Students Downloading Jihadist Material Acquitted

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Five UK students who were charged under the UK's 2000 Terrorism Act for possession of jihadist materials were acquitted after the jury found that, while they had downloaded the materials, there was no evidence that they were planning any sort of crime. The Lord Chief Justice was quoted as saying, 'Difficult questions of interpretation have been raised in this case by the attempt by the prosecution to use [this law] for a purpose for which it was not intended.'"

Comments

How novel

[AP2k]

A judiciary.... adhereing to the spirit of the law. Brilliant!

Well, they are just students, after all.

[that this is not und]

It might seem like flamebait to say this, but people in their student years are always trying different things out. It's hard for older people to take them seriously sometimes, but that's how its always been.

I remember those days, far back in the distance. As a young campus radical, I remember the way the older, more seasoned off-campus radicals would look at us, with our newfound enthusiasm, and willingness to embrace any new idea. No slogan, no campaign is too outlandish when you're young and inexperienced.

Grumpy older people need to give those younger than themselves some slack. Hell, if the world took every angry-young-man at face value, we'd ALL be in jail.

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[anagama]

I saw Bush and Cheney on youtube once. So that makes two for me.

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[dindi]

I agree 100% .... never used a blue/red/black/whatever color phreaking box, still owned the manual because I was interested (would never have worked in Europe anyways). Never was a social democrat, still downloaded Mein Kampf to own it, read it, understand a different point of view. Also owned the terrorists' handbook to obtain interesting information. Do I want to blow stuff up? Well. maybe coke cans in myh backyard, but definetely not US soldiers or the president. Still as a learning person I THINK knowing how to make a bomb, how to shoot a rifle or how to pick a lock might come handy. Hey could even save my life.

Would I download jihadist material? Well, maybe it would not come too much handy, but it is definitely interesting. Hey it could even save your (or others lives).

This is censorship. Wrong censorship. People download stuff available to download. Whatever it is. Video, text file, program ...... just see more of this world. They should explain it why it is wrong, not forbid to see an other point of view at all.

just my 2c .....

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[FooAtWFU]

This is the UK. I have three letters for you, and they don't stand for Individual Retirement Account.

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[riggah]

Seriously?

Isn't "terrorist" the new "communist?" It's the new boogey-man word designed to scare everyone into complacency while we cower in our homes and allow things like warrantless wire-tapping to occur.

But I'm getting off topic. America was founded by "terrorists." As was any country who's government was established by any revolution, civil war, or coup; they were all started by a few "terrorists" (with few exceptions, I suppose).

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[Mathinker]

> Typing in "age of suicide bombers" into ...

The point of the reply (which you missed) was that you should rather have typed in "frequency of suicide bombing".

And of all of those not so frequent suicide bombings, exactly one attack has had significant economic impact, and that was 9/11. The efficient way to have prevented 9/11's economic impact would have been to have had locked cockpit doors, not to fantasize that it is possible (and desirable) to make the world into a police state where no one has access to "jihadist materials" (the fantasy being the lack of access, of course).

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[riggah]

First off, my point was that both words are simply being used to induce fear; "terrorist" to justify the stripping of civil liberties in the interest of "security", and "communist" as a rationale for nuclear proliferation and a huge military-industrial complex. Both are "boogey-man" words in the sense that they are being used to induce fear and complacency in the American public. I wasn't commenting on the technical, idealogical, or philosophical meaning of either; I was commenting on their use as propaganda in the US to sway public opinion.

Second, if you want to get technical, before the USA became the USA it was a group of British colonies. A few men within those colonies took up arms and committed acts that could be loosely defined as terrorism before the movement became a revolution and the colonies declared independence. The British would've called them terrorists at the time, not revolutionaries. Again, propaganda is far removed from fact.

Your points are all valid and I agree with you, but I think you misconstrued the point I was making (or I wasn't very clear about it). Well... I agree with you for the most part, but I will say that someone like Stalin used Communism as an excuse for Totalitarianism; Communism was ruined as soon as Humans got involved.

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[jdfox]

The GP poster was making a subtle political point. Of course the founding fathers of the US weren't terrorists. But under the definitions of the present US government, they would indeed be classified as such. Resistance groups fighting uniformed militaries are routinely described as "terrorists" by the US State and Defense Departments, even though the nearly-universally accepted definition of terrorism is the act of using violence or the threat of violence against civilians for political ends.

Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, declared a wide range of non-violent groups to be terrorist threats to the United States, including Reclaim The Streets, Carnival Against Capitalism, and others. Never mind about the distinction between violence against civilians, and violence against uniformed troops: the FBI has gone on record to declare that Dancing Is Terrorism.

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[Skrynesaver]

Indeed they did, they addressed the legitimate grievances of the community the terrorists were drawn from. Essentially meeting the demands of the civil rights movement of 1968. This provided a settlement that the more effective members of the IRA could live with and while there remain a number of dissident terrorist groups they essentially a bunch of tossers as opposed to PIRA who were a genuinely capable group.

While it took 30 years for Britain to realise that they could undermine the whole terrorism nonsense by removing the underlying reasons. Of course eliminating the bogeyman by addressing legitimate Arab grievances and addressing other issues constructively might not be in the US's best interests at the moment. Having the second largest oil reserves in the world as a US military base on the other hand might be useful in the medium to long term. Just a question of what the priorities are I guess

Re:Well, they are just students, after all.

[jdfox]

>This reads to me that any violent act meant to coerce a populous or government would be considered terrorism. That sounds like a reasonable definition.

I respectfully submit that while your intentions may be the very best in arriving at this concise definition, in practice the terms "violent act" and "coerce" are too ambiguous and subject to political manipulation in the public media to be of use here.

>The colonial rebels did nothing of the sort. They declared their independence from the crown by writing a letter, and Britain responded in force, as they deemed it was their right to do. War was waged, and the colonies were victorious.

It didn't stop at letter writing. The letter writing itself may not have been considered "terrorism" under present definitions, but the armed resistance certainly would have. The Zapatistas in Mexico also wrote letters to the Mexican state declaring their independence, after which they took up arms against the state. The Bush government has declared them to be "terrorists". Would you agree? If the Zapatistas are victorious, and obtain their autonomy, will they no longer be terrorists?

Menachem Begin was a member of the Irgun resistance group in pre-1948 Palestine. But after Israel's statehood was recognised and he signed a peace treaty with a neighboring country, he was granted the Nobel Peace Prize. Was he a terrorist? Did he stop being a terrorist once Israel was granted independence?

The distinction between terrorism and freedom-fighting is not semantics and word games. It's one of the most important political issues of our time, and defies all attempts to wave it away.

Re:Mirror?

[Brian Gordon]

the government can't catch you as long as you use a foreign-based prox-- brb door

Student or not...

[Etherwalk]

If I go to a white supremacist web site, that doesn't necessarily mean I endorse their views. Even if I download their materials it doesn't--maybe I just find it disgusting and want to show it to someone who won't believe it's as bad as it is. Maybe I want to study it and figure out something about the psychology of the people involved. The same thing applies to terrorism, and... well, pretty much anything a student reads, or any person reads. *Reading* should not be a crime, with the possible exception of some classified/secret documents... whose classification is beyond the scope of this paragraph. =)

Re:Excuses, excuses...

[nagora]

These guys were caught because one of them wrote a "bye, I'm going to fight for Allah" note to his parents. He promised to engage in conventional warfare (as opposed to domestic terrorism).

Well, not to support religious nutters of any persuasion, but if he had written "I'm off to fight for Christ, but only in conventional warfare somewhere Christians are being oppressed and killed" would anybody even bat an eyelid? Even less so: if they'd said they were going to Israel to fight for the preservation of the Jewish homeland?

Probably the best solution would be to put anyone espousing religious ideas into a mental hospital until they get better.

TWW

Frosted Butts

[TurinPT]

Bottle Bomb

Ingredients:

* 20 oz soda bottle (empty and dry on the inside)
* black powder (the more fine the better)
* steady burning long wick (at least 15 seconds delay) Instructions:

o Poke a small hole in the cap of the soda bottle.
o Pour a small amount of black powder into the bottle (just enough to cover the bottom with a thin layer, but totally covered, no empty spots on the bottom).
o Insert wick into the cap about halfway and put a bend in the wick.
Note: Be careful not to break the wick or it will shorten it causing possibly disastrous results.
o Screw the cap on the bottle tightly and set somewhere so that it is standing up.
o Light the fuse and get back about 30 feet. Watch the bottle to light up orange. The second after this happens the bottle blows up.

How it works:
The fuse drops onto the layer of black powder in the bottom of the bottle after it burns through the hole. The wick ignites the powder causing it to burn. This builds up pressure inside the bottle causing it to explode.
I have seen these fly up to 25 feet. You can try experimenting with different size bottles or, try a glass bottle with a metal cap if you have steel balls!!! Note- I'm not sure it has enough pressure to blow a glass bottle apart. It may just act like a rocket engine and flare.


There. Now were all criminals.

Re:Islamofascists are the new Communists

[riggah]

My point is about the way the word is used. The word "communist" was used to induce fear and justify a war economy just the way the word "terrorist" is being used now to justify a war machine and domestic surveillance.

History is written by the victorious; I'm sure similar words were used to describe the founding fathers as they threw tea into a harbor. You're absolutely correct in your definition of both words, but I was simply stating that "terrorist" is the new catch-word that has America rolling over and giving away its civil liberties in the the name of security.

Re:Free speech in the UK?

[kamapuaa]

If you're trying to use history to sound smart and add gravitas to your argument, you shouldn't be so entirely ignorant and incorrect about it. Athens didn't go bankrupt from wars before the Peloponnesian War (which I assume you were referring to), it led an economic league that was at the height of its powers and ruled Mediterranean trade. Wu didn't go bankrupt, perhaps you were thinking of the Shu kingdom but more likely you were talking out of your ass, anyway the country was invaded many years after repeatedly defending itself from invasion, and was clearly the least offensive of the three kingdoms, and probably the most economically successful.

Alexander the Great & Genghis Khan didn't just have delusions of power that poetically "slipped through their fingers"- they each ruled huge, expanding empires at the time of their deaths. Genghis Khan's descendants went on to rule what would become the largest empire ever.