Large Hadron Collider Scientist Arrested For al-Qaeda Ties

mindbrane writes "A scientist working as a subcontractor on a peripheral LHC project has been arrested as a terrorist. The CBC is running a story outlining the arrest of a man on Thursday in south-east France for suspected al-Qaeda links: 'CERN officials said the man, whose name has not been revealed, was working under contract with an outside institute and said he had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism. He had been at CERN since 2003, officials said. ... The news that someone with terrorist connections might have worked at the facility is likely to cause concern because of both the high profile of the giant physics experiment and also the technology in use, which has made some members of the public nervous.'"

Comments

better safe than sorry

[Inominate]

He could cause the creation of a blackhole that will kill us all!

Or he could cause a couple of magnets to quench and suck up even more money!

Maybe the two are related?

Re:better safe than sorry

[Wowsers]

He was just looking for an appropriate place to play his "Magnetic Fields" Jean Michel Jarre CD!

Re:better safe than sorry

[Jurily]

Jean Michel Jarre CD

So he posessed WMD's?

Re:better safe than sorry

[Smegly]

Talking about black holes of information, where did the French secret service get the supposed "evidence" for this supposed list of EU terrorist targets - if there is any? Certainly not off napkin scrawls hidden under the guys bed. Perhaps it was by the normal channels: beating, starving, electrocuting, mauling with dogs then stringing to the roof some Afghan peasant/soldier in a one of the many private corporate run prisons they got set up down there and around the world until he muttered "Mohammad, list of targets, France... lllllhhhhhcccc*gasp*" ?

OR is this story just about yet another Orwellian military/police state shadow organization trying to justify they are not a *big* part of the "let all hate each other" problem?

Fscked if we will ever know, the story in all its lack of credibility is out there now and its purpose served. Slashdot only managed to scape it up, make it even worse on details or open to questions of credibility than it already was to begin with. Journalist bloggers wanting to be taken seriously, indeed.

Re:better safe than sorry

[mickwd]

If wearing an Al-Qaeda tie is causing such a problem, why doesn't someone just ask him to take it off?

Or get one of those ones held on with elastic.

Or a spinning bow-tie maybe? Seems quite appropriate for the LHC.

Re:better safe than sorry

[Frankenvince]

You mean that there are Al-Qaeda fan gears out? About time someone makes some profit out of this. http://www.ThinkQaeda.com/ anyone?

Re:better safe than sorry

[hobo sapiens]

"Or a spinning bow-tie maybe? Seems quite appropriate for the LHC."

Well, bow-ties that are *supposed* to spin but don't would be most appropriate.

Re:better safe than sorry

[ssintercept]

only affect Infidels; you know, those who would not buy Al-Qaeda gear

Is that anything like Mormon's Magic Underwear?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_garment

Movie plot danger

[leuk_he]

Or a anti matter bomb like in angels and demons.

Disbelieve

[V!NCENT]

A religious al-Qaeda scientist, without a name. Why do I not believ this. Especially because al-Qaeda is not a group anymore because the US have already kicked their asses and al-Qaeda is now reffered to as people that want to commit terrorism under the name, just because they desire to use the titel. This is allowed by al-Qaeda btw...

Re:Disbelieve

[FireFury03]

So al-Qaeda won't sue for trademark infringement?

Re:Disbelieve

[ionix5891]

How do you kick ass of an organisation that didnt exist in first place?

if you tell a lie often enough....

Re:Disbelieve

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A religious al-Qaeda scientist, without a name. Why do I not believ this.

I don't believe it as well. It's much more likely that this physicist belongs to the the notorious 'Al-Jabr' group that want to enslave the world with their weapons of Math instruction.

Re:Disbelieve

[MrMr]

You mean: A scientist who knows a religious person that may have been involved in a group of which certain members claimed to be associated with Al Qaeda?
I'd say he's guilty, as in guilt by association in the third degree.
I'm not worried until somebody is busted for being tied with Al Qaeda in the sixth degree.

Re:Disbelieve

[4D6963]

It does exist, although only in the sense that the group Anonymous exists. That's the same lack of hierarchy/organisation/official structure. In my analogy, moot = Osama bin Laden.

Re:Disbelieve

[superslacker87]

So al-Qaeda won't sue for trademark infringement?

Nope. The name al-Qaeda is licensed under Creative Commons.

Re:Disbelieve

[Guppy]

It does exist, although only in the sense that the group Anonymous exists. That's the same lack of hierarchy/organisation/official structure. In my analogy, moot = Osama bin Laden.

This needs to be meme'd! Complete with a moe-fied Osama-chan with kitty-ears or something.

Re:Disbelieve

[selven]

I failed to derive even the slightest bit of humor from that joke.

Re:Disbelieve

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I think you need to integrate the humour in a little more.

Re:Disbelieve

[mickwd]

Or suffer howls of division.

Re:Disbelieve

[Yvan256]

Dude, Santa Claus exists and he lives in Canada. His postal code is H0H 0H0.

Re:Disbelieve

[jc42]

I'm not worried until somebody is busted for being tied with Al Qaeda in the sixth degree.

It's also fun to note that, under the Kevin Bacon scheme, George W Bush and Osama bin Laden have only one degree of separation. They have both been together in not just one, but two movies. Those movies were documentaries, of course, but that's a trivial detail that wouldn't stop any journalist from saying that they are "linked".

One of the movies was Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11". I've forgotten the other one and I don't have time right now to google it. Maybe someone else knows. And there well may be several other movies that they share by now.

Evil to level 11 !!

[Nomen Publicus]

All he had to do was to twist the "EVIL LEVEL" knob to 11 and a portal to hell would have been opened!

Six degrees of separation

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Everyone can be linked to Al Qaeda

Re:Six degrees of separation

[Eudial]

Wasn't he on top of that arrested because he was suspected of being related to someone they suspected of knowing someone they suspected was part of what they suspected was Al Qaeda?

Re:Six degrees of separation

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone can be linked to Al Qaeda

Some in a lot less than six degrees. Remember Bush was friends with Osama Bin Laden's family. It's not trolling it's a fact. The whole point is the same world leaders that are supposed to be fighting terrorism have close ties to terrorist families or are at least only a few degrees from most terrorist leaders.

Re:Six degrees of separation

[ianalis]

To be pedantic, that is true unless there is an isolated cluster of humans and the most likely case that would happen is if there is an undiscovered (by someone in the spanning cluster) and isolated civilization somewhere. Also, the six degrees of separation is the average path length and not the diameter of the network. Nevertheless, six degrees of separation is an excellent argument against suspecting people solely due to association with "terrorists."

Re:Six degrees of separation

[hobo sapiens]

Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas were cousins, and yet their countries were largely responsible for starting WWI...point being?

Re:Six degrees of separation

[Anonymous Coward]

They weren't, well, not that closely - the common root was Victoria so they were cousins by about 3 generations off at that point.

Re:Six degrees of separation

[PPH]

We funded and armed the predecessors of the Taliban in their fight against the Soviets. And we continued to support them in their suppression of criminal warlords and the opium trade through the mid 1990s. Since the Taliban and al Qaida cooperate and share personnel, its quite probable that 'we' (through the CIA or overtly through the State Department) have supported al Qaida in the past.

We have a dismal history of keeping tabs on our friinds while we carefully monitor those we consider to be our enemies. But then that's just human nature.

WMD'S?

[therufus]

Large Hadron Collider. Now THAT'S a weapon of mass destruction.

Re:WMD'S?

[sakdoctor]

But would you be able to smuggle it though airport security?

Re:WMD'S?

[octal666]

I bet it fits in a shoe.

Re:WMD'S?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Of course.

1. Use LHC to make black hole.
2. Hide LHC in black hole.
3. Put black hole in carry on bag.

Simple.

Re:WMD'S?

[Yvan256]

OMG you would fail as an airport security agent. You forgot about nail clippers!

Seriously

[agge]

I would suspect that the worst that i has done is to send some money home to relatives in a Arab country.

so you don't have to DO anything anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

so you don't have to DO anything anymore to get arrested? He was arrested for "al-Qaeda ties"? what does that mean exactly? Did he kill anyone? Did he plot to kill anyone? Did he know about a plot to kill anyone? It sounds like his sister's friend's neighbor had a cousin who was friends with someone in Al Qaeda back in 1990.

Also, from TFA: "The news that someone with terrorist connections might have worked at the facility is likely to cause concern because of both the high profile of the giant physics experiment and also the technology in use, which has made some members of the public nervous"

So people are concerned about someone (with terrorist connections) MIGHT have worked at the facility?!?? OMG that's a reason to start rounding up everybody with brown skin!
Geesh

Re:so you don't have to DO anything anymore?

[rawls]

so you don't have to DO anything anymore to get arrested? He was arrested for "al-Qaeda ties"?

Nobody likes novelty ties. It is about time some legislation was put in place to deal with them.

Re:so you don't have to DO anything anymore?

[mike449]

I know a guy who's father was on very good terms with Bin Laden, and even supplied him with weapons and money.
Oh, wait, that was _before_ he "became a terrorist"...

Re:so you don't have to DO anything anymore?

[Xest]

From the articles I've seen about it, he was arrested for communicating the will to commit terrorist acts and had been seeking advice and information on doing just that. He was effectively at the very start of the planning stage.

Make of that what you will, if they have evidence of intent he could well be a dangerous person.

It really comes down to what evidence they really did have, and what was included in those communications for which he was arrested.

The problem is, you and I don't know what evidence they actually do have, and unless we do we can't say if the arrest was justified or not so it seems pointless speculating. If he was picked up simply out of paranoia because he was phoning uncle Abdullah in Pakistan then yeah, it's rediculous. If he was however phoning Mr Mehsud of the Taliban and asking for information producing bombs from house hold material and information on which targets Al Qaeda would most like him to blow up and what kind of casualty figures they were looking for then it's a different story.

It's a shame it rarely ever comes out what their evidence actually was so we can properly check the validity of arrests like this.

But i thought...

[timmarhy]

.. Obama had fixed this already?!

Re:But i thought...

[m.ducharme]

More seriously, Obama winning the prize reflects poorly on the Nobel committee, not on him.

I worked in a pizza place where the manager had an interesting strategy for improving the performance of some employees. He would give a particular employee, who'd been slacking, the Employee of the Month Award. Getting this award would often encourage that employee to pick it up, and they'd become diligent enough to deserve the award. Maybe the Nobel committee is hoping for the same effect here? They gave a Peace prize to Yasser Arafat some time ago as well, as I recall.

Re:Cue black hole jokes

[sopssa]

Dont you understand how dangerous black holes would be in *terrorists* hands? They could use them to destroy the whole world. In my opinion only Americans should be allowed to create black holes.

Re:old news?

[dword]

I thought that this was covered in the press last week, so why is it in /. now??

Because /. is mostly an aggregator and doesn't bring in fresh news. It just puts all the "news for nerds" that you can find out there in one place.

al-qaeda tie

[M8e]

I want an al-qaeda tie. I don't care what colour it is, i want one!

Re:al-qaeda tie

[asylumx]

Careful. After you've worn it a few times it will come out of your tie rack yelling "ALALALALALA" and then explode...

No need for a terrorist attack on the LHC . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . it seems pretty capable of breaking itself on its own, with any outside help

Re:Cue black hole jokes

[Robin47]

Imagine trying to smuggle one onto an airplane... "I'm sorry, sir, your bag is overweight."

You did your reading, didn't you?

[S3D]

The Foundation (Al-Quaeda in Arabic) will be created in 12000 years by Harry Seldon, as the result of nuclear proliferation initiated by time-traveling terrorist, inspired by subversive element from Hidden Centuries.

Re:You did your reading, didn't you?

[AliasMarlowe]

will be created in 12000 years by Harry Seldon,

Hari doesn't like people mis-spelling his name. You'll probably be retroactively erased from psychohistory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon

Better news article

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a much better news article than the one from CBC:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nuclear-terror-suspect-is-top-physicist-1800927.html

It names the suspect and it explains how he was tracked and arrested.
According to the article, the suspect studied for his PhD at the Stanford University Linear Accelerator Center, stayed at EPFL and has published several articles.

And I thought the al quaeda BS would finally stop

[AlgorithMan]

And I thought after we got rid of george w bush, all the "al quaeda this" and "axis of evil that" and "osama this" and "emmanuel goldstein that", "give me all your money and all your rights or they'll kill you" would finally stop...

you know the literal translation of the word "terror" from latin is "fear" and a "terrorist" by definition is someone who makes you afraid. some people make you afraid by crashing planes or detonating bombs in your country or by sending you terror-threat videos. some people make you afraid by constantly telling you there was a bogeyman that is about to kill you - using his weapons of mass destruction unless we start a war etc.

wake up! your own government and your own media terrorize you far worse than al quaeda ever did! If you run scared everytime someone says "bogeyman", then the terrorists have won, because you are scared and THAT is exactly what they WANT

Re:Cue black hole jokes

[dkleinsc]

The good news is that the National Ray-Gun Association is fighting the 3-day waiting period for mad scientists.

Re:Cue black hole jokes

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Wait, is that "good" news, or "Good news everybody!" news?

I am french

[aepervius]

And I do not trust the DST (or whatever it is called nowadays) as far as I can throw them. Even less than that. I can remember the "rainbow warrior" ship story, for example. It could very possible that they found a real idiot planning to do a terrist attack, or it is possible this is polically motivated and somebody needed that sort of "news" for nefarious purpose. We'll see in the next days.

Contradicting itself!

[Hurricane78]

[...] the arrest of a man on Thursday in south-east France for suspected al-Qaeda links: 'CERN officials said the man, whose name has not been revealed, was working under contract with an outside institute and said he had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism. [...]'

You have to decide: Either he's in arrest for a crime, or he is suspected and nothing is known or proven yet (and most likely never will).
I mean it's right in there: They have not found any ties. They just kinda heard from someone that kinda he could somehow be in an organization that somehow kinda could possibly be linked to...uuum...something.
One parrot tells it to the next parrot, and soon it's al-Quaeda, and he's arrested for shit.

But a friend told me that he came from Morocco to France, and the cops there were just like in Morocco. When he came to Germany, he was shocked, that the cops treated him like a human being. (And our cops still are on the level of semi-criminal bouncers who beat up people because they like to. It must be pretty damn bad in France.)
So I can comprehend how it can come to shit like this. But that does not make it OK.

I will wait and see what charges they bring up (if any). Or if it's the usual witch trial, like in those countries... you know... where "terrorism" "comes from"...

Re:Cue black hole jokes

[orkysoft]

You could try placing it in a Bag of Holding ;-)

Re:And I thought the al quaeda BS would finally st

[couchslug]

"And I thought after we got rid of george w bush, all the "al quaeda this" and "axis of evil that" and "osama this" and "emmanuel goldstein that", "give me all your money and all your rights or they'll kill you" would finally stop..."

Being paranoid over Al Qaeda doesn't meant they aren't a viable threat, though paranoia doesn't make for well thought-out policy decisions.

Re:Better news article - More to this

[westlake]

First off, it's hard to believe guys like this decide to blow things up.

It isn't hard to believe at all.

Intellectuals of a certain type have always been attracted to games of espionage, treason and conspiracy - and "game" is, I think, the right word here:

Cambridge Five, Whittaker Chambers

Most probably don't expect to be around when things blow up - but now and again you may find an exception: 2001 Anthrax Attacks

These guys are so smart.

The geek really ought to have learned by now that the smart and the arrogant make stupid mistakes. Hans Reiser