Slashdot Mirror
UK Academics Arrested For Researching al-Qaida
D Afifi writes "Two political researchers at the University of Nottingham, in the UK, have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for downloading Al-Qaida material from a US government website. The material was to be used for research in terrorist tactics. There has been a huge public outcry, with university staff planning a march to demonstrate against the attack on academic freedom. Yet, one of the students, an Algerian, is still held in custody under immigration charges and is being fast-tracked for deportation."
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
And what is that reason? Seriously, have you ever had to carry a Green Card? Because I have. For years I was told that anytime I left the country I could be denied entry for just about any reason, owing to the fact that I was really only allowed to stay here at the pleasure of Uncle Sam. Then I had to spend thousands of dollars and be fingerprinted, photographed, investigated, and grilled by examiners before I could become a U.S. citizen. What did you ever have to do to earn the right to come and go as you please, or to vote? What makes you better than me?
The whole business is nonsense. And when you hear firsthand stories of people whose families were broken up by ridiculous immigration policies enforced by xenophobic zealots in the name of "patriotism," or "protecting our jobs," or "failure to learn our language," or whatever the excuse is this week, the situation starts to look considerably less cut-and-dried than you make it out to be.
True, there are "perfectly legal" ways to get into a country, just like there are "perfectly legal" was to buy a Ferrari, or run for President. That doesn't mean those options are open to everybody. Plus, the mere fact that this guy is pursuing an advanced degree at university should be proof enough that the "stealing our jobs" excuse doesn't apply in this case. Your kneejerk obeisance to immigration policy on the mere basis that "it's policy, ergo we follow it" is just another way of distracting attention from your own need to protect your position of privilege.
Breakfast served all day!
Two details should be considered before judging the situation and blaming random people:
This is a gross mistake anyway, but it's a quite a bit less 1984-ish than one might think from the summary.
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
OK, I'll bite. Here is the 1998 letter sent to President Clinton urging the removal of Saddam Hussein. Check out the second paragraph:
Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.Three years before 9/11 occurred Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others were pushing to topple Saddam Hussein to protect the oil supply. WMDs are mentioned, but the primary context is stability in the Middle East and access to oil.
So yes, bad intelligence played a part. If there wasn't oil involved, I doubt the US would have used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. Do you really think these guys care about "our moderate Arab allies" and Israel?
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
From the second paragraph of TFA: Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics. Please read the source material and comment afterward. If your opinion differs, please provide relevant citations supporting your position.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Maybe in the central US we get a different class of immigrants than those Britain deals with -- but the folks I meet here are smart, hard-working, well-educated, practical people more interested in good lives for themselves and their families than ideology from back home. That's because US immigration policy is more rational. You can get into the US if you have a job offer. UK immigration is a mess. It's very hard to get in legally if you have a job offer. If you enter illegally you're unlikely to get caught. If do get caught you can 'claim asylum'. But asylum seekers can't legally work. So you end up with lots of illegals and lots of unemployed asylum seekers living on benefits. Sweden is even worse - asylum seekers can easily spend their whole lives on benefits and benefits are much more generous.
So the net result is that in the UK and Sweden you have lots of people who are essentially disconnected from society. In that sort of environment it's not surprising that some of them fall for the lie that Britain would be better under Shariah law.
Some UK muslims were actually captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban and they told the British soldiers who caught them that they would go back to the UK and claim benefits.
But people that are willing to use violence to replace liberal democracy with a far harsher system are 'cultural enemies'. Back in World War II British citizens who even made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis were executed for treason. Certainly I think people who are willing to use or even threaten to use force to overthrow democracy are traitors.
But I'd change the immigration system too to try to attract more pro Western immigrants.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Still is a terrorist here I believe. I saw on TV the other week that the U.S. government is working on that so Mandela can accept an award this summer. But then a CATHOLIC college in St. Paul, Minnesota took back its invitation to ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu to speak last year because he was too "controversial". That's what it's like in the U.S. today.
(A month later that college received the largest single individual donation of any college in state history. Evil has it's rewards.)
Please RTFA. They were arrested under terror legislation, then the charges were dropped. They aren't being prosecuted under terror legislation.
However, it looks like during the investigation, the police discovered that one of them was an illegal immigrant. He is being deported for this.
Now he may or may not be here illegally, and he should definitely get the chance to defend himself before being deported, but please get your facts straight. Nobody is being prosecuted under terror legislation.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Then don't travel to US or through US via plane or you'll end up in Gitmo or worse. And RCMP may "find" some extra info on you to make sure that happens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar
True story.
Here it is in 3 common english translations :
...
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/008.qmt.html#008.055
Here are the (primary) rules specified for interpreting said statement. They are quite clear :
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/003.qmt.html#003.007
Needless to say the 8:55 statement is not allegorical (check for yourself and compare, for example, with the later chapters). So the verse is "of fundamental meaning" "clear" and "decisive". In any interpretation it is forbidden to go seek "hidden meanings", nor is any indirection allowed.
Here is one of the official "guides" for interpreting said statement. It, again, does not lack in clarity :
http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=8&tid=20426
"Allah states here that the worst moving creatures on the face of the earth are those who disbelieve, who do not embrace the faith, and break promises whenever they make a covenant, even when they vow to keep them,"
(this is later further elaborated to mean that peace treaties between muslims and non-muslims have exactly 1 purpose : deception of the non-muslims, allowing the muslims to become militarily stronger, with the further stipulation that regardless of any treaty, every 10 years there must be at least 1 attack, no matter what it may cost the muslims. There can never be peace. Only temporary (max 10 years) cessation of hostilities)
("islam" means "opression" in the military sense, meaning it is enforced, not voluntary, so that it has stuff like this is hardly surprising, generally "submission" is taken as a translation, but it does not refer to the speaker (that would be istaslam if it is militarily enforced, or astaslam if it is done freely), but to a third party, nor does it mean peace (which is salaam). It means actively making others submit (by the practice of "hisbah" for example), not submitting yourself, like in Christianity)