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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."
Sweet, now there are even more kinds of "illegal data" out there.
Under-age porn, "terrorist" material, DRM removing software, MAFIAA products, etc...
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
All this means is ...... WTF????
Information hosted on a US government website? That is forbidden material? Entrapment anyone? How about err... uhhh... holy fuck!
So the UK government noticed this material being downloaded and never looked at where it came from? WTF? Is the US Government now hosting terrorism inciting materials for the internets?
This, I truly hope, leaves buckets full of egg and chicken shit on the faces of some government employee types.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
There are 2 issues here that I can tell.
;) ) therefore should not be treated as a terrorist.
:p
#1 Arrest under Terrorism act for having al-Qaida-related material.
#2 Immigration charges and subsequent deportation.
The two are related insofar as discovering 1 resulted in 2.
#2, the illegal immigration, *should* result in deportation - he is perfectly able to make a claim on humanitarian grounds or claim asylum. The fact remains that illegal immigrants should be deported.
#1 should be approached as:
a) person found with dodgy material
b) person was investigated
c) things happen
Now, the main objection is vs c). he was engaging in legitimate academic research (you COULD argue he is a terrorist and this is a clever coverup, but I wont go there
The fact that "An illegal immigrate faces deportation" is no surprise and should not impact your judgement here.
This probably comes acros as a bit confused - its been a long day.
à_à
My mother was Princeton class of 1977. Back in those days it wasn't exactly 'common knowledge' with 'easy access' how to make nuclear weapons.
One of her good friends who was, I believe, reading for Physics, did his senior thesis on how to make a nuclear weapon. I also believe, though I'm not clear as its been a while since she told me this story, that the fellow in question was not exactly American.
His thesis brought him to the interest of some of the old-line type of "terrorist" organizations like the PFLP. *THAT* brought him to the attention of the FBI and he was arrested and interrogated.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It's just as baseless as global warming. If Bush's pipe dreams (there not being any other intelligence supporting his actions, and he had hardly any plans at all, let alone support from the international community or the UN), it had to be for oil. Bush is an oil man. His father was an oil man. His brother was in real estate (remember the S&L crises in TX in the '80s??).
It was about oil. No tin foil hat. Oil. It wasn't about Saddam. He had a fat mouth that got him lynched. Yes, he was a murderous SOB but then there are loads of them around and we don't do even a fraction of them justice.
And the plan backfired. A commodities market has grasped the weakness of the currency and the high demand, and they now are poised to raise oil until it's at the blood-letting levels, where they'll back off and ride the profits until 'something happens' to deflate the market. In the interim, the economies of the middle east, Venezuela, and Mexico (although Mexico can't capitalize assets to reduce their bleeding) are pretty much glowing with petro-currencies, largely worthless dollars.
If we were going to halt terrorism, we should have targeted the perps in the 9/11 fiasco, and dealt with them. We have not, only serving as poster boy enemies for recruiters of psycho-jihadis. And the rest of Islam looks at us, like the rest of the world, like we must be insane. Indeed our gutless leadership is just that. It takes guts to admit you're wrong, and they'll never do it. This while deficit spending is far out of control, the Fed inflates the currency instead of forcing banks/derivative holders to take a bath, and the average Joe and his grandchildren go broke.
Oddly, we don't have cameras watching our every move, and have at least a modicum of academic freedom, contrasting with the poor researchers in TFA in the UK.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
This sounds very similar to a recent episode of numb3rs (not the greatest show in the world, but better than average). Charlie's colleague was arrested for working on genetically modified foods and sending the results to Pakistan where it could save people from famine. The government considered it bio-terrorism research material.
I have little doubt that this episode was inspired by the whole national security climate which silences research all the time.
Everyone mindlessly doing their job without any critical thought.
"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do."
--Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
http://www.thelocal.se/7726/20070627/ The episode started when she applied for an emergency loan via the US Embassy. When informed that it might take some time for a loan to be arranged, she says she was referred to Swedish social services. There, she was informed she was not entitled to Swedish state assistance.
Dharmarajah says she was collected from the social services office by police officers.
"The police took me to the police station, allowed me to call some of my friends in the US, and then took me to a refugee camp in Märsta," she tells The Local.
The police officers then took Dharmarajah's passport.
"They explained to me that I was an asylum case, and that asylum cases can't keep their passports."
"It's crazy," she says. "I never wanted asylum in this country. I don't want to live here; I don't want to work here." Or look at this. An American Marxist granted asylum in Sweden who predictably now hates the place
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1999-February/014125.html Today in Sweden we are talking about 15% of the population that do
not have a job. Over 500,000 people are directly unemployed or are
in some sort of job education program. However that figure does not
give a true picture of reality. In fact in many of the larger cities
80% (!) of the non-Swede population do not have jobs. In fact
non-Swedes, procentually, are the overwhelming majority of unemployed,
those on welfare, or in job training. When I came here in 1972 Sweden was at the peak of its development.
I received a humanitarian asylum in Sweden because of my opposition
to the war in Vietnam. On the upside this guy seems more likely to whine on the Marxism listserv lists than mug anyone but what about these guys
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4620167c-c3c9-11dc-b083-0000779fd2ac.html In Herrgarden, kids from diverse backgrounds do mix. But at schools composed almost wholly of migrants, they find it hard to feel an attachment with wider society. "My passport says I'm Svensk, but in the apartment, no," says Lulli's Turkish pal Nihad. "In Herrgarden, if someone has a problem, we help him. The Swedes, they are very cold. They shake hands. We kiss. Not like gays, like brothers." Anyone that says this is clearly an arsehole. Fuelled by resentment against native Swedes, some go into town on a Friday or Saturday night to indulge in a little light mugging of what they call "the Svens". The police think only about 150 youths are involved. At least these youngsters speak Swedish. I'd advise you to fly there and make up some story about the CIA/DHS/FBI torturing you because you oppose the Iraq war and criticised Bush. You'll get an apartment in Herrgarden, benefits and free Swedish classes in no time. Complain that you're being discriminated against in Herrgarden because you are the only white/non Muslim there and they'll move you somewhere better, surrounded by civilised but painfully naive blond people.
In your extensive free time, head out to bars and tell the women you're a refugee from the US. Read up on how the Swedish media portrays the US and just feed the same stories back to them. They all speak perfect English. You'll get a Swedish girlfriend too! Of course, you're leaching off fundamentally decent and generous people, but don't let that put you off.
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;
"Since when did invading countries and wasting money = making you any safer?" For me it was 6 June 1944.
I live in Phoenix, which is a major illegal immigration hub.
I'm pretty neutral on the issue (which is REALLY rare here), though.
Yeah, but I suspect most Mexicans who enter the US illegally will assimilate quite fast.
There are parts of my town that look exactly like Mexico, whole stretches with nary a sign in English, with mariachi and polka music blaring, and not a single business does business in English. This doesn't seem like assimilation to me. In the colleges here we have a sanctioned club (MeCHA) based on retaking the original Mexican territories back, based on the claim of "La Raza" ("The Race"). 1 in 10 cars here have Aztec imagery on them. None of these point towards a desire to assimilation.
Unlike previous waves of American immigrants, they don't want to be American, they just want a living wage, while keeping their culture. Its more Balkanization than assimilation. During the last Mexican elections, illegal immigrants in the U.S. were allowed to vote in their homelands elections, and voted for a candidate whose platform was based on building a highway that dead-ended at the American border.
A minority of them are willing to learn English to the point of actually doing so.
Even if we offered the path to citizenship, they still wouldn't want to be culturally American. Sure, they would finally have to pay for services such as education and healthcare (and other tax-based services), but they still would want to be Mexican first, and American in income.
The problem with border security has nothing to do with Mexicans though. Its more along the lines of; "if a poor latino can walk across the border with his family undetected, what keeps a a clever terrorist from doing so with 100 pounds of explosives?"
To avoid the flamebate mod, I have nothing much against illegal immigrants, as long as they are forced to pay taxes, and live by the greater societies standards. I feel damn sorry for them, actually, since I know I'd rather not be in Mexico. My border policy would be turning them back, and handing them a book on Che Guevara (and the history of the American revolution), and a M16 with a box of ammo.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Do not go to the Netherlands! We have the highest number of wiretaps per capita of all countries worldwide, cartoonists get arrested over their cartoons, last year thousands of innocent people - including minors - were arrested for not carrying ID, possession of potato-knives (is that an english word?) and chocolate cigarettes are prohibited, using open wifi connections is prohibited, multiple journalists were taken hostage by the government recently in an attempt to get them to disclose their sources, we have a huge history of putting innocent people in jail and have about the lowest percentage of solved crimes in the EU, some neighboorhoods even have a curfew, privacy is now something purely conceptual and political parties structurally break their election-promises. Oh and our army has transformed from doing our defense to being mercenaries for GW Bush' personal oil-goals.
The Netherlands used to be pretty much on the top of the freedom-list, but we've left that list long ago... I don't have that many facts about Canada at hand, but I believe it's not much better over there. And about the UK - I take a trip there (ok, ok, Scotland it is:-)) every now and then; I sense a lot more freedom over there, a lot less tensions between ethnical groups, police that don't act like they're Cartman "respect my authority" and so on.
So, in short, the UK may appear to be idiotic, but in essence they're a lot less idiotic than for example the Dutch are.
Greetings from the Netherlands.
0x or or snor perron?!
There is no culture war with Hispanics in the US except in the collective imagination of the far-left/old-right alliance. Most of the issues (crime, poverty, welfare etc) are class-conflict issues that have nothing to do with culture. This is in sharp contrast to Moslem immigrants in Europe, where a clear Kulturkampf exists. last time I checked, Mexican immigrants don't engage in forced female circumcisions. honor killings, imam-sanctioned gang-rapes, mass-riots and supremacist terrorism. There was a 1 million strong Hispanic pro-immigration rally in the US just a few years ago, and not one drop of blood was spilled. Compare that with throngs of fanatic Moslems burning down France in the wake of the Mohamed cartoons...
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
Here in the US, some years ago, a Middle Eastern student was arrested and charged with supporting terrorism primarily because he had a lot of material (none of which was illegal) that worried some folks. During the trial, a number of experts testified for the prosecution regarding how the materials are often used in preparing for terrorism. On cross examination, the attorney for the defense asked, "How much of the claimed material do you yourself possess?". Answer? Pretty much all of it - and posted on the researcher's Web site - obvious, as he was researching it! Followup question: "So why are you not on trial?".
The case fell apart and the defendant was acquitted. They didn't have any evidence he was planning anything or in touch with any terrorists. Just the material he possessed.
Beetle B.