mujahadeen Poisons Handbook is somewhere on Hamas' "official web page" but damned if I know what that is. Probably in Arabic anyway.
According to the very entertaining "Allies Against Online Terrorism" blog, it was at one point mirrored on a Yahoo site, but was removed.
So who's going to step up and mirror them, if we should all have a copy, eh?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Admiral Akbar is a Mon Calamari, from the planet Dac."
"But Admiral Akbar lives on Endor. Now think about it: that does NOT MAKE SENSE!"
"If Admiral Akbar lives on Endor, you must aquit!"
"so you're a cop, and this guy is bringing a night vision scope into the country"
You realize they sell those things at Costco, right?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
or find a similar one, if this reference doesn't suit you.
umeboshi@bard:~$ bible ja1:25
James 1
25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed.
umeboshi@bard:~$
Many of us bought these things long before anyone dreamed it would come to this and that we would have to hide our innocent purchases just to protect our rights.. ( im talking 25 + years here, i did mention 'long ago' in my original post )
And the paranoids around here will remind you that there are cameras that record every sales transaction in most any store, and with modern digital facial recognition they can still nail you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Lockpicks also have a tendency to end up confiscated, whether you are actually violating the law or not.
I had one pair confiscated in the airport in California; I was violating no law. CA licenses locksmiths in much the same way as their hairdressers - you can work on your own locks, or your company's locks; however, you cannot get paid to work on the locks of others without a license.
Had a similar incident in Provo, UT. Had some fireworks around the fourth of July (a little more powerful than what might be legal). After a noise complaint, they searched my apartment. No more fireworks, but they took my laptops, lockpicks, rekey sets, etc. as "evidence". (Provo specifically exempts people working on the property of their employer from the relevant statutes).
Got the first one back with an apology. Still working on the rest of it.
Once knowledge becomes a crime, freedom is gone.
Freedom is gone when the fundamental human right to self-ownership is abolished by the organization holding the unique "right" to employ coercion against you (i.e. government). FYI, that happened long before you were born.
Gulps down a glass of water as he swallows the last few pages of the Anarchist's Cookbook... the fool had printed it out!
good .. any body with a rpg manual needs shooting .
come on war craft and guild war's an't that hard to play
Say for just the fun of it have some blueprints for making bombs then on the same table have a postcard with the parliment buildings on it.
So what exactly does it take before it's alright for them to arrest this woman or search her computer? Does she have to have key areas circles in the blueprint and "bomb" written beside them. The equivilent to a note saying she's going to bomb the building? Do they have to wait until she's in the building with a bunch of explosives and lead balls strapped to her back?
Seriously, while I think we should be very wary to differentiate between thoughcrime and actual crime, and I definately think authorities are prone to abusing their power lately, at some point you have to draw the line and accept that the people in question were in fact planning a crime.
I suppose the question is, where do we draw that line? It's a pretty hard one to define really.
I'm sure a handful of other people are posting it as I'm writing this, but here's a link to the Mujahideen Poisons handbook.
Also, the Al-Qaeda Manual (interestingly, this was distributed by the FBI)
The Dragunov sniper rifle manual
No luck searching for the RPG & Firearms handbook.
(If she was implicated in a child pornography ring, and found with lolikon on her PC - I bet you'd be among the first frothing at the mouth to hang her high.)
Do you know the parent poster personally? Who are you to imply that the parents morals are so easily compromised that they would forget their stand on due process and hard evidence just because some hypothetical woman wanted to touch little boys (or girls or monkeys for that matter) in the hoo ha and make them put their mouth in her fish bowl?
For all you know, the parent poster will still demand that due process be followed and that we avoid arresting people for perfectly legal things on their computer.
NB: as far as I know it is perfectly legal to have the documents listed in TFA on your computer.
I can't think how to explain this succinctly. All the nerds in the world can download all the anarchist cookbooks they want, but that isn't going to stop the government from selectively prosecuting only the people they want, and totally ignoring the rest. It's not even like the general public is going to notice what you have on your hard drive, and move to have whatever law changed so that we aren't techincally criminals anymore.
--something witty
Don't forget that. The authorities may charge you with any number of ridiculous things, and they will if it furthers their agenda of getting more money and making their part of the bureaucracy more important.
There are terrorists all around us! Oh, and by the way, we need more money for policemen, more powers of surveilance, more gadgets and don't you complain about this or are you a terror sympathizer?
Seems to me that the 9/11 terorrists have completely reached their goal of removing freedoms in the west and making everybody afraid. The major part of their work was done by the authorities though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I had this discussion a couple years ago, when there was a story about some paranoid woman who thought a group of Middle Eastern musicians who were visiting the airplane bathroom and carrying a McDonalds bag were terrorists. As I wrote then, if you can get past security with bomb materials, there's no reason you would have to make it on the plane. You have access to the terminal bathrooms, and there are no security checks after that. TATP remains a poor candidate because it is extremely unstable, but it's very easy to make. I've seen a laboratory refrigerator door blown off after someone accidentally combined acetone and H2O2 and left it overnight.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
OK, here are the links so they can arrest us all:
_ Poisons.pdf
http://www.disastercenter.com/terror/
http://www.capricorn.org/~akira/home/terror.html
www.thedisease.net/arcana/nbc/chemical/Mujahideen
http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/manual/english/svd/
Seriously, these things have been around for a VERY long time. Perhaps when a book comes out that makes it easy enough for any angry 14 year old kid to bring a city or state to its knees, maybe, but even then I doubt it. OK, so if you have a terrorist who is hell bent on doing something, maybe these books can be helpful to them. But being illegal? Lets get real here.
Be honest, how many of us reading this could write out much better terrorist textbooks if we were to put our mind to it? I know I could, and I am betting that most of us reading this could. As they stand these texts are very poorly thought out, very poorly designed, and not really designed to impliment. That makes them much less dangerous than say a driving manual.
There is a reason why tinfoil hat are a fashion for slashdot reader.
On slashdot the rule is "if it made the news, it must be propaganda to cover something bad. We are all gonna die"
Oh wait, I'm sure TFA knew somebody would say that. That means they propably knew that somebody like you make us believe that there is actually no news, even if it made the news.
Ah Ah!
Well done, but we are too clever ! We know that the poor woman has been arested for illegaly downloading the books
TFA says "Police said among the items on the hard drive found in her possession"
Another Information Freedom Figther arrested ! Will Google save her ?
"the charges against the woman were connected"
That means IP logging on Bittorent.
I'm disgusted at all the money the UK government spend arresting book readers under cover of terrorism law or child protection act. Democracy is indeed dead in the UK!
Calling a chemistry student who admits to working off from second hand reports, and then guessing as to the process involved, and who doesn't have any stated expertise in binary explosives or especially the formulations or processes that may have been developed by real chemists with a background in explosives working for Al Qaeda, an expert is a bit much:
Given the history of peroxide based explosives used in terrorism, I wouldn't want to assume that he was right about the chemical process, the inteded use, and the practicalities of it without a lot more evidence from someone with direct knowledge of all three.
This doesn't even get into the question of his status as a neutral commentator.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If we were all going to perform out acts of protest and civil disobedience quietly from our basements, you would be right.
But who does that?
When you protest you do your best to make sure you are visible. In this case you would do things like distributing fliers and CDs with the forbidden documents. You would let everyone know that you have these things. You would make sure that either the government has to persecute you (and thousands like you) too, or admit their hypocrisy.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Are you trolling? I laughed so hard at your comment, but then it hit me that you might not have been.
A "Republican" form of government has nothing to do with the "Republican" party. A "Republic" is a country with the body politic restrained by laws.
A "Democracy" is a synonym for "mob rule."
A "Democratic Republic" (the United States, Great Britain, et al.) is a system of government where the will of the people is restrained by laws. See the dinner analogy above involving two wolves and a sheep.
A "democracy" is not a "framework of laws" - it simply means majority rule. Forget Bush bashing.
DATABASE WOW WOW
it was "Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad!"
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Digital facial recognition is pretty iffy. You could defeat the current breed by wearing Groucho glasses. Or, hell, probably just sunglasses of any sort.
To the above titles?
This is, however Britain where things like Canada's constitutional right to association aren't necessarily written in stone (or in Canada's case, a really strong piece of blotting paper).
Now, that having been said, I've gone through periods where I've been rather politically active, and some of the people that I've been associated with through various groups have histories that I don't know about. For example, I once had a girlfriend who told me that she once had a boyfriend who was 'wanted for questioning' about some bomb that was set off somewhere. Does that mean that it's suddenly illegal for me to read various controversial texts? Worse yet, would it be illegal for me even if I hadn't known about my ex's ex's history?
If it really is based on simple possession of manuals, I'd say that this arrest is totally bogus. -- but I'm still waiting for the full evidence to come out in a trial.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Years ago I downloaded a bunch of recipes from a Baptist church BBS. Imagine my surprise when I opened up that Cookbook. What a hoot! And I totally agree with previous poster: Good
UK, like the US have become country of fear. They are on hig alert only for there political gain (goverment that is), keeping manuals on a hard drive does not prove that the person in question is going to comitt a terrorist act.
Most of the stuff in the anarchists cookbook is wrong
the rest is laughable. If you want to blow off
a limb doing something stupid, go hunting with
the vice president instead. At least he'll do it right.
If the connection on which she was picked up was a real connection to a real conspiracy to explode real bombs on real planes, then she's entirely different from people with no connections to anything but a copy of _The Anarchist's Cookbook_ floating around their hard drives for amusement.
Enough of this terrorism. Where people spread fear through the media. All some asshole terrorist has to do to earn their paycheck is say "boo", and thousands scurry to repeat it until it really is a scary roar. Download and read your copy of the Cookbook, and even copies of the poison manuals with all your goth and punk friends.
Just don't hurt anyone. And don't give the terrorists any more help by spreading fear or insisting on ignorance. Either one of those earns you 27 virgins in hell: jarhead cops busting down your door to catch you with real evidence, and life in solitary, broken up by occasional "interviews" by overzealous "veterans".
--
make install -not war
I have a box filled with RPG handbooks, and this is the first I've heard of it...
Wait, THAT kind of RPG...the kind with explosions...and no dice...
Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry funny.
Ha Ha! I'm jotting miscellaneously!!1!one!
Those charges are some of the most ridiculous things I've heard in a long time. Basically, they're charging her with possession of information deemed dangerous to people or to the state? So since 2000, no longer do you need to act dangerously, you simply have to know how? No sir, I don't like it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
So... do you know, for certain, that everyone you know, or have exchanged files with or phone messages or mail or time with, is *not* or *will not in the future* be considered a criminal or a terrorist?
Years ago I dated a woman for several months who was arrested (and eventually convicted) as being a courier for a methamphetmine distribution ring a few months after we ceased seeing each other. I had no idea what she was into, but I was visited many times by police officers who grilled me at length as to our relationship - because my phone# was in her cellphone and there were "handwritten documents" - letters, notes, journal entries - in her domicile that had my name on them - and threatened with prison for being "non-cooperative"; my apartment was searched twice, and details of the investigation leaked to local reporters.
I was "associated" with a drug ring, although I had no knowledge nor involvement in it. Fortunately I was cleared without being indicted or subpeoned, but only after several months of random interrogation and very annoying, obvious and aggravating surveillance which cost me reputation and money. Many months later there were still people spreading damaging rumors about me; I eventually moved more than a thousand miles from there, partially for personal reasons, but also because my business dried up to an extent as a result of the attention. One of the things the police threw at me was our intense exchange of phone calls over that short period. They just didn't seem to believe that maybe I was interested in her because she was an attractive woman. I spoke to a local lawyer about it who told me there was no recourse - iow, I couldn't sue the local police department for the damage caused.
I'd like to note that no public statement was ever made by the local PD regarding my innocence, despite repeated demands on the part of me and my lawyer to do so. That, to me, was criminal negligence on the part of the local PD. How many times does one see public apologies for ruining someone's life in that sort of circumstance? IF this woman turns out to have been innocently duped, will she ever recover her life? What recourse might *she* have?
In the US, we have this oft-repeated yet apparently little understood concept called "innnocent until proven guilty". Or at least we used to.
I'm not defending the woman in the article (insufficient data), but I am trying to point out just how damaging baseless allegations can be, especially when made by "authorities" and spread by the media - and if you think that you are immune to it, you might want to reconsider that. It can happen to anyone; don't think you're immune to it simply because you are innocent. People in a society are interconnected, that's why we call it a society. What are you going to do, avoid all connections with other people? There was another sort of damage there - I'm even more paranoid than I used to be when it comes to relationships. Can I sue them for it? Should I? I've been advised against it, as the burden of "proof of damages" would be too difficult. But the damage is very real.
So tell me, friend, where should the line be drawn?
snarked
Good job UK! What ever happened to free speech?
Don't be silly. Just because someone claims they are a Muslim doesn't mean they are automatically follow all the rules. You could also say that assuming a woman is a Christian she should would definitely not be filthy or a whore as well. You could also note that Christians are great neighbors because they won't envy anything of yours, commit adultery, or steal.
Let me give you a hint: the woman is a human being first and foremost. Whether she claims to be a Muslim or Christian (or other religion), she must first reconcile her normal human 'vices.'
I know it is politically correct nowadays to compensate for negative biases against Muslims by providing positive ones. This counteracts the reality in most Muslim countries where most Muslims are no more virtuous than most Christians are in Christian countries. The negative biases aren't generally true nor are the positive biases. This also applies to Buddhists, Jews, etc.
To some degree, this appeal to authority is necessary; humans as social animals require structured social rules [there have been several notable indigenous tribes of which this is not true, but as a general rule it holds]. We are not anarchists at heart.
We live in an age, however, where we've lost the ability to recognize our convenient structural rules from our own abstract concepts - rather than understand that we create rules to make the world easier for ourselves, we instead believe government to be a concrete entity as equally real as any actual object sitting next to us. This leads to blind obedience.. and it is becoming increasingly difficult to go back.
I have not yet decided whether that's a good or bad thing.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Or buy in a local small (used) book store. They can't afford the cameras nor do they want to.
Not all stores record transactions.
qz
The free version is a zip file that turns into a .exe file that won't run on my Mac.
.exe file...
I wonder what magic is in the
qz
You really have to watch them. Once in a while they come up with terrorist handbooks.
Can you claim that as a defense?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
A completely bs post product of a brainwashed user got +5 insightful...
you got a Torrent?
Because we'll all be so depressed we'll need the high that we get from smoking up some baked banana peels.
.
.
.
What do you mean that doesn't work?!
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Especially if you are plotting with terrorists to blow up civilian airliners. Why is this a right's story? Am I supposed to have the right to plot and conspire to kill innocent human beings because of my belief in a omnipresent invisible guy that lives in the clouds and the devotion to his previous prophet on Earth that liked to marry 9 year old girls?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Britain has become the showcase of how to facilitate big brother socialism. They have more cameras per capita than any other country I know of and plan on adding more and to add microphones and loudspeakers to them. Civil rights have been abrogated to the point of non-existence. I didn't know how close to current times the movie V for Vendetta was. This is normal for the UK, after WWII the government completely disarmed the populace and were well on the way to this state until WWII interupted. They did rally and win in the face of crushing odds. I don't think that the modern British citizen is capable of that amount of fortitude anymore. I feel this way mostly because the elimination of their rights has went with mostly a whimper.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
You are right. That would work, and I wasn't trying to say anything different.
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
I hear through various channels that the next manual release is to be titled 'Booby-trapping PCs against government searches'.
IED... Carbomb... Bicycle bomb, but who's ever heard of a PC bomb?
'Invalid password, bitch'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism Guilt by association
Anyone notice that the email address of Terror Alert Brown is terror@sony.com? Maybe I should be rootkit@sony.com...
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
She was not arrested for having the files on her computer, there was other evidence linking her to the illegal activities. The files were just another nail in her coffin!
I'm worried.... How long till they come and arrest Kevin Bacon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_ Bacon
If they ban these books will the nice law abiding terrorists all hand their copy's in? *cough* Just like John Howards gun buyback in Australia all the bad guys were lined up around the block to give their guns back to the police. lol
How about the Mac OS bomb?
I have the Anarchist Cookbook that I bought with my debit card on purpose to make it onto some secret FBI black list. I think it would be hilarious if they came and talked to me, what a waist of there time that would be. Rebel against the republican scare tactics please! LONG LIVE FREE SPEECH!
Maybe I have the same files on my computer, but they are save there. Protected by a strong hard drive encryption. What a pity for whoever wants to prove that I would have them.... :-)
Double plus ungood, comrade. Better to have digital book burnings, everybody press the DEL key at an appointed hour. Then we'll all be safe.
Repeat after me: The Freedom WE Want Is the FREEDOM FROM JUSTICE!
Obviously it is time to ban the Internet and the World Wide Web since the information is readily available via your nearest web browser and Internet connection. Think of the children!
Haha, that's the best idea i've heard in a while! Share them as PDF files over P2P.
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Of course people are interconnected, but it works both ways. Criminals have a lot of connections with other people and the police has no possibility of investigating them all. They have to choose who are the most likely suspects, given the facts they know.
In your case, it seems that you had a rather close relationship with a criminal, by your own account you seem a likely suspect to me. How can you date a criminal for several months without realizing something is wrong? From what you have written, I don't feel the police owns you any apology, they were just doing their job. I don't think the police has the duty to make any public statements on the innocence of the people they investigate, after all the law states that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
Think of the ultimate consequences if it were assumed that the police could be prosecuted for investigating innocent people, justice would be entirely paralyzed. I know this because I live in Brazil, a country where personal honor is given as much protection under the constitution as freedom of expression. The consequence is that corruption is rampant here, it's very hard for anyone, be it the police or a journalist, to investigate anyone. Publish any damaging evidence and you are sued for "defamation", because you cannot make accusations against innocent people. They are innocent until proven guilty, therefore their right to personal honor trumps your liberty of expression.
I don't know enough details about her case, but consider this extract from the UK Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000
58. - (1) A person commits an offence if-
(a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.
(2) In this section "record" includes a photographic or electronic record.
(3) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.
So if you have some of this stuff (could be almost anything), be prepared to PROVE you have a reasonable excuse for holding it! The burden of proof is on you.
And they call(ed) it a free country..
"Are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation"
"I thought you wanted to buy me a drink..?"
You'll stay single a LOOONG time like that.
PS The police alleged and didn't then say "sorry, he's clear". They should.
Hold on, but if the government loses this one, what exactley have we won? Getting shot in the street? Poisoned by our next meal? Freedom is nothing without security. And I'm certain they'll have more to go on that just the contents of her computer, the compter contents just coroborates their findings.
The write-up is wrong. Now is the time to download ALL the above-mentioned documents, and share them. Let them try to arrest all of us.
I think it is safe to say you missed the essential elements of what happened, so lets recap what we know from the news:
The arrested was Samina Malik, 22, an Asian woman who allegedly was working or had worked at Heathrow airport as a shop assistant. (Could she have been an insider at a juicy target for terrorists?) She has been charged with four offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Malik was allegedly associated with Sohail Anjum Qureshi, previously charged as part of the same investigation. How was he nabbed? It is alleged that on 18 October he was plotting to go to Pakistan (well known as home to various terrorist organizations, training camps, and the gateway to Afghanistan)(groups in Pakistan have been tied to a number of attacks planned against the UK) taking with him, among other things:
-Camping equipment
-£9,000 cash
-A night vision scope
-The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook
-Two metal batons
-Combat manuals
It is alleged that was taking terrorist materials to Islamabad..
Investigators then followed the trail from Anjum, back to Malik. Allegedly, she had a number of publications on her computer from what look to be a narrow range of interests:
The al-Qaeda Manual,
The Terrorists Handbook
The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook
How To Win Hand-To-Hand Fighting
The Firearms and RPG Handbook
Dragunov sniper rifle manual
9mm pistol manual
Anti-tank mine manual
(Fascinating reading for a 22 year old woman, isn't it? Do you think her goal was to be the life of the party?)
She was allegedly filling a writing pad full of handwritten notes, which led to one of the charges against her. (Any bets about what those notes were about? Hmmmm... Heathrow... Pakistan... Al Qaeda....)
No doubt there are other aspects of this that we don't know about. As it is, you have to scour several news reports to get this much.
Woman charged in terror investigation
Female terror book suspect in the dock
Airport worker on terror handbook charges is remanded
Woman charged under UK terrorism act
Too many terrorist plots to name, say MI5
Woman charged under anti-terror laws
Now, I very much doubt that she is in trouble simply for having those document in and of themselves. What is likely the case is that it is the combination of what she was doing, involving herself with some sort of terrorist cell, AND having those documents. That is trouble in the same sense that having a crowbar in the garage means you have a crowbar in your garage, whereas having a crowbar in your hands at 3:00 AM in back of somebody's house in the next town over means you have a burglar tool, which will make you subject to heavy penalties.
I doubt that the authorities have much interest in trying to arrest people for simply having those publications. Everything I've seen seems to indicate that their hands are more than full simply trying to cope with the small percentage of people that both have those publications and are trying to use them in attempts to kill large numbers of people. You may also want to keep in mind that the more false signals you generate, the less effective the police will be in tracking down those who are trying to kill you for being, take your pick: an infidel, British
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
..between Ayatollah Khomeini (former Iranian) regime and British one. In some islamic countries the possesion of Rushdie's Satanic Verses leads to serious legal troubles inc. inprisonment etc. In UK, the possesion of so-called "terrorist materials" leads to the some...
All with the nice side effect of slashdotting terrorist sites...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
...the Temple of the Screaming Electron was destroyed in an airstrike earlier this morning.
Sorry, but you seem to miss the other point: Freedom is also for people thet disagree with you, or think about committing a crime against you. Most attempts at crime are not illegal in itself, and the ones that are (attempted murder etc.) require that you actually do much more than reading a few books or having the wrong friends. However bad her toughts are, she (and anybody else) is free to think them.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
yes, exactly. I was a little shocked to see this in the summary:
Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive.
No, that's what they want you to do. This is manipulation through fear - a hallmark of 'terrorism'.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
>If you're really worried about binary explosives, why make them pour the containers into the same bin, in front of what could be hundreds of people?
Detonating them in an airport, a relatively large and open space, is still much less dangerous then on an airplane in flight.
This is normal for the UK, after WWII the government completely disarmed the populace and were well on the way to this state until WWII interupted.
Surely you mean,
This is normal for the UK, after WWI the government completely disarmed the populace and were well on the way to this state until WWII interupted.
WWI instead of WWII?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Do you know that shiite can marry for a predeterminated time?
Something like a night or so.
Add to the fact that the bride will receive money from the husband before they marry.
Mohammed invented this so widows could earn a living.
Interested people can Google for more infos.
There is no guarantee that such files might not be uploaded to someone's computer through the use of trojan.
Many of us among here know that this can be done.
Read radical news here
Mujahideen Poisons Handbooks don't kill people; Mujahideen kill people.
You should see what's on the typical novelist's hard drive, and in their bookcase.
because I've got all the equipment to carry that out.
>If possessing certain types of knowledge becomes illegal in and of itself,
>that's when we'll need the Anarchist's Cookbook the most.
Yeah, especially when most of these documents are freely available through g**g**!
Have you ever read the V for Vendetta graphic novel ? I read it recently and the thing that scared the living crap out of me was the authors' introductions. They were written in the late 80's / early 90's and they were scared of the government at that time. I would hate to see what they think of the place now :(
Quite so, as is carrying (key word: "carrying") generic tools (prybar, box cutter, etc.) that can be construed as "burglary tools" purely depending on the context in which they are found.
On the other hand, if I have that stuff and other tools in my wrecker (I do), it is normal and reasonable to have them for doing lockouts or other vehicle-recovery tasks.
I'f I'm diddy-bopping down a dark street at 0300 with that same stuff hidden under my hoodie, the police understandably view things in a different light.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Well this is no more illegal than having a copy of America's Army.
Seems like muslim people are second class citizens in UK.
A witch-hunt.
In this era of erosion of human rights in USA, UK but also other countries, this is what government is able to use to be effective against terrorists. Democracy, privacy, personal rights, right of free speech - are just a myth. No country ever really allowed this (maybe not even ancient Greece in that brief democracy period).
To lower the margin by which attacker can avoid being discovered, U.K. just put anyone remotely being suspect in jail. This woman is probably only a symphatiser. These days you obviously aren't allowed to be one, as government and courts are very effective at eliminating your ability to be loud (with a pretext of "hate speech" and similar carefully crafted and obviously misused instruments).
Now protesters in UK should start wearing shirts with al quaida manual and weapon manuals printed, that's the way how government can be pressured to back off at least in this case.
However, the restrictions on carryon luggage didn't seem to be solving any actual security problem and don't really seem intended to.
The whole idea of a suicide terrorist blowing up an airplane from the inside is ABSURD anyway. If you want to take down a plane and you don't care if you live or die, just get a goddamn rocket launcher and stand right outside the airport, and blow up the plane right as it takes off. How fucking hard is that?
Maybe DHS will come knocking on my door tomorrow... I spoke aloud a completely obvious plan any moron could accomplish but yet somehow the "dangerous" terrorists haven't figured out yet. Clearly I am an enemy of the state.
i dont understand why is saying allahu akbar funny?
and yes i am a muslim.
furthermore, where does the article say she is a muslim? maybe she is an ira (irish republican army o ignoramus) operative who is planning to kidnap the prince of wales (watch the patriot since u seem such an ignoramus!)
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
Bush has tanks, guns, planes, bombs and a million men and women in uniform. Osama has maybe a few thousand guys with TATP and box cutters.
Bush has a budget of many trillions of dollars. Osama has maybe a few million.
Bush has thousands of nuclear weapons. Osama has none.
Bush can call up the draft. Osama can't.
Bush can comb through our financial records, find out what library books we've been reading, and search our homes and our hard drives. Osama can't.
Bush can throw us in the slammer, take away our bank accounts and our homes, and make life a living hell for ourselves and everyone around us. Osama can only kill a few of us now and then.
On fanaticism, though, I'll have to give the edge to Osama. At least his followers are willing to step up and go kill some enemies, rather than prattling about the rightness of their cause from behind a keyboard.
Yes, terrorism is a threat. But repressive government is a far greater threat. Somehow the wingnuts seem to remember that when they talk of Saddam, but forget it when they talk of Bush.
There is no safety without liberty. Any government powerful enough to protect you from every possible threat, whether it's terrorists or common street muggers, is also powerful enough to become a far greater threat than terrorists or muggers can ever be. Give me liberty or give me death.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
When a religion arises it generally has a set of beliefs that matches well those of the original followers. In traditional cultures this generally has been informal economics, among other things. As long as the environment doesn't change very much, most people who follow the religion follow it "reasonably well".
When the religion is taken over by a non-visionary leader, or by a bureaucracy, it tends to adopt rules designed mainly to increase it's power. At this point the rules change to the advantage of the leadership. Generally the form this follows is "Everybody should be guilty!", so rules are passed that people find impossible to follow. From this point on your arguments are valid.
N.B.: Frequently one of the purposes of the original religion is to split the tribe in half, so that it will occupy two fields rather than one. Unfortunately, this doesn't work very well when you have neighbors on all sides, but it seems to be instinctive rather than reasoned.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
However, if your main concern is disruption rather than maximum deaths, detonating explosives in a major airport (particularly at a bottleneck - say, at security when they start asking awkward questions like "What's in the bag?" - would do a fine job.
Paritularly in a country where there aren't very many international airports and the biggest and most obvious target is right on the junction of two major motorways. You won't damage the motorways, but you'll cause tailbacks and disruption that lasts for hours.
The whole hate speech bit is a two sided blade, as if was first used by the muslims in the UK to shut up every other side of the argument. Same with every other country where it was instituted, now that it's coming back to bite them in the ass I'm not surprised.
Except, they would only prosecute if you went out of your way to contact terrorist groups and share you information, in which case they could easily pick you up for it. Big difference between that and just distributing shit on the street.
They disarmed the populace after WWI because of this they had no long arms for home defense at the onset of WWII. US citizens responded by sending them what personal arms we had for their home defense. After WWII these donated guns became rebar and they again disarmed the populace.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I'd like to read them and will at some point. I've read several different books on the subject going all the way back to Robert Heinlein's revolt in 2010. Some are factual with speculation, some are fiction with some fact.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Ghandi beat the Brits by suffering and making headlines. Innocents suffering creates bad press for the government and if too many reports stack the populace turns against the government, step by step. If the government doesn't step down that escalates until you have a revolution. Usually it steps down before that in a democratic country since falsifying elections can only carry you so far before the people notice you're just faking it and get REALLY angry. Of course it won't get that far in the US, at most Bush gets impeached but it'll probably just end with the next president being a Democrat and being forced to scale back on these actions if he wants to be reelected.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
FYIF... Whilst it is true that an [approximately equal to] 10 year old version of TACB was bundled with an IP logging trojan; and that peoples in the USA and Europe who had an IP in connection with the book were tracked until last April, it is widely recognised that the book no longer poses a security threat to potential readers.
JICYDK (Just In Case You Didn't Know)
What got her into trouble wasn't reading books or playing video games, it was allegedly engaging in terrorist plotting with a cell of like minded people with large sums of cash and night vision scopes, who traveled to areas known as terrorist havens while carrying terrorist training material, and who had an interest in bombs, poison, and weapons.
Being Muslim had nothing to do with her getting into trouble, although it was very likely the source of her inspiration to engage in terrorist activities.
Muslims are no more second class citizens in the UK than the Welsh,
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
As an example, I'd point out the UK's capture of 'terrorists' planning to make a liquid bomb and smuggle it onto a plane. These cluefucks didn't have passports, didn't have materials to make said bomb, and said plot is in fact technically implausible
I'm afraid I have to agree with this comment. The Second Amendment in the United States says that it's legal, under some circumstances, to own a Dragunov. The First Amendment says that it's legal, under some circumstances, to publish and own information like those in these books. The Constitution, with it's Amendments, is the document giving our government legitimacy. Should these items become illegal, there will be no legitimate government to enforce that. And there will be a totalitarian state to resist.
It never happened that way, according to the BBC. Good story though.
I for one welcome our new terrorist over...*pchhhcchcchhh*
On an unrelated topic, how do you write the sound that an explosion makes?
Have you spoken with any brit about the state of affairs there? It didn't go that way with a whimper, it went that way with applause. Everybody I've spoken to will rabidly defend the disarmament, surveillance, and police activities to the last bit. The UK is more of an example of how to move into a totalitarian society with the blessings of the citizenry.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
No, the major part was done by the masterminds.
The footwork was done by the terrorists in politics.
Yeah, impure meth is easy to make via imprecise 'recipe' chemistry and the knowledge therefore easily communicated by word of mouth etc. The only major obstacle is obtaining precusors for larger scale operations (and being prepared to do something insanely illegal, of course.) Trying to ban distribution of the methods is impossible and won't solve the problem; it does however give the cops something else to charge some meth ringers with and makes politicians look like they're doing something.
They should look at MY hard drive - got nuclear weapons plans there from Cryptome just last week! Not to mention every military weapons and improvised weapons and explosives manual and hacker book there is.
Bwahahahaha!!
And with MY background, they REALLY would be concerned.
Of course, I'm white and not Muslim...
When I got arrested for armed bank robbery back in 1993, the judge was provided copies of papers from my room. He didn't know whether to poop or go blind. All he could say was that he didn't think some of the stuff there was possible.
He was wrong. Someday somebody somewhere (other than me) will prove him wrong.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Dirka dirk? Dirka dirka dirk dirka!!
If you must!
And by a better life you mean being arrested for reading books? She is probably thinking she was better off in her native country where at least she knew what she wasn't allowed to do. Not in a country that claims she is free to read what ever she want then arrest her for it. Besides how is reading or being in the possession of those books showing ingratitude to the country she is in. Maybe she simply wants to educate herself about terrorist tactic so that she can more readily identify and report them to the police?
I myself have downloaded and partially read some of these books and similar books out of sheer interest.
I'm sure there is more to this story than we are getting, and that the official that arrested her probably have a half way decent reason for arresting her. If they were in the habit of arresting anyone who had downloaded or shared those books via a peer to peer network then they would seriously have their hands full arresting thousands of people.
If you must!
I wish they would just outlaw all books. And reading for that matter. Really, I mean, it's just a tool the terrorists use to destroy our freedom. It's not like I NEED to read anything, I can get any book I need on tape, or better yet, made into a TV movie. I'd much rather watch it on TV anyway. People who read are usually just nerds that think they know more than everybody else. I'm sick of all you smarty-pants anyway. Let's ban reeding! Save Freedom! Save Democracy!
Big-brother fascism perhaps, but not socialism. Socialism is an economic policy, and certainly cannot work when one's government violates one's civil liberties in this way. I really hate it when people confuse the two because of certain tyrannical governments that call themselves communists or socialists.
Shit, if the Lesbian Liberation Army ever strikes, I'm a prime suspect. I've got images of all their members.
Rick
Come on man. The police have the responsibility to stop a major crime from happening. If they didn't you'd be crying conspiracy. I know you're trolling cause you've always been a troll here.
But for someone to mod you up....
I have a similar reading list but I'm not collaborating with people who are planning to or have blown anything up.
Plus I'm just too damn lazy to bother building a bomb, even for fun and profit.
And that, my friend, is good(tm). I, for one, look forward to a new generation of brits who know everything there is to know about Big Brother. This education will be dearly paid, unfortunately.
Otoh, how ironic, that the descendants of the people who stood up to Hitler are supporting the introduction of a police state even more draconic than his.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
How many are going to go on trial, and how many might be convicted? From the mouth of the Home Office themselves:
Between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2004, were 701 arrests in the UK under the Terrorism Act.
But only 119 of these had faced charges under this legislation, with 45 of them also being charged for other offences.
A further 135 people were charged under other legislation - including terrorist offences covered in other criminal law, such as the use of explosives.
Only 17 have been convicted of offences under the Act.
Some interesting counterpoint reading at http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_ uk_terror_p.html from Craig Murray, Britain's Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan...