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In UK, First "Anarchist's Cookbook" Downloaders' Convictions

analysethis writes "In the UK last month the author/compiler of the well-known-in-Internet-circles 'terrorist handbook' pleaded guilty to seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism, with a maximum jail term of 10 years. Today the first people caught with downloaded copies have been put behind bars — a white-supremacist father and son pairing getting 10 and two years respectively, convicted of three counts of possessing material useful for acts of terror. How many will be emptying their recycle bins after this conviction? As of writing, the book is still freely available on Amazon.com to buy." Note: it seems that there's some overlapping nomenclature at play. Terrance Brown, the man who pleaded guilty to terror charges last month, is said to have been distributing a CD set including among other things extracts from Al-Qaeda manuals. His "cookbook" differs then from William Powell's 1971 book by a similar title, though (confusingly enough) the linked Wikipedia article implies that the father-and-son pair arrested possessed a copy of the Powell book as well; its text may well have been among the materials that Brown distributed.

418 comments

  1. Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by damburger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...could have been the fucking chemical weapons.

    I have the feeling the conviction has more to do with a bunch of white supremacists holding large quantities of ricin, than that actual act of learning how to make it.

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    1. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 0, Redundant

      That was my thought as well. There's a difference between a guide on making a few kinds of small scale explosives and even manuals on geurilla tactics and a manual for making illegal weapons of indiscriminate destruction.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    2. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by damburger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And a difference between owning the instructions, and owning the instructions, the raw materials, and the finished products.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    3. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It could be a step-by-step walk-through on how to build the dirtiest, world-endingest nuke ever for all anyone should care about its content.

      The important point GP was trying to make that you seem to have missed is these retards were actually making bombs, not just reading about them.

    4. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by TheLink · · Score: 1

      I think you miss the GP's point. The GP's point is there's a difference between possessing a manual/guide and actually creating the banned substances itself (at least banned in the form and quantities found).

      I don't see a problem with people having manuals for making such weapons (unless they obtained them illegally, or those manuals are banned by the laws of their country for some reason). It's when they start making them then it becomes a problem.

      I don't care if my neighbour has a manual for manufacturing anthrax, as long as he never tries.

      --
    5. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If anyone is actually looking for instructions and materials to build nuclear weapons or simple dirty bombs, please contact me by leaving a message on this board.
      @

    6. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by bcmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article says that the son was convicted only of the thoughtcrime. I would've thought that if he was actually involved with making the poison, both could've been convicted for that.

      Like most overreaching laws, the first few people convicted will obviously deserve it, and could've been convicted for a proper crime if people were prepared to do their jobs properly. Serious misuse will happen when we've all accepted the necessity of the new law.

      Is there a list of what we can't read? Are there especially accurate works of fiction we can be arrested for reading? Perhaps the law will be used against people collecting information about unpleasant things our government does (remember, taking photos of police is already illegal, if the photos could be "useful for terrorism")?

      For example, there are people that try to discover the routes taken by trucks transporting nuclear materials in the UK, in order to inform communities along the routes and peacefully protest. I guess they are terrorists now.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    7. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      However if he DOES get caught with some AND the manual then the manual goes a long way towards establishing intent. That's why I start off agreeing with the GP.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    8. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Read the first link - the BBC story is about a guy who simply collected and sold information, while the Telegraph story is about those who were caught using it.

      The charge that the former pleaded guilty to was "collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism". It's an insanely broad law which can and (if history is anything to go by) will be used to stifle legitimate collection of factual information, not to mention the chilling effect from simply having it on the books.

      Any number of things, not least the majority of university level science and engineering textbooks, could be extremely useful to terrorists. The law is probably there to be selectively applied to those who they can't get anything else on. Sure, it probably will rightly convict a few potentially dangerous people, but in doing so we are suffering a huge abridgement of our rights.

    9. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by syousef · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That was my thought as well. There's a difference between a guide on making a few kinds of small scale explosives and even manuals on geurilla tactics and a manual for making illegal weapons of indiscriminate destruction.

      I have a lot of Astronomy books. They describe what is needed to create supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Do you have any idea how small these terrorist books look in comparison? Should I be locked up for that? (The one weakness to my argument of course is that we don't actually have the tech to assemble supernovae let alone galaxies, but hey).

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    10. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by syousef · · Score: 1

      For pity sake mod this man up!!!

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    11. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by rainmouse · · Score: 1

      a kid was arrested for posession of this book a few years ago. http://hightimes.com/news/ht_admin/3720

    12. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Surely he was already guilty of a breach of the peace, or at least behaviour likely to provoke one.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    13. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would mod him up, but I don't want to be seen publicly supporting terrorists.

    14. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by parazite.org · · Score: 0

      http://web.archive.org/web/20080410231952/http://www.anarchist-cookbook.com/ "Following the recent terrorist activities, new laws are in progress to ban the information contained in our CD-ROM. This is against all the freedom of speech that we have had for so long, but we will abide with the law and bring the cookbook (as we know it) to an end." ... I guess so.

    15. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What you're advocating is making most people criminals and then trusting the police to only arrest the ones who 'deserve it'.

      Honestly, that method probably would result in more criminals being convicted, but it also vastly increases the power of the police to act without oversight. Anybody who pisses off an officer could quite easily and legitimately be convicted, despite having done nothing (really) wrong.

    16. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The article says that the son was convicted only of the thoughtcrime. I would've thought that

      I stopped right there; I don't want to risk jail time just to see how that sentence ends.

    17. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for your kind offer, My name is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and I would very much like to hear from you.

    18. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this is why we kicked there asses out of our country over two hundred years ago.

    19. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by RDW · · Score: 1

      'I have the feeling the conviction has more to do with a bunch of white supremacists holding large quantities of ricin, than that actual act of learning how to make it.'

      However, in the other case mentioned in TFA (the most worrying from a civil liberties point of view), Terrance Brown was apparently just compiling stuff available elsewhere (mostly or entirely online) and selling it on a CD:

      http://web.archive.org/web/20070108155556/www.anarchist-cookbook.com/CD.htm

      This includes everything from 'Fruit Machine Cheating' and the 'Big Book Of Chemical, Powder, And Thermonuclear Explosives' to the infamous 'Al Qaeda Training Manual' - looks like he indiscriminately trawled the net for anything vaguely terrorist/anarchist related and lumped it all together. It was probably the AQ manual that caught the attention of the police. This has featured in other UK cases and is apparently illegal here, though freely available from many respectable sites including one at the US Department of Justice and another at the USAF Air University:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda_Handbook
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/notts_al_qaeda_manual_case/

      I guess the implications of our Trusted Ally in the War on Terror distributing terrorist material via official government and military websites have never been fully explored...

    20. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 4, Insightful


      Surely for something like this, it's not even the case that you'd need instructions. A quick hit on Wikipedia tells me that Ricin occurs in Castor beans and the pulp of about eight beans contains enough to kill an adult human. Well I thought ricin came from rice (don't know why), but once you've crossed that bit of ignorance, it surely can't be that hard to derive ricin, can it? Buy castor beans, pulp them up and try a few experiments at getting a solution out of them. You can test it on mice bought from any old pet store. (I wouldn't, I'm vegetarian, but I'm presuming some terrorists have fewer reservations about animal testing). That's assuming that the information isn't already out there. I quick search finds that the process for extracting ricin is actually FILED AT THE US PTO. It's a matter of public record! Hillarious! :D

      I think every other student has a copy of the Anarchist cookbook. Big deal. Terrorist used to mean someone that scared people to get their ends from the government. These days "terrorist" means someone used by the government to scare you with.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    21. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, yet another bunion in their jackboot.

      happy sailing

    22. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Ja'Achan · · Score: 1

      Seems to work in the Netherlands, I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedogen

    23. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      Nah that's like Lewis Black pointed out. If you kill enough people and it sorta wraps around and nobody really knows what to say beyond "Wow, you must have worked very hard on that..."

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    24. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear Mr. Khamenei!
      I'm glad to be of help. Here we go:
      1. Take the little junkie you installed as president
      2. feed him tons of beans
      3. wait
      4. witness the dirtiest bomb ever
      5. ???
      oh well, what the hell.

    25. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by quadrox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What? How??

      If he already is in possession of he obviously needed a manual to create it in the first place. Why is the intent more clearly estables when you find that manual?

      wtf kind of logic is that?

    26. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by AngryLibertarian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Any uncontrolled animal may pose an immediate risk. The police do not need ANY help from "small over reaching laws". They have all of the resources of the government behind them. If this law was inacted in the States, I would just hope that the SCOTUS would kill it off. Of course, the UK has many laws that we American would probably chafe under. That's the difference between being a citizen and a subject. The difference between having a Bill of Rights to hold the government in check and only THINKING you have rights. As the great poet Johnny Rotten once said, "God save the queen!"

    27. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by glazener · · Score: 1

      Surely for something like this, it's not even the case that you'd need instructions. A quick hit on Wikipedia tells me that Ricin occurs in Castor beans and the pulp of about eight beans contains enough to kill an adult human. Well I thought ricin came from rice (don't know why), but once you've crossed that bit of ignorance, it surely can't be that hard to derive ricin, can it? Buy castor beans, pulp them up and try a few experiments at getting a solution out of them. You can test it on mice bought from any old pet store. (I wouldn't, I'm vegetarian, but I'm presuming some terrorists have fewer reservations about animal testing). That's assuming that the information isn't already out there. I quick search finds that the process for extracting ricin is actually FILED AT THE US PTO. It's a matter of public record! Hillarious! :D I think every other student has a copy of the Anarchist cookbook. Big deal. Terrorist used to mean someone that scared people to get their ends from the government. These days "terrorist" means someone used by the government to scare you with.

      The devil is always in the details. Dealing with any extremely toxic material is not just a matter of following a cook book recipe. If you think that your lab technique is good, try weighing out a few samples of silver nitrate on the bench top. Unless you do chemistry for a living I expect that you will find little black specs on your hands the next day, no matter how careful you think you are. I can't imagine extracting ricin anywhere but a well equipped laboratory with serious safety precautions. It's not something any sane person would consider doing in the kitchen.

    28. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you mean this is why you needed the French to persuade us that your country wasn't worth holding on to, so we let it go. Of course, you now have a far more draconian society than we have. Good job.

    29. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by el3mentary · · Score: 1

      It's not something any sane person would consider doing in the kitchen.

      Because surely anyone trying to derive ricin for use in an amateur weapon is clearly in their right mind :p

      --
      I reject your reality and substitute my own.
    30. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by xaxa · · Score: 1

      For example, there are people that try to discover the routes taken by trucks transporting nuclear materials in the UK, in order to inform communities along the routes and peacefully protest. I guess they are terrorists now.

      That makes Ken Livingstone (previous Mayor of London) a terrorist then. He supported a Greenpeace (IIRC) advertising campaign, they put up a poster in my local station saying nuclear waste trains passed through, and published a timetable (for 2006 -- not sure if it still applies, but any trainspotter could get an up to date version.)

      (Incidentally, I wrote to Greenpeace and suggested that the special trains were a much, much safer way to transport the waste than roads. They said they didn't want the waste transported at all. *shrug*. (Many nuclear power stations have a rail connection. Where they don't, the waste is transported to the nearest rail connection by road.))

    31. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by bcmm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Criminalising everybody only works if you absolutely trust the state and your local police to enforce such things nicely. In reality, given sufficiently vague laws, some of them would be just as likely to arrest you because they were fed up of you complaining about the drunken Doberman owner and it presents an easier way to make you leave them alone.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    32. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And you have laws and rules that people in the UK would chafe under. You're not allowed to say "fuck" on TV, or purchase alcohol under 21, or gamble on the internet for example.

    33. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he already is in possession of he obviously needed a manual to create it in the first place.

      Not necessarily. Getting caught with the ricin, AND a manual for creating it, AND the gear one would use in its creation, taken all together pretty much eliminates the possibility of an "it wasn't mine" / "I didn't know what it was" line of defense.

    34. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      If he already is in possession of he obviously needed a manual to create it in the first place. Why is the intent more clearly estables when you find that manual?

      Having possession of a material, and having the intent to use it for a terrorist act are two different things. If the "manual" is nothing more than a chemistry book, that wouldn't establish intent. But when, as in this case, it's a manual inciting terrorism, yes, in combination with possession of materials that does establish intent.

    35. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Smauler · · Score: 4, Funny

      You can test it on mice bought from any old pet store. (I wouldn't, I'm vegetarian, but I'm presuming some terrorists have fewer reservations about animal testing).

      I don't think eating the mice afterwards in mandatory.

    36. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I think every other student has a copy of the Anarchist cookbook. Big deal.

      Two different things with the same name. The book, which dates back to the 1970s contains some primitive and naive instructions for explosive devices etc, which are about as likely to injure the "anarchist" himself as any victim. The CDs being sold by this guy included material from an al-Queda training manual. Real terrorist stuff.

    37. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 0

      The article says that the son was convicted only of the thoughtcrime.

      No. Possession and distribution of a terrorist manual is an actual crime, not a thought crime. He's convicted for actions that he did, not thoughts that he had.

    38. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Any number of things, not least the majority of university level science and engineering textbooks, could be extremely useful to terrorists.

      Could indeed be, but they wouldn't be covered under the Terrorist Act. In order to be considered a terrorist publication they need:

      (a)to be understood, by some or all of the persons to whom it is or may become available as a consequence of that conduct, as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism; or
      (b)to be useful in the commission or preparation of such acts and to be understood, by some or all of those persons, as contained in the publication, or made available to them, wholly or mainly for the purpose of being so useful to them.

    39. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      But when, as in this case, it's a manual inciting terrorism, yes, in combination with possession of materials that does establish intent.

      Incorrect. Possessing a manual that says 'Anarchist' on the cover does not establish intent. Now, I agree that it might in a court where there was an incompetent defense attorney.

    40. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      It is if you're ethical and follow the 'use everything you kill' credo.

      Lots of vegetarians are very smug about credos like that.

    41. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I am not sure what you mean by the term 'work.' Your link doesn't establish there is a productive and positive purpose for allowing police to selectively enforce the law. The police are not supposed to be making those decisions. We live in a democratic society, not a police state.

    42. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use the fur to make a nice mitten. Then compost the rest.

    43. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 0

      We can own handguns, though. Consequently, we're not facing the epidemic of 'knife crime' that Simon Cowell recently bemoaned.

      Being allowed to gamble on the Internet and say 'fuck' on TV surely pale in comparison to the right to express political thought freely. We don't have a powerful set of 'speech crimes' codified in the U.S. and I hazard to say that's more important than the right to be a crude potty-mouth.
       

    44. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      And it's been established in other parts of this thread that the a-Queda material is readily available at many other locations on the internet, including government sites.

      No, you can't wave 'al-Queda' around like a bloody shirt and automatically win an argument.

    45. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Peil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You boys could really do with reading up on UK law, mere possession of these guides is now a criminal offence, although I'm not sure if it's a strict liability offence or not.

      Yeah, we're fucked

    46. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by laughingcoyote · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. Possession and distribution of a terrorist manual is an actual crime, not a thought crime. He's convicted for actions that he did, not thoughts that he had.

      Convicting someone for possessing any book or source of information is a thoughtcrime law. There are any number of reasons one could possess a "terrorist manual". One could simply be curious as to what a "terrorist manual" might look like. One might want to look at why the terrorists are doing what they are doing, and what their common tactics are. One might want to become a terrorist. One might be very interested in working in counterterrorism law enforcement, but not have the resources to go to school for it yet or still be in the "general education" parts. One might simply want to inform oneself about a major issue in the world today from a primary source. Only one of those is a problematic motive.

      Now, of course, once you start actually making weapons, that's quite a different story. So, "thought crime" may not apply well in this specific case. But if you can be arrested just for possession of the book, without possession of anything it tells you how to make, then yes, that is an arrest for thought crime. We have the right to read and be informed, and to know things. Even "bad" things. We just don't have the right to do bad things that harm others.

      --
      To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
    47. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1

      I'm no lawyer, so please correct me if I'm missing your point, but section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 doesn't refer to a "terrorist publication", simply to "information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

      I agree that textbooks wouldn't fall under the definition of terrorist publications that you quote from section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006, but I think they could still easily fall within the scope of the 2000 act. The 2000 act also criminalises simple possession, whereas the 2006 act refers to dissemination.

      Another user further down the page pointed out that an acceptable defence under UK law would simply be to have a reasonable 'non-terrorist' purpose for possession of the documents. Unfortunately that wasn't tested here, as the defendant pleaded guilty, but it appears (to me, at least) that he had a quite legitimate reason for owning the documents: he was running a small business selling them on CD.

    48. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      And it's been established in other parts of this thread that the a-Queda material is readily available at many other locations on the internet, including government sites.

      First of all you have no idea whether it's the same material.

      Secondly, Its a British law: if the same al queda material is being distributed elsewhere in Britain, including on internet sides hosted in Britain, then the responsible persons also face prosecution. The existence of stuff on the internet does not provide immunity from the law.

      No, you can't wave 'al-Queda' around like a bloody shirt and automatically win an argument.

      I wasn't arguing. I was explaining to those who hadn't managed to work it out for themselves, why this guy has been convicted of breaking the law.

    49. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by couchslug · · Score: 2, Informative

      "a manual for making illegal weapons of indiscriminate destruction."

      Not really. It's just information. A manual describing how so-called WMDs work can contain the same information and be titled "WMD Processes, a Handbook for Investigators" or similar. An ordinary military close combat manual or unconventional operations manual or "Field Expedient weapons" manual can have the same info as a pub named "Eco-Necro-Pedo-Copro-Jihadist Tutorial for Total Annihilation!".

      Specific example:
      Phosgene is produced for industrial use, and is one of the first war gases.

      http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp

      It can be used to make plastics, or for other things...

      http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    50. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      But when, as in this case, it's a manual inciting terrorism, yes, in combination with possession of materials that does establish intent.

      Incorrect. Possessing a manual that says 'Anarchist' on the cover does not establish intent.

      No it doesn't. But if it incites terrorism (i.e. what I said) then it does.

      Now, I agree that it might in a court where there was an incompetent defense attorney.

      There are defence barristers in British courts, not attorneys. Suggest you stop applying your opinions on American justice to a British case and law.

    51. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by azzy · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't really compost meat.

    52. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by quadrox · · Score: 1

      Its still bullshit. The "terrorism manual" might just accidentally have been the only place he could find that would describe what he needed. Or he had the manual from before because he was curious, and later when he wanted to produce the actual substance (just for fun) and he looked it up in the manual, since he had it handy already.

      There are so many reasons that he could be in possession of both that do not establish intent at all, it's just pointless.

      Heck, this shit could have happened to me. I have downloaded "terrorism manuals" out of curiosity too. So what if I'd actually gone ahead and used some of that info for my own private fun?

      This is seriously messed up.

    53. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      We can own handguns, though. Consequently, we're not facing the epidemic of 'knife crime' that Simon Cowell recently bemoaned.

      So you have less knife crime because American youths shoot each other instead of stabbing each other. Gosh, yes I can see why that makes you proud.
      (The murder rate in the US is about 3 times higher than the UK rate.)

      Being allowed to gamble on the Internet and say 'fuck' on TV surely pale in comparison to the right to express political thought freely.

      You don't have an absolute right to free speech in America any more then in the UK. For example incitement to violence is prohibited in both countries.

    54. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by parazite.org · · Score: 0

      But Soviet intercontinental SS-missiles were not weapons, they were peace work equipment.

    55. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The article says that the son was convicted only of the thoughtcrime. I would've thought that if he was actually involved with making the poison, both could've been convicted for that.

      I understand your general point, but there are things like "conspiracy to commit murder" as well, in addition to (1st, 2nd degree) murder and attempted murder.

      If the police have to wait until the action is attempted, then people (can) die. We then get into problem of: if you knew he was going to do the crime, why didn't you stop him? Well, because of civil liberties, we can't touch him until an act is done. So learning about bombs is legal, having the the materials is legal, building (for "educational" purposes) is legal. It's only blowing them up (causing death and destruction) that's illegal, so until someone blows one up they've done nothing wrong.

      Each society has to determine where to draw the line on waiting for the act and preventing the act. Which crimes are bad enough that you want to act before they occur? Murder and rape perhaps. Theft or burglary perhaps not so much. While liberty is important, so is "security of the person" (to use the Canadian Charter phrase).

    56. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by The+Hatchet · · Score: 1

      I would certainly hope so. Possessing knowledge of any kind should never become illegal. When such things happen we have lost the most sacred and important of freedoms. This is regardless of whether it is knowledge of devious sexual acts, explosives, poison, or anything else.

      Knowing how to make explosives does not make you a terrorist. Even making them for whatever non-terrorist purposes does not make you a terrorist. Using them to incite terror makes you a terrorist. If we are truly willing to call anyone with a knowledge of something bad terrorists, then chemists, biologists, physicists would all be just as evil. It is simply not the case. When you can prove an intent to commit acts of terror, besides simple possession, then it becomes justified. No sooner. I think the whole white supremacists holding poison and wanting others dead is certainly good enough though.

      The day that learning becomes illegal, is the day society begins to die.

      --
      Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also, ...
    57. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I'm no lawyer, so please correct me if I'm missing your point, but section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 doesn't refer to a "terrorist publication", simply to "information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

      I'm not sure what the significance of that is given that I was referring to the 2006 Terrorism Act.

      Unfortunately that wasn't tested here, as the defendant pleaded guilty, but it appears (to me, at least) that he had a quite legitimate reason for owning the documents: he was running a small business selling them on CD.

      An activity that is expressly criminal under the 2006 Act. And the man continued trading until 2008.

    58. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

      if greenpeace had their way we'd all live in the forrest eating berries and passing the time by throwing our own shit at each other.

    59. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is one of the reasons I am so happy we have changed government and the new guys are planning a "mass repeal" bill to restore civil liberties.

      Of course I do not support terrorism and I want to see those who would murder others stopped. But the fear-driven Labour government went way beyond that, moving us into a world where censorship and thoughtcrime seem to be significant parts of our legal system. There comes a point where I would rather take my chances with the bad guys than see our basic freedoms and way of life eroded any further.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    60. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Should I be locked up for that?

      That is a dangerous thing to ask. No matter who you are, there is someone who will answer "Yes!" to that question in earnest.

        (captcha: guiltily)

    61. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by darthdavid · · Score: 2, Funny
    62. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Its still bullshit. The "terrorism manual" might just accidentally have been the only place he could find that would describe what he needed. Or he had the manual from before because he was curious, and later when he wanted to produce the actual substance (just for fun) and he looked it up in the manual, since he had it handy already.

      There are so many reasons that he could be in possession of both that do not establish intent at all, it's just pointless.

      That you can come up with ludicrously twisted scenarios doesn't mean anything. An individual case is judged on the evidence available for that case. If there's sufficient evidence for a reasonable man to be convinced that a crime has occurred, as described in the relevant act, then he will be convicted. If there isn't enough evidence, then he won't be.

      And remember that that reasonable man is judging based on everything that is heard in court, not the few paragraphs of a report on a newspaper's website.

    63. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

      And they couldn't have been convicted for making ricin and storing it in their house for months because....?

      but but but... what if they can't get them on anything else????!!!?!?!

      You know what would make things really easy for the police:
      Make possession of water, air or food an offense punishable by life imprisonment.
      then any time the police "know" someone is doing something they don't like they can just pull out the law and send them to prison.
      Fantastic isn't it!

    64. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 4, Interesting


      We in the UK aren't facing an 'epidemic of knife crime', either. It was just the Daily Mail looking for something to get excited about and the Labour government looking for more reasons to justify whatever they wanted to do.

      Though this isn't me arguing against gun ownership, it's just trying to strip away hysteria and media manipulation.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    65. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Duradin · · Score: 0, Troll

      If everyone knew how to make Ricin there'd be a lot more eyes to catch the local nutjob wannabe terrorist who was attempting to brew up a batch. If everyone knew something about explosives we wouldn't be calling anything bigger than a firecracker a WMD and evacuating city blocks because of an M-80. But knowledge is evil. Evvvvvvillllll! Panic is good.

    66. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 1

      The murder rate in the US is about 3 times higher than the UK rate.

      And has tracked along at roughly that without even correlation to any legislation meant to control firearms. Prior to 1938 just about anyone here could purchase a firearm in a hardware store without so much as showing identification. Own a machine gun without paying an exorbitant tax. Murders involving firearms were not impacted after the act. Some localities throughout the US heavily restrict firearms, but again there is not even correlation between their firearms crime statistics and localities that support individual liberty. Like our most recent nationwide gun control attempts (1994 assault weapons ban) before and after differences cannot be detected in the statistics.

      People here blame you for this situation, by the way. Had you not sent your non-conformists here (England) or your prisoners (France), the US would not be rooted in violence.

      But what do I know, I'm from Africa.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    67. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I were in the UK I'd start downloading and distributing the Anarchist Handbook via bittorrent just to challenge this ridiculous law.

      Any good patriot should be willing to spend time in jail to protect the Nature-given right of free speech. It's your mouth. Nobody has a right to muzzle it (although they do have the right to remove you from their private property). The government was created by the People to protect individual rights, not to take them away. Any government which stops acting as a servant, and becomes a master, needs to be altered or abolished.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    68. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is one of the reasons I am so happy we have changed government and the new guys are planning a "mass repeal" bill to restore civil liberties.

      I wouldn't hold out too much hope. The previous Conservative government took away plenty of civil liberties. For example a policemen could stop someone who he believed was travelling to a rave, and send them away from the area. Then there was the so called "sus" law, where a policeman could stop and search anyone.

      Then of course, talking of thought crimes, there was the banning of the book "Spycatcher", and the ban on the voices of Sein Fein spokesmen being transmitted - leading to the ridiculous overdubbing of interviews by actor's voices.

      There are no doubt plenty more. These are just the ones that spring to mind.

    69. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      What? How??

      If he already is in possession of he obviously needed a manual to create it in the first place. Why is the intent more clearly estables when you find that manual?

      wtf kind of logic is that?

      Maybe he was just trying to make a soufflé, but he's a horrible cook!

      You need the recipe to prove he's a competent terrorist and not an incompetent chef.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    70. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      your whole argument about intent seems arse backwards.

      If I posses a manual written by Stallman which explains how to use GCC and also advocates writing open source software it does not show I have an intent to create open source software.
      Not even a little.
      Not the slightest bit.
      It might convince a brain dead judge that I was intending to code open source software but all I'd be interested in is using the book as a manual, not a guide to life.

      If I posses a manual written by Ossama which explains how to create bombs and also talk at length about what he thinks they should be used for that does not mean I have any interest in his opinions on what they should be used for.
      Not the slightest bit.
      It might convince a brain dead judge but all I'd be interested in is using the book as a manual, not a guide to life.
      Now should I have an actual intent to blow up gay bars,train stations or toaster factories(fuck knows) but if I'm just looking to make the bombs I'd grab any text which explained how.

      Now of course if I have a shelf full of books on how open source is great which are not mauals that might make for half decent proof of intent.

      If I have a shelf full of books about how certain terrorists are totally jusified, how their cause is great etc etc which are not mauals that might make for half decent proof of intent after the bombs are found.

      The manual itself says nothing, nothing at all other than you want to make bombs for *something*.

      examples chosen to make sense to people on slashdot.

    71. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Particularly since he's wrong on application of American law as well. Our systems are fairly aligned in these matters.

    72. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by b4upoo · · Score: 1

      Anyone playing about with Castor extracts just might have a suicide in mind. It is not something to take lightly. Castor Bean Oil was a favorite two stroke motorcycle oil for racing. It is probably still available. The catch is that even out of doors, using a tiny amount can sort of let you know that it is not something to mess with.
                      As far as that Anarchist's Cookbook goes I had one years ago and frankly anyone with a bit of ability could cause far more havoc than anything in that book suggests.

    73. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

      In the UK the government was created by generations of nobles cutting each others heads off to protect and server themselves.
      It's come a long way but you can still see the roots quite clearly.

    74. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Gorgoth · · Score: 1

      wow just read that patent it sure is one hell of a lot more detailed than anything that passes for a patent now.

      --
      I only drink on 2 occasions when I'm thirsty and when I'm not!
    75. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in your small mind would "breach of the peace" somehow be have less over-reaching potential than "walking a dog off the lead." Think about it for a moment, will you?

    76. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You seem to have a bit of a mental block on this score:

      People aren't arguing that this isn't a british law.
      They're arguing that it's a batshit insane, incoherent, crazy, nutjob law dreamed up by braindead politicians with no respect for civil liberties.

    77. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Exactly: punishing someone for mere possession of information is the creation of thoughtcrime.

      The trouble with thoughtcrime is that not only does it not consider intent, which is hard to determine in absolute terms in court anyway, it also does not consider action, which is the objective basis for most court cases. Where do you draw the line, if your society is not going to allow people to explore information?

      I personally have no interest in making chemical weapons or nuclear bombs, but I can imagine that a research chemist might overlap the former and an engineer working on a nuclear power plant might overlap the latter. Maybe I'm irrational, but I like the idea that pharma companies can develop new drugs to improve our health, and power firms can provide enough electricity to keep the lights on.

      I do have an interest in driving, and was taught many of the same techniques as police drivers by my ex-police driving instructor, to help me avoid accidents and stay safer on the roads. At what point does knowledge of these techniques become "acts preparatory to terrorism" or something like that, given that I am familiar with some of the defensive driving techniques that security officers would use to protect a VIP?

      I also have a background in martial arts. I probably know a lot of things that would help me if I were ever to confront a police officer with their usual array of weapons and defensive equipment. I have no reason to do so and never have done so, but if we're allowing thoughtcrime then when does this knowledge change from an academic interest in historical arts or the results of training for perfectly legal contact sports into something sinister and worthy of suspicion or even prosecution?

      I would guess that a high proportion of responsible, normally law-abiding adults in the UK could be fitted up with some sort of thoughtcrime without too much effort. As Cardinal Richlieu famously said, "Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I will find something in them with which to hang him."

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    78. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the OP says the people were arrested for having the literature. That by itself is ridiculous. It is the start of the slope for arresting people for non-crimes. In the sixties some people would have arrested kids for owning Beatles albums after John Lennon's 'Jesus' remarks ("we're more popular than Jesus right now"), if they could.

      In Canada we have ridiculous censorship in the form of 'hate crime' laws. They want to legislate people to not have racist feelings instead of educate them. In America which has the closest to real free speech in the world (i.e. no hate crime laws), education and ridicule of racists has lead to the first president/head of government (actual governing not symbolic like Canada's GG) in the world. Anyway, I am not looking forward to when Canada comes out with a similar law to the UKs (when the bonehead liberal dogma mixes explosively with bonehead right wing dogma) so they can start arresting people with copies of Huckleberry Finn. The slippery slope is getting slippery-er. Having literature of any kind should not be a crime. Using some of the literature to make bombs or weapons (the weapons making part), or as proof to show intent to build the weapons (they are buying the ingredients and have the instructions on how to use them, for example)... these I think are reasonable to call crimes.

      For completeness sake, this is the full quote with respect to Lennon's Jesus statement: "Christianity will go.. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    79. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If I posses a manual written by Stallman

      The difference being of course that the manual by Stallman isn't illegal to possess. A closer analogy might be the possession of child porn. Possession of child porn doesn't necessarily prove intent to commit abuse of children. But society deems both abuse of children and terrorism to be such undesirable activities that these related materials have been banned because there's a tendancy of the materials to encourage the actions.

      The balance to be struck here:
      1) The desire of some individuals to look at sexual pictures of children or instructions for making things that kill people.
      2) The desire of other people that we should take bold steps to discourage child abuse and killing people.

      As societies we generally consider the second desire weighs a lot more heavily than the first.

    80. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Internalist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Terrorist used to mean someone that scared people to get their ends from the government. These days "terrorist" means someone used by the government to scare you with.

      +$\infty$

      Best quote ever.

      --
      Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
    81. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not filled with happy thoughts that everything will all get put right just like that. I suspect it would take a written constitution and a lot of case law in a constitutional court to really fix the damage done by successive governments operating under a climate of fear that they themselves have helped to perpetuate. But I would be happy to see things at least start moving in the right direction again, and I am optimistic that with the increased influence of the Lib Dems we will see more real improvement than we otherwise might have.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    82. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Child porn is not illegal because the person in question might want to touch chilren.(though that's what the sun readers might like.)
      Child porn is illegal because it's production required that a child be taken advantage of, abused or hurt.

      the creation of the anarchist cookbook did not require anyone to be hurt or killed so it is nothing. absolutely nothing like child porn.

      It's a false, dishonest and misleading comparison.

      I have a pile of chemistry books which would give you all the information you'd need to make things that kill people.
      I have a pile of physics books which tell me everything I need to know to build a basic nuclear weapon.
      I have a pile of biology books which tell me everything I'd need to know to engineer a virus.
      Those are all apparently ok.

      But if it's in a little book with a threatening title then it's BAAAAAAD.

    83. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Like our most recent nationwide gun control attempts (1994 assault weapons ban) before and after differences cannot be detected in the statistics.

      There certainly is a difference since 1994. In the early 90s, the homicide rate (per 100,000) was >9. After 1994, the rate gradually dropped till it's been http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html

      Now whether you can say that's a correlation with that particular law or other things is an open question. But your claim that there was no difference after the law is demonstrably false.

    84. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, it probably will rightly convict a few potentially dangerous people, but in doing so we are suffering a huge abridgement of our rights.

      The later part is very correct, but the first not so much.

      Such a law can never actually convict a dangerous person. Ever.

      The reason is, if a terrorist was going to murder someone, or someoneS as they tend to want to do, that number of people they want to kill can easily be 100 or 1000 or 10000. They can even be successful in their murder attempt and actually kill 10000 people.

      Compared to the law itself which can destroy millions upon millions of lives, nothing a terrorist can do could possibly get up to that scale until you correctly label all government representatives as terrorists.

      It's like in the USA, 9/11 was a level of damage of an auto accident when compared to the damage our own government did to the country and those living in it in the following hours and days.

    85. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Ash used a science textbook to fight off an army of the dead, afterall.

    86. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by bcmm · · Score: 1

      I understand your general point, but there are things like "conspiracy to commit murder" as well, in addition to (1st, 2nd degree) murder and attempted murder.

      Conspiracy to commit murder is a sensible crime, and coincidentally is probably the correct way to prosecute somebody if there is evidence they were going to carry out an attack using information from a "terrorist manual". A law allowing you to lock up people that just looked at such things (or, potentially, a lot of more innocuous things) out of curiosity is not the same thing.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    87. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      Child porn is illegal because it's production required that a child be taken advantage of, abused or hurt.

      Oh yeah? So why FICTITIOUS child pr0n, either written or performed by adults who look underage is also illegal?

      No, it’s just a matter of a coterie of bigots who want to shove down their “sex is bad” agenda down the throats of others. Nothing else.

    88. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      I'm sure they are very keen upon eating those pineapple peels...

    89. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Child porn is illegal because it's production required that a child be taken advantage of, abused or hurt.

      Not true. Even CGI generated child pornography is illegal. No actual child involved in any way.

      It's a false, dishonest and misleading comparison.

      Given that I've shot your argument down in flames, I presume you withdraw that.

    90. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even CGI generated child pornography is illegal. No actual child involved in any way.

      Which again is utterly insane and based on nothing more than the opinions of moralizing bigots.
      Nobody should be able to turn themselves into criminal while sitting alone in a sealed room with nothing more than a biro and a sheet of paper.

    91. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by shalla · · Score: 1

      You boys could really do with reading up on UK law, mere possession of these guides is now a criminal offence, although I'm not sure if it's a strict liability offence or not.

      *looks happily at her American public library's book shelves and notes two copies of the book available for public checkout*

      You know, I don't often burst into Lee Greenwood's song "Proud to Be an American", but this just might be one of those times. Admittedly, we're the only library in a very large system to have it, but we do.

      I noticed it does say right on the title page that the recipes and tips are for entertainment purpose, should not be tried, and are not intended to be accurate. However now if I ever need to try to build a bug detector, I at least know where to look. I'd rather people satisfy their curiosity by reading the antiquated Anarchist Cookbook than wander into some of the stuff I'm sure is available on the Internet.

    92. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Give police the power to do anything they want. Why don't you post a big sign saying: evil assholes apply here: become a cop. rape/murder who you want and no questions asked. Or better yet: Get promoted to sergeant by arresting a politician's enemy. I'd rather my neighbors all have copies of the anarchists cookbook than that the police have this kind of power.

    93. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by MrNemesis · · Score: 1

      Is there a list of what we can't read?

      I'm pretty sure such a list would count as collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism. With a law as vague as this you can go as meta as you like and still get a conviction!

      --
      Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
    94. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I deplore the "anarchist cookbook", any good chemistry book will have information that can be used to make bombs, are they going to ban chemistry? Maybe ban all of Science?
      The British "Nanny state" marches on.

    95. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      Most of the terrorist arrests in the US didn't even require a book. Thinking, i.e. "conspiring," was enough. In fact the CIA recently decided to mark an American Islamic cleric for death, though he is not thought to have been--or even expected to be--directly involved with carrying out any terrorist attack, though I suppose that case involves thinking out loud.

    96. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by berzerke · · Score: 1

      There comes a point where I would rather take my chances with the bad guys than see our basic freedoms and way of life eroded any further.

      Agreed. It's sad it comes down to taking your chances with terrorists or taking your chances with your own government's jack-booted thugs.

      A while ago I read an interesting article about terrorists. According to the article, many (most?) terrorists came from countries with oppressive governments despite being somewhat well off money-wise. This was compared to very few terrorists from countries that while poor, gave their citizens freedom and human rights. The upshot was/is oppression breeds terrorism, not freedom and liberty. Wish I could find it again.

    97. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 0, Troll

      Which again is utterly insane and based on nothing more than the opinions of moralizing bigots.

      Those who know through professional dealings with pedophiles that many who start with child pornograhy end up committing child abuse are labeled by you as "moralizing bigots". Well, you're welcome to your opinion, but most people would think your libertarian thinking has taken you beyond the rational.

    98. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by TerranFury · · Score: 1

      Eco-Necro-Pedo-Copro-Jihadist Tutorial for Total Annihilation!

      My only question is: Are they ARM or CORE?

    99. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Barrinmw · · Score: 1

      What they might not get is that CGI child porn may at least keep a pedophile or Ephebophile from actually committing those heinous acts for maybe just a little bit longer, or maybe not at all.

    100. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Barrinmw · · Score: 1

      Maybe, to better prepare myself against an Al Qaeda attack, I should review their training methods and such to see how advanced they are and what they can do and with what efficiency?

    101. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      In other words the English Government was created, *by man*, to protect his property, his body, and his rights. Especially after the chaos that resulted when Rome's administration withdrew. It has no other legitimate purpose.

      Of course there are governments that exist for illegitimate purposes, like enslaving or exterminating. These governments are diseased and need to be toppled.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    102. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Creepy · · Score: 1

      Incidentally, there has been an online version of the anarchist cookbook since the early BBS days, and while it tended to lean toward hacker/phreaker things, it had pipe bombs, fish tank cleaner bombs (potassium permanganate and gasoline, but pure potassium permanganate was hard to get even back then - the stuff sold in stores had a stabilizer agent), and the best homemade smoke bomb I've ever seen - just sugar, potassium nitrate (works better if you melt them together) - heck, better than most commercial smoke bombs I've seen.

      The thing is, this information is legal to possess in the United States - using the recipes is illegal in many cases, however (and I know - I got busted with 2 pages of it in Jr High due to an idiotic move by a friend who made copies and was selling them in the library, then turned me in as the source - the school made that an expulsion offense afterward... thankfully, pre-Columbine, so all I had to do was chat with the police and principal, which scared the beejezus out of me)

    103. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Barrinmw · · Score: 1

      There is a difference between writing on your facebook "I am going to make so and so pay" and writing on your facebook "I am going to make so and so pay" and going to the store to buy a shotgun.

    104. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      inventive ways to create "pre-crime" is fantastic isn't it.

      why punish people for harm they do when you can punish them in advance for crimes you think they might one day do!
      bonus points if you can lock up people for being creepy as well since nobody likes creepy people.

    105. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

      The goal of book bans is to prevent you ever learning the toughts of others on a subject and as such to try to prevent you from ever sharing those thoughts so book bans and such restrictions on the transmission of ideas is inherently related to thoughtcrime.

      But of course the UK could never be going down that road.

      http://www.boingboing.net/200701091052.jpg

    106. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 1

      basically you do this: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-07/932591567.Ag.r.html with castor beans instead of soy beans...

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    107. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, of course, once you start actually making weapons, that's quite a different story.

      Is it? You might be curious about how the manufacturing process works in reality, rather than in the theory presented in the book. You might want some explosives to remove some tree stumps from your land - or simply because you want to see if they work.

      Once you start actually using weapons on people, that's when it becomes wrong.

    108. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 1


      Best not. The government doesn't like people being able to look after themselves. Makes it feel a bit insecure. Better to remain ignorant and helpless and depend on the government to look after you. (They wont, mind you, but they react very badly to being doubted).

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    109. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism

      That clause should have been read as "information of a kind likely to be useful to the person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". Then the possession of the said information would be punishable only if the person possessing the information had already been independently determined to be in the act of committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Maybe somebody made a mistake at some stage?

    110. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Any number of things, not least the majority of university level science and engineering textbooks, could be extremely useful to terrorists."

      not the least indeed, there is something more fundamental to terrorism. Language, if people could not communicate they could never challenge the state, but wait we have a tool to accomplish non communication consisting of non accountable organizations that can and do impose arbitrary damage destruction and violence on individuals the internet, the state, the corporation

      Language = terrorism

      time to get rid of it

    111. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by mpe · · Score: 1

      I have the feeling the conviction has more to do with a bunch of white supremacists holding large quantities of ricin, than that actual act of learning how to make it.

      It's notable how these men are never called "terrorists" in the article... Especially since these convictions happened in the same week as a big fuss was made about arrests related to car fire in New York.

    112. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by mpe · · Score: 1

      If I were in the UK I'd start downloading and distributing the Anarchist Handbook via bittorrent just to challenge this ridiculous law.

      If you were actually interested in terrorism it would make more sense to see if the (Real) IRA have a handbook.

    113. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Under this law, then, the United States Department of Justice, who have compiled and made available for download such gems as the Jihadi Explosives Manual and Al-Qaida Poison Handbook is guilty of this crime, as I'm certain there are British citizens who have downloaded such materials from the DoJ.

    114. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "White supremacist"?
      I think they mean "white SEPARATIST" - you know, a white person who simply wants to live with other white people, but isn't given this option.

      So we have hundreds of millions of white people who want to live in all white countries (heaven forbid), but they aren't allowed to, because "the T.V. said so".

      And you idiots think this is going to work?
      That we are going to continue to bow our heads while our children's countries are turned into third world cesspits? No running water? No electricity? No sewage systems? Endless crimes? Sharia law?

      Still, at least we'll be able to tell them, when we're being murdered in our own homes, that we weren't "racist"...

    115. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vacuously true tautology much?

      "would result in more criminals being convicted"... Because--those convicted are criminal by definition. If the police arrest more people--which they will, as it's easier. And if only 1/N of criminals are convicted--then passing MORE LAWS results in MORE CRIMINALS BEING CONVICTED.

      Sigh. The law has nothing to do with truth, justice, equity, retribution, or prevention of harm these days.

    116. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by mpe · · Score: 1

      No. Possession and distribution of a terrorist manual is an actual crime, not a thought crime.

      It would be a very big surprise if the British Government does not produce and distribute "terrorist manuals".

    117. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "neighbour(sic)(sic)"

      neighbour is spelled with a 'u' in the UK, Ireland and Australia...

      anyway the GP said "as long as he never tries"... The Radioactive Boy Scout didn't just have books... he gathered radioactive material and tried to build a reactor.

    118. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by justinlee37 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that when Winston Smith was convicted for keeping a journal, that was not a thought crime? After all, possession of a journal was an actual crime, not a thought crime. He was convicted for actions that he did, not thoughts that he had.

      Speaking seriously, did you ever read 1984? Did the point of the book pass entirely over your head? Being convicted of a crime simply for owning a particular book with "illegal information" in it is practically the definition of thoughtcrime. It's so similar to the plot and events of the novel 1984 that it ought to give you chills.

    119. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by mpe · · Score: 1

      Most of the terrorist arrests in the US didn't even require a book. Thinking, i.e. "conspiring," was enough.

      Unless it's the "wrong people" in which case only a "nutjob conspiracy theorist" would have anything against them :)

      In fact the CIA recently decided to mark an American Islamic cleric for death, though he is not thought to have been--or even expected to be--directly involved with carrying out any terrorist attack

      Given that the CIA has long been in the business of supporting and training terrorists they may have an "advantage" in knowing what to look for.

    120. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 0

      No, it isn't false. In order for there to be a correlation the post ban data would need to be significantly different from the rest of the population, and it is not.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    121. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a vegetarian and have no problems with animal testing.
      (Well, obviously not just to test an improvised poison)

      Anyway, you seem to have a bit of an assumption there.

    122. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it is. The hunter's code: You eat what you kill.

    123. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Many rapists have viewed porn too. Many murderers have watched violent movies. Perhaps porn and violent movies should be banned?

    124. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any innocent person in the UK could be raped up the ass by the government with no issue whatsoever. They can detain you for 28 days without any charge or any evidence, just because they feel like it and have a sympathetic judge. Then they can ask you for the password to your steganographed encrypted information (the burden to prove that it doesn't exist is on you) and when you fail to provide that, one year in prison. Then they can charge you with possessing information that could be used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism, for each map in your house, each photograph of a landmark, each book, each computer. They could keep you in prison forever if they could be bothered to construct a believable narrative, and maybe fabricate/lie about a bit of real evidence.

      It's insane, and I hope the condem government includes all of that shit in its great FREEDOM BILL.

    125. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      9?

      Duh!

    126. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Less than 6 is not significantly different from greater then 9?

      Duh!

    127. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      I'm not filled with happy thoughts that everything will all get put right just like that.

      Shhh! Don't say that so loud! You'll get arrested for not thinking like a good citizen!

    128. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mmmmm, mice with a side of castor beans....

    129. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there's a tendancy of the materials to encourage the actions

      Citation needed.

      You're criminalising abstract knowledge here. Does studying chemistry really encourage you to be a terrorist? Of course it doesn't. And even if it did, the right to privacy supersedes society's retarded overreaction until you actually take an action that is terroristic. Reading about bombs: protected. Building a bomb and putting it in a car: not protected.

    130. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      Once you start actually using weapons on people, that's when it becomes wrong.

      No, once you MAKE the chemical weapon (or make the precursors, or attempt to), you have committed a crime, rightfully so. It isn't about terrorism, it is about public safety. I don't need some slack jawed self-taught chemist trying to make ricin in his basement next door to me. Chemical weapsons are not easy to create and contain safely without experience and an isolated location. If you need to make these chemicals and have the experience and facilities, then you should be able to get a permit to do so. If you are not qualified and have a reason (research, etc.) then no, you don't need to be making weapons of mass destruction. Your personal rights are trumped by the safety of the general public in these cases, for damn good reason: One easy to make mistake can kill or injure dozens or hundreds of people.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    131. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Judges should not be a necessary to prevent any abuse of the law. The law should be written in a way that precludes such abuse, and judges should only need to be involved as a last resort.

      Also, you're a despicable fascist and I'm ashamed to share this country with you.

    132. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is that when Winston Smith was convicted for keeping a journal, that was not a thought crime?

      Car theft and speeding are two crimes involving cars. That does not make them the same crime. Winston Smith is arrested for what he thinks, not the act of keeping a journal. The Terrorism Act 2006 makes it a crime to possess and distribute terrorist manuals, under various conditions. It doesn't make it illegal to think in certain ways.

      Speaking seriously, did you ever read 1984? Did the point of the book pass entirely over your head?

      I read it many years ago, yes. It's a good sci-fi novel. The trouble is that too many people take it as a bible, rather then a novel. As if it was a work by Nostradamus, than by Eric Blair. It gives us an insight into Blair's personal politics, influenced as it was by dislike of the USSR.

      Did Jules Vernes "From Earth to the Moon" stop America from going ahead with the Apollo programme? No.

      One shouldn't let policy be run by irrational feelings of some people relating to events in a novel. But rather by rational thought about events in the real world.

    133. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      The existence of child porn shows that children were abused in order to produce that porn...
      The existence of a manual explaining how to commit acts of terrorism does not prove that any terrorism was actually committed in order to write the book. Infact, there are countless movies and news reports available which may provide inspiration to someone wishing to commit acts of terrorism or other crimes - should these items be banned too?

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    134. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Possession of an atlas is a criminal offence.

      Hell, possession of a letter from your MP is a criminal offence - it gives you the address of the Palace of Westminster, which is quite useful for terrorism purposes.

      The law is utterly fucked, and the Conservative MP that pretends to represent my consitituency appears to believe that this is just tickety boo.

    135. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      It's not, there is plenty of pornography available which involves girls of legal age dressed as schoolgirls. Just because someone looks underage, doesn't make it illegal. Conversely, just because someone didn't look underage doesn't make it legal.
      You have to be careful, lots of underage people have fake ID these days which they use to buy alcohol and enter bars etc. Even buying a drink for them is illegal, let alone doing anything sexual.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    136. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      could someone please ban this fascist?

    137. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      punishing someone for mere possession of information is the creation of thoughtcrime.

      And "conspiracy" has been a crime for a while now and no one complained (well, some may have, but not enough to matter). So people don't mind thought crimes. But nothing I've seen means this act is a "creation" of a thought crime, as such things have been around for a while, just without that name.

    138. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by steelfood · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Now, of course, once you start actually making weapons, that's quite a different story.

      Ah, how far we've already slipped.

      From an American viewpoint (because TFA is in Britain, which is a little different), it's not a crime to make chemical weapons. It's not a crime to possess explosives, or any other thing that potentially can go boom. It's a crime to use them, or intend to use them in a manner that will harm others. If improperly kept, it can be a violation of certain safety codes, but not a crime.

      But nowadays, people automatically associate having explosive or chemicals (regardless what they might be or might be for) as indicative of criminal acts, and the burden of proof is suddenly on the possessor to prove he's not interested in killing people with them. That already is a gross erosion of our fundamental freedoms. Fortunately, at least in the states, there are still a few people able to recognize this difference. But it's most likely not going to be among those in a jury.

      We're already halfway down that slippery slope, and it'll only be a matter of time before we get to a point where thoughtcrime becomes a ubiquitous reality.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    139. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 2, Funny

      It isn't a comparison between 6 and 9.

      Leave statistics to people who know statistics. I don't look over your shoulder and tell you when the fries are done.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    140. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      It isn't a comparison between 6 and 9.... Leave statistics to people who know statistics.

      Clearly not you, you thicky.

    141. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spot on.

    142. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Making ricin is easy enough. Making enough to kill lots of people is hard. Delivering it in such a way as to kill lots of people is also difficult.

      That said, ricin is pretty darned dangerous. It's easy enough to kill yourself with it if you aren't careful.

    143. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would mod him up, but I don't want to be seen publicly supporting terrorists.

      Too bad, you've confessed the intent to do so - enough to charge you with a conspiracy to support terrorists, mate. The party van is out. Bet if we check your browser cache, it'll turn out that you're a pedo, too.

    144. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's been 25 years since 1984, yet we get closer to it every passing day

    145. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Couldn't they just pick him up for public intoxication?

    146. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by sjames · · Score: 1

      It could even be stretched to include "Why it was obvious Saddam didn't have WMD". Describe the weapon, what would be needed to manufacture it and that no such capability existed. With thoughtcrime it's a short step from politically inconvenient to in jail.

    147. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Unless you just wanted to do some small scale tests to see if the instructions in the book really could be implemented by a terrorist or if it's a bunch of handwaving like much of the so called anarchist's cookbook. The amounts found could be important.

    148. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by nagnamer · · Score: 1

      We live in a democratic society, not a police state.

      So, maybe that's where you err.

      --
      Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
    149. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by nagnamer · · Score: 1

      if greenpeace had their way we'd all live in the forrest eating berries and passing the time by throwing our own shit at each other.

      And we'd ask a goat for advice on political issues, no doubt.

      --
      Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
    150. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like most overreaching laws, the first few people convicted will obviously deserve it, and could've been convicted for a proper crime if people were prepared to do their jobs properly. Serious misuse will happen when we've all accepted the necessity of the new law.

      Fortunately, this law is likely to be a target of the "freedom bill" the incoming government has announced they plan to introduce in order to remove some of the more odious laws introduced under the last government.

      Is there a list of what we can't read?

      No. The law extends to anything "likely to be of use" in the preparation for the commission of a terrorist attack. There's an exemption for anything you have a good reason to possess, e.g. if you're employed in an industry that makes use of explosives, documents on how to use explosives would not be an offence. For the rest of us, though, they would. For example, I have no reasonable excuse that I can think of right now to possess the book called "High Explosives and Propellants" that's on my bookshelf. Would it be useful to a terrorist? Yes. It has many useful details, and the section on shaping demolition charges could be extremely useful to a terrorist. AFAICT, this means I am currently committing a criminal offence.

    151. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In some parts of the US (I'm thinking about Massachusetts laws specifically) a dog can be considered a deadly weapon being brandished under the circumstances you describe. A snarling doberman off leash while the owner is obviously somewhat incapacitated (and thus vulnerable, which a dog can understand) would be one of those circumstances. So the drunk could've been picked up on drunk and disorderly and brandishing a deadly weapon with no need for a leash law.

    152. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are quite a few high school chemistry and biology textbooks that could be used to create quite a bit of terror. (My high school chemistry book had enough information to make thermite which is more dangerous if you /don't/ know how to use it.)

    153. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. This book has been around for years! Even when I was young! Just because I have a Guitar doesn't necessarily mean I will play it. Nor loan it out, or even give it away.

    154. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by shalla · · Score: 1

      I think we're going for the curious but technically non-savvy group with the print copies. In fact, exactly the people I'd rather just read the stuff and carefully put the book back rather than got viruses on their computers by wandering into someone's poorly documented "You can make a smoke bomb by doing this!" page which lacks any critical warnings.

      Not that I doubt some people's ability to document important safety precautions but... yeah, I do.

    155. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm associated with bcmm (A terrorist)
      You're associated with me, (A terrorist by association)
      I'm AC.
      You're not.
      QED, you're fucked.

    156. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by bcmm · · Score: 1

      Oh, the irony...

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    157. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by DavidShor · · Score: 1

      I'm somewhat conflicted on the issue. On one hand, some people are sexually attracted to Children, and the simulated variety could give those affected an outlet without attacking children. On the other hand, it faces the risk of normalizing these desires, and most would consider that a very very bad thing.

    158. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by justinlee37 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not convinced that a book which describes how to make bombs is a terrorist manual, even if some of the speech in the book is inflammatory. There are plenty of legitimate uses for a bomb manual; it could be of great utility to civilian militias, an important part of our freedom and national heritage.

      Winston did a lot of illegal things in the novel, yes, but he mentions on several occasions that simply the act of keeping a journal at all is a thoughtcrime.

      In North Korea, it is illegal to bring any books into the nation at all, because the government is afraid that reading imported books might cause the people to begin thinking rebellious thoughts. Once you begin to restrict what we can and can't read, I think you're moving into potentially catastrophic territory.

      The USSR was clearly an inspiration for much of the novel but it would be a mistake to interpret the novel as a mere indictment of Stalin; all governments, regardless of their economic system and ruling body, are capable of severe oppression and the criminalization of "anti-government" thoughts and writings.

      If the events of 1984 were rooted in complete fantasy, I wouldn't bring it up at all, but it is a cautionary tale based on the real-life actions of governments, past and present.

      The short version of this is, I don't think anyone should be arrested for owning and reading a book, regardless of what the book says. The freedom to read anything is an important part of having freedom at all. If you want to arrest someone for illegally possessing explosives, fine. If you want to arrest someone for conspiracy to purchase explosives, or conspiracy to commit mass murder or other terrorist acts, fine. However, if you criminalize merely reading about how to make explosives, then you have essentially created a thoughtcrime law.

    159. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      Not to be confused with the third alternative... "I am going to make so and so pay" and then sending that person an invoice.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    160. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by shnull · · Score: 1

      well, if they have to be like this, they deserve every terrorist they get

      --
      beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
    161. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by WNight · · Score: 1

      we don't actually have the tech

      Back in the 70s Iran had already started stockpiling mass, gigatonnes of it in finely-powdered high-density silica-composites. If they've continued to acquire mass (and we must assume they have) they could already have dangerous amounts. Leaked CIA documents allege they have access (via slant-drilling technology) to approximately 5.9 yottatonnes of high-grade mass. Enough, if extracted and compacted into a ball, to measure almost 13000km across!

      Presumably, the terrorist nation would then attach powerful rockets to their illicit mass and accelerate it, producing powerful gravitational effects - identical (except in scale) to those you admit they already know how to turn into literally unstoppable weapons of mass destruction!

      Clearly it's far more dangerous than anyone will admit.

    162. Re:Could've been the Anarchist's Cookbook.... by WNight · · Score: 1

      The break of the peace charge requires a trial, evidence, etc.

      A law against an off-lead dog on the other hand is just another zero-tolerance policy selectively applied.

  2. "white-supremacist father and son" by dollarwizard · · Score: 1

    How is that "white-supremacist" part relevant? It's not illegal to be ignorant, is it?

    1. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually from what my foreign friends have told me America's one of the few countries where these kinds of groups aren't strongly discouraged by some means other than public attitude.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    2. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are referring to anyone saying "I am a white supremacist" being either thrown into prison or beat up, maybe you should be happy about that?

    3. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I consider that a sign of one of the strengths of Americas freedom of speech. That a group can say something politically and socially unpopular but still have a right to have and hold that message.

      Please correct me if that is wrong or has changed.

    4. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by yotto · · Score: 1

      Yeah it's the flipside of that pesky old Freedom of Speech thing.

      Given the choice between allowing White Supremacists and Free Speech Zones, I'll begrudgingly take the White Supremacists.

    5. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by RabbitWho · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well I'm glad to know that it's not normal every day people. When I was 17 and read Fight Club for the first time I got terribly interested in this kind of crap, (amateur explosives and general mischief, not white supremacy!) and probably downloaded a lot of stupid things out of curiosity, it was a phase I grew out of, and I never intended to do anything for a second.. I do remember finding an awesome shaving creme "bomb" though.. . it would have made some mess! My mom would have been so surprised! And I wanted to put an "out of order sign" on an ATM (to free people from their dependence on money... oh my god I was an idiot)

      Anyway my point is I feel it's important for them to mention that these were serious nasty people, and not just hobbyists who want to blow up their old fridge because they're stupid and explosions look so cool on tv.

    6. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      As it happens I found a relatively easy to understand link that might help
      http://www.bestofsicily.com/genetics.htm

      The brotherhood of mankind has ancient roots. In the remote shadows of human pre-history, there was only a single primitive culture. "Genetic tracking" is a new science but it indicates that "modern" man existed as a hunter-gatherer in eastern Africa around 150,000 years ago, with evidence of these same people discovered in the Middle East dated from around 80,000 years ago. A well-researched hypothesis that all humans are descended from a "mitochondrial" Eve (a reference to the mitochondrial DNA traced to a female ancestor living in east Africa 150,000 years, or about 7,000 generations, ago) emphasizes the "commonality" of all humans and our descent from a single "race." At one point, there were probably only around 10,000 humans in the world, and they gradually migrated, leaving a DNA trail behind them.

      In other words we are all a mixture sharing common genes there is no master race so no matter how white you think you are you still have genes of black people in your DNA. Wack jobs white black muslim or christian need a little education but if that fails prison is probably the best place for them.

      It isn't the literature that is a problem it is what people do with that information. I don't need an instruction book to make some sort of bomb and neither do most other people however there is no real desire to make a bomb either. I believe that the anarchists cookbook is reckoned to be flawed and the recipes likely to harm the cook to a greater or lesser extent which tends to suggest its safer to leave the cook book in circulation.

    7. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not only that, but by allowing them to express their views openly we can confront them with the facts instead of letting them fester underground. I ran into some of those type preaching their hate in Dallas and told those standing there listening to their hate about my grandfather's experience in WWII, how he was there when they liberated one of the camps, how they had the bodies of prisoners stacked up like cordwood, how you couldn't tell male from female because they were all so starved, how they were warned before hand not to give them any food because the rich diet of K Rations that the soldiers had would cause them to have a systemic collapse, a real fucking horror story.

      I would MUCH rather have those types of speech out in the open, where they can be confronted, than to allow them to fester underground unopposed, and my grandfather believed that as well. When I asked him if watching the protests against the soldiers in Viet Nam bothered him he said "We fought the Nazis so we would be free to speak, so even if I don't support their words, I support their right to say them". i know this crap like "free speech zones" would have grandfather spinning in his grave fast enough to power the southern US.

      So while I say bust their ass if they are making bombs I do NOT support anyone getting busted for simply reading or possessing a book. Too close to thoughtcrime for my tastes. And never forget there are plenty on the far sides of the political spectrum that would just looove to throw anyone in jail who reads Marx or Mao or anything that is other than "Capitalism Fuck Yeah!"

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Nursie · · Score: 1

      Yeah.

      Unfortunately in the US you have both.

    9. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      Honestly I don't see why we don't do away with the pretense and instead of "free speech zone" tape and sticking both groups inside it we just straight up make it a cage match.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    10. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by dangitman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only that, but by allowing them to express their views openly we can confront them with the facts instead of letting them fester underground.

      In theory yes, but as we see on slashdot, ignorant people with incorrect facts are often celebrated by the community with up-modding, while those who try to counter with facts and logic are down-modded.

      It works similarly outside of slashdot, in politics and society in general, the person with the loudest voice is often the victor, despite the faults in their argument.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    11. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by turgid · · Score: 1

      Here in the UK we have an openly white-supremacist political party that fielded candidates in the recent General Election: the British National Party. They are trying so hard to appear "honest" and "reasonable" but they're really just a front for racial and religions bigotry and neo-Nazism.

    12. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by P0ltergeist333 · · Score: 1, Informative

      Didn't we already have 'Free Speech Zones' since the Vietnam war? And then wasn't limited use of free speech zones greatly expanded when Bush was pResident? (http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/dissent_report.pdf)

      Let's face it, when Republicans are in power, you get a larger dose of both white supremacists AND Free Speech Zones. Just look at Arizona.

      --
      One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
    13. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cite some actual proof then.

    14. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by value_added · · Score: 1

      As it happens I found a relatively easy to understand link that might help
      http://www.bestofsicily.com/genetics.htm

      An alternative introduction to genetics and Sicily:

      You're an eggplant!

    15. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Here in the UK we have an openly white-supremacist political party that fielded candidates in the recent General Election: the British National Party. They are trying so hard to appear "honest" and "reasonable" but they're really just a front for racial and religions bigotry and neo-Nazism.

      Here in the US, we call them "Republicans". And the Tea Party doesn't think they go far enough.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    16. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by sabre86 · · Score: 1

      When Marx & Mao both imprisoned and killed people for reading/possessing "pro-capitalist" literature, books, movies, etc and/or speaking out.

      Who did Marx imprison or kill?

      --sabre86

    17. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by xaxa · · Score: 1

      Here are some examples of BNP members being convicted of various things (many race-related).

    18. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by russotto · · Score: 1

      When Marx & Mao both imprisoned and killed people for reading/possessing "pro-capitalist" literature, books, movies, etc and/or speaking out.

      Marx never achieved power, and Mao imprisoned and killed people for reading pretty much any book (except his own), pro-capitalist or not.

    19. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      So you openly propose oppression and suppression of free speech is a good thing. Free speech is good 'in theory' but not in practice.

      Well, it's good that you're airing your position here, so it can be criticized. Loudly, I might add.

    20. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      You're correct, in that Marx was an armchair theoretician. He did participate actively in the First International, but mostly he hung out in the library, writing stuff that would provoke other people to do crazy things in the name of 'science.'

      I think the GP should have cited Lenin instead. Lenin imprisoned plenty of people for thought crimes.

    21. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by dangitman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you openly propose oppression and suppression of free speech is a good thing. Free speech is good 'in theory' but not in practice.

      No. Where did I ever say that? My point was simply that it doesn't always work that way. I never said I opposed freedom of speech, just that it doesn't always work for the best. But it's still better than not allowing freedom of speech.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    22. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And never forget there are plenty on the far sides of the political spectrum that would just looove to throw anyone in jail who reads Marx or Mao or anything that is other than "Capitalism Fuck Yeah!"

      Since there are plenty I'm sure you won't mind naming three, with references to show proof.

    23. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Heywood+J.+Blaume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just like unpopular speech is still free, Slashdot posts aren't modded up for correctness or popularity. They're modded up for being interesting and well-communicated. Just because someone's wrong doesn't mean they should be modded down. I want to see the comments with which I disagree, so I can argue with them. Which is what happened here. I was actually meta-moderating, and your comment came up. I just had to jump in.

    24. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that I am any kind of a fan of Marx, but speaking of revising & rewriting history to suit, he never imprisoned anyone.

      All in all, your post is pretty wacky. Progressives are going to take control & imprison teachers!!! Progressives have made inroads into the Republican party! Tea party people labeled terrorists!! Unions and community organizations are committing acts of violence!!!!

      Entertaining or it would be if you weren't serious.

    25. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 0

      How about we make a list of all of the Labour Party members who have been convicted of various things? I would bet its a much longer list. The list you connected to is just a bunch of people who have been convicted of various crimes and have some connection to the BNP. In most of the cases(not all, just most) there is nothing to suggest a connection between their BNP membership and their crime.
      Does this mean I think the BNP is a good Party? No. I have no idea whether the BNP is good for the UK or not. What I do know is that your link is an example of making a case against someone (or some group) on the basis of out of context negative information. In order for that link to be at all useful, we would need to have a similar list for the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Just as a note about some of the vague racism convictions on that list, I read a story the other day about a pensioner who was arrested for racism because he put up a sign saying "GET THE LOT OUT". Why was he arrested? because the sign was white and the lettering was red and blue (the sign was the colors of the Union Jack)

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    26. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Unless you are brown.

      White: I hate the president -> Oh well...
      Brown: I hate the president -> Must be a terrorist! Jail him! Torture him! Quick!

      Brown is the new black.

      I’m sorry, but your whole American “freedom of speech” happy happy rainbow unicorn fantasy world never existed. You just had the luck to be born into the right groups.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    27. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Petron · · Score: 1

      And don't look at Robert Byrd, Tom Metzger, David Duke*, and other Democrats that are members of the KKK. Both sides have racists. Neither one has "More racists" or is "more tolerant". Both Democrat and Republican parties are (for at the most part) non-racists. There are a few nut-jobs in both sides.

      *Duke changed from Democrat to republican in 1998, and supposedly shed his racist views... He didn't, and he didn't last to long in office as a Republican (2 years).

      AND don't look at how your rights are being whittled away with the current administration.

      --
      if (it != oneThing) it = another;
    28. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by BoberFett · · Score: 1

      Really? White people who don't like Obama are routinely called racists. What rock did you just crawl from under?

    29. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you label 9 out of 20 people in the US as neo-nazis and religious bigots, maybe it is time to point out that black people are waging a genocidal racially motivated war on white people, as evident from the fact that 90% of cross-race violence is committed by blacks against whites?

      Racism - the excuse people who hate white people use, defined as 'When someone white does something bad to someone who is not white'.

    30. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by sourcerror · · Score: 1

      Actually from what my foreign friends have told me America's one of the few countries where these kinds of groups aren't strongly discouraged by some means other than public attitude.

      Well, actually East-European countries doesn't have Holocaust denial laws. Given their socialist past they're more aware how that can go wrong.

    31. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Communist, I realise that years of brainwashing by right-wing politicians have made this confusing but there's a really big fucking difference between communism, fascism, capitalism, and socialism.

      It's especially important because if you live in a first world country you live in a socialist country.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    32. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

      I too downloaded pleanty of "terrorist material" when I was a teenager.
      I wasn't remotely interested in creating bombs. I just wanted to know the chemistry.

      There is some good material out there but I came to the conclusion that even with just my moderate knowledge of chemistry 90% of the stuff was completely off the wall and more likely to kill the person following the guides.

    33. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Truekaiser · · Score: 1

      marx lived long enough to see what other people tried to create using their interpretations of his work and has famously quoted as saying 'i'm no Marxist'
      You also have to realize that what people parade about saying what capitalism is now on tv and in political speeches also differs greatly from what adam smith wrote but these same people who hold it up like it's the bible of capitalism have never read.

      They both have good points. the former's is that unfettered capitalism will always lead to a exploitation of workers and those of a class lower then the business owners and those who are rich. the latter makes a good point on how it can make country's a better place for their populations, if done correctly of course.

    34. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by pclminion · · Score: 1

      I agree with you in principle. But what do we do about people like Fred Phelps? What he does is obviously "speech" but in several very real senses could be considered harassment or intimidation as well. That guy's going to end up shot, and I have to admit I won't feel terribly bad about it when it happens.

    35. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by pclminion · · Score: 1

      In case it's not obvious, I am not threatening Fred Phelps -- I'm referring to his idiotic practice of protesting military funerals. You know, funerals where there are a lot of battle-hardened, psychologically scarred Iraq veterans in attendance. Someone is going to snap.

    36. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by turgid · · Score: 1

      How about we make a list of all of the Labour Party members who have been convicted of various things?

      How many other UK political parties have so many candidates (not just members) convicted of violence, drugs, plotting terrorist attacks, hate-crimes and sexual assault and abuse?

    37. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      maybe it is time to point out that black people are waging a genocidal racially motivated war on white people

      You have made my point for me, Governor Palin.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    38. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by dangitman · · Score: 1

      Slashdot posts aren't modded up for correctness or popularity. They're modded up for being interesting and well-communicated.

      That's only occasionally correct. Sometimes they are. But plenty of times I've seen borderline incoherent and incorrect posts that are also uninteresting modded up. The fact is that it often is a popularity contest. Particularly on certain topics, if you're on the right side of the groupthink, you can write absolute drivel and get modded up. Conversely, if you're on the wrong side of the groupthink, it doesn't matter how interesting or eloquent your point is, you will be modded down.

      Not that I care about mod-points personally. Just pointing out that it often works in very bizarre ways, and not always along quality lines.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    39. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      I don't know and I bet neither do you. That link doesn't give us any idea. Which is my point, the link lists a bunch of people associated with the BNP who have committed various criminal acts, but it gives us no context by providing a similar list of people associated with other parties.
      In order to conclusively make the case that the BNP is an "openly white-supremacist political party", it would be necessary to link to speeches and other official party documents that support white-supremacy. Without that the best you can do is say that they are a party that is a "poorly veiled white-supremacist party". The link provided only proves that the BNP is a party that attracts white-supremacists and criminals, it doesn't even prove that it attracts them to a greater degree than other parties.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    40. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      If extremists are a minority - even a loud minority - their voice, however unrestricted, will still be drowned out by the moderate majority, provided that their views are sufficiently extreme to warrant that (if they aren't, why would we care?).

      If extremists are a majority, then no hate speech law will help you, because it will simply be unenforceable.

      About the only case where I see such laws being potentially useful is when you have a large populace which isn't extremist per se, but where the conditions are such that turning them extremist is extremely easy. This usually happens when there has been a really huge, ongoing fuck-up, which adversely affects people's life in a direct and visible way (i.e. - quality of life, widespread unemployment, soaring crime etc), and they're looking for a good scapegoat. This is what happened in Weimar Republic.

      But, then again, when the society is in such a sorry state, hate speech laws won't help. Indeed, making extremist propaganda illegal under such conditions will just ensure that more otherwise rational people would be willing to listen ("If they want to ban it so bad, then maybe the guys really are telling the true story?").

    41. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You don't live in a socialist country, unless you live in a country where there's no private property, but only personal property. If you can (theoretically) buy and own a factory, and hire people to operate it, then you live in a capitalist country, because that's pretty much the definition of "capital". So far as I know, all First World countries, without exception, are like that.

      It's true that all First World countries are also welfare states to some extent or another, and that this is mistakenly and confusingly referred to as "socialism" for propaganda purposes, mainly in North America. But it's a different thing.

    42. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with you in principle. But what do we do about people like Fred Phelps?

      Not a goddamn thing.

      If Fred Phelps isn't free to say "God hates Fags", then I'm not free to say "Phuck Phred Felps."

      It's always tempting to take the easy way out, and history is littered with the ruins of regimes where people obviously know better than their fellow man what wass good for him, and appointed priests, monarchs, autarchs, or other despots to do the thinking on behalf of the populace.

      Fuck. That. Noise.

      The American Constitution has a lot of neat ideas in it. Nowhere is there a provision that says living up to its authors' values is supposed to be easy.

    43. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      Not that I am any kind of a fan of Marx, but speaking of revising & rewriting history to suit, he never imprisoned anyone.

      Of course, Marx didn't imprison/kill anyone himself. The ideology he espoused and that was implemented by others did. As others have posted, I should have cited Lenin.

      If this were the late 1920s;

      All in all, your post is pretty wacky. National Socialists are going to take control & imprison teachers!!! National Socialists have made inroads into the Reichstag! Jews labeled terrorists!! Unions and community organizations are committing acts of violence!!!!

      Entertaining or it would be if you weren't serious.

      Neville Chamberlain, is that you, returned from the dead?

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    44. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by turgid · · Score: 1

      One of their main policies is the "repatriation" of non-whites from the UK. How much more evidence do you need? One of their candidates called Asians and Africans "black pigs." Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, was on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme shortly before the General Election both confirming and condoning what tat particular candidate had said.

      That sounds a lot like white supremacy to me. I find it disgusting.

    45. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      One of their main policies is the "repatriation" of non-whites from the UK. How much more evidence do you need? One of their candidates called Asians and Africans "black pigs." Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, was on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme shortly before the General Election both confirming and condoning what tat particular candidate had said.

      That sounds a lot like white supremacy to me. I find it disgusting.

      I was not arguing whether or not the BNP was white-supremacist, I was arguing whether the link provided was in any way proof of that allegation. If you have a citation for these claims you just made, that would constitute, at the least, sufficient evidence to support making the allegation (although there may exist evidence that would allow another person to reach alternate conclusions).
      I don't live in the UK and am not familiar with the BNP, however, I am familiar with attacks that smear a group by claiming that nutjobs who associate themselves with that group are representative of the group, even when the group does not support the nutjobs.
      You keep attacking the BNP, who I am not defending. An Anonymous Coward, requested a citation of proof for you original comment. Xaxa provided a smear link, that I challenged as proof because it is merely a list of people associated with BNP who have been convicted of various crimes (only a few of which are related to your allegation). I don't care one way or the other about your allegation of the BNP being white-supremacist, I care about people using faulty arguments (Xaxa's link).

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    46. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by turgid · · Score: 1

      I've given you at least one citation: the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. This is a national news programme listened to millions of people every day. You can probably listen again to the programme at its web site. Quite frankly, the BBC and other reputable UK media are full of information about the vicious and poisonous nature of the BNP and its members. Even the Daily Mail which is the staple news paper of small-minded, intolerant Little Englanders has nothing good to say about them.

    47. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      That's nice, the link that was in the comment I replied to(which you did not post) is still meaningless as support for your original post.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    48. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by sourcerror · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but you're the brainwashed*. I come from Hungary, which you would call post-communist (we had a one-party state, the ruling party was communist, however never tried to implement communism, only socialism; communism what something they struggled to build).

      According to Marxist-Leninist ideology after communist parties seize power socialism must implemented, which is a stepping stone to communism. The difference between the two are the follwing:

      1, socialism: people get paid in money; not necceserily the same amount, but only small differences are allowed (in Hungary an engineer earned 20% more than an unskilled worker).
      2, communism: no money

      Both are implemented in a one-party state where means of production are owned by the workers (practically by the state).

      The leaders of these countries never stated they have implemented comminism, however the leading party (the only allowed one) was called communist party, and the leaders called themselves communist (actually, everyone was suppposed to be one, hence they called each other comrade).

      Sweden is not a socialist state, but a social-democratic one. Big difference.

      * Actually the whole American media uses these words wrong, I guess it goes back to the propaganda of McCarthy.

    49. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by turgid · · Score: 1

      And this is Slashdot, not the Economist or Nature.

    50. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by pclminion · · Score: 1

      If Fred Phelps isn't free to say "God hates Fags", then I'm not free to say "Phuck Phred Felps." It's always tempting to take the easy way out

      So the deliberate infliction of psychological pain on specific individuals is to be tolerated? I'm not talking about throwing him in jail because what he's doing is a crime (because it isn't, and shouldn't be), I'm talking about what free private citizens can do, within the law, to stop him from doing what he's doing. Or are you saying we shouldn't even do that?

      "Just ignore him" works well if you're not the person he's attacking.

    51. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by P0ltergeist333 · · Score: 1

      Horse-manure.

      Yes, Byrd was a Dixiecrat. I'll give you that one. On the other hand, he has since renounced his segregationist views as well as the KKK...Unlike, say, Strom Thurmond.

      Metzger is a Bircher, and like many Republicans, falsely claims to be a libertarian. How he won one Dem primary, I'll never know, but he changed parties right afterwards, and is clearly not a Dem by any stretch.

      Duke never held office as a Democrat. To say he was a Democrat is disingenuous at best.

      Then there was Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond, who clearly switched parties in the 60's due to their disagreement with Democratic support for Civil Rights legislation.

      Let's face it, liberal and progressive views are not in line with racism, while conservatives often harken to a past filled with racism at the very least.

      And as for rights, pleas tell me what rights I have lost under Obama. The worst he has done is not denounce or back away from Bush's assault on our rights, which is unsurprising. I warned while it was happening that governments and politicians don't give up power, no matter how progressive they are or make themselves out to be. It's the right's fault for pushing his policies through, and the left's fault for not opposing him more, and finally, the people's fault for electing him for a second term despite his clear idiocy and incompetence.

      --
      One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
    52. Re:"white-supremacist father and son" by P0ltergeist333 · · Score: 1

      Crickets...

      --
      One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
  3. Oh no am I in trouble. by MikeFM · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I was a teenager I taught myself about everything from religion and witchcraft to bombs, computer hacking, and chemical weapons. Guess that means I'm a terrorist.

    --
    At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    1. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by repapetilto · · Score: 1

      well you never did anything with that knowledge...

    2. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know you aren't supposed to RTFA but please note that these people didn't only possess the instructions. They were actually manufacturing the chemical weapons.

      If you also did that, yeah. I would have no problem with you having been throwin behind the bars.

    3. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      well you never did anything with that knowledge...

      Welcome to the wonderful world of thought crimes. Terrorism is one of the excuses to introduce them.

    4. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did the CD contain something about not voting for the major parties, pro Clegg?

      Terrorism is when the Criminal Justice system warehouses criminals at loose in the community, as they are too cheap to actually lock them up. And to get away with it, they gag opponents.
      Terrorism is Lehman and Enron and Iceland having a party - and the rest us supporting them.

      Imagine 5000 convicted, repeat pedophiles out in the community, and some law making it illegal to
      out where they live or name them (sorry, you have no rights).

      And 200,000 crims doing community service part time, and re-offending as their 2nd job.
      These are cosmetic distractions to hide the real terrorism: financial terrorism and economic panic.

    5. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 1

      Yeah I learned those things in case the apocalypse aliens or whatever my most paranoid fantasies can conjure. Comes and I have to defend myself. Knowledge is power. I guess Knowledge is now also terrorism.

    6. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by MikeFM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure what I did would be considered a crime today. In my day it was considered boys being boys.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    7. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So you've read this book too!

    8. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Well, does it still matter? You're already suspicious if you happen to want to know. While the US may still have its 1st amendment, other countries that don't have such stopgags to the suppression of information are already way ahead.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i went through much the same thing as a kid. access to reasonable information on the nature of chemical formulae and energetic reactions, along with computers and weaponry, and books in general.

      the part of all this that really bothers me is my son has talent in these areas. the problem being economic however. without the ability to purchase knowledge through recognized 'safe' channels, every google search he makes from my home using common terms that reflect the contents of the original cookbook, leaves me just slightly cold wondering if i should expect a knock on the door.

      i can't help but think back to an old 'new' twilight zone episode called 'examination day'
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734708/

    10. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Knowledge in the hands of those that are being ruled has always been a threat to those that are in power. Knowledge has always been the primary tool of revolutions, not a single revolution in the history of mankind has been led by uneducated people. And the primary tool of oppression has been withdrawal of information and knowledge. With a growing resentment against the ruling group, their paranoia grows, to the point that they see anyone with knowledge and information as a threat to their power.

      For reference, see Pol Pot.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

      I taught myself about everything from religion and witchcraft to bombs, computer hacking, and chemical weapons.

      No, it means, you're a witch.

      BURN THE WITCH!

      (Quick, weigh him against a duck.)

    12. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by stevey · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, you're only a danger to the public if you had sexual thought about somebody < 16 years old...

    13. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by omglolbah · · Score: 1

      thermite is loads of fun, especially if you manage to get hold of the proper materials.... And what we used to do with it was not really all that legal.
      We didnt hurt anyone, but quite a few pieces of steel fencing etc got melted somewhat over a few years time *cough*

    14. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by alex67500 · · Score: 1

      Ha. You're already suspicious if you read slashdot! There's load of articles about security and computer hacking...

    15. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      Come with us please.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    16. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by couchslug · · Score: 1

      Teach him to obfuscate the search by including militaria, history, etc. I'm interested in those subjects and know there is AMPLE information available from "wholesome" sources.

      Everyone, innocent or guilty, should groow their online persona for the time when there is NO privacy from commercial entities or the government.

      The most useful thing a person can learn in life is to lie, comfortably, with a straight face and no cues. Honesty is a desirable quality in a victim, which is why others so prize it.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    17. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, you have confessed your guilt. We are on our way to arrest you.

    18. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      not a single revolution in the history of mankind has been led by uneducated people.

      Oh yeah? How about the islamic revolution in Iran???

    19. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe not a terrorist, but a "person of interest" in a terrorist investigation. Of course, for the newspapers, that's as good as saying that you are, but the police are haven't proved it yet.

    20. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by compro01 · · Score: 1

      There are 2 articles about completely different cases.

      The first one is about the guy who compiled the instructions. This is utter insanity.

      The second one is about the guys who had a load of chemical weapons (ricin), and the instructions. This is entirely reasonable.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    21. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      neither did the guy who bought this book...

    22. Re:Oh no am I in trouble. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Led. Not carried out.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. It could be very relevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In cases like this, I think that it does matter why you would want to see material like that. If you try to get your hands on a guide about bomb making, I think that it is relevant whether you are just a curious teenager or an extremist who has acquired the rather specific materials to actually build that in your home. The simple act of downloading a file is very different depending on a number of other variables.

    Now, in this case the people who were arrested are two white supremacists who had been building chemical weapons. I don't see how you could possibly consider that thing to not be relevant to the subject.

  5. Illegal? by wmspider · · Score: 3, Interesting

    convicted of three counts of possessing material useful for acts of terror

    Can sombody explain why this is illegal? Every highschool student taking a chemistry course 'possesses material useful for acts of terror'. The fact that somebody owns something that COULD be used for some illegal activity doesn't make that person a criminal. Else, everybody would be in prison. Have you ever used a knife? A car? A computer? Thought so.

    1. Re:Illegal? by hansraj · · Score: 1

      Comparing private ownership of dangerous material to access in a public institution (presumably for learning) is a bit of stretch. Educational institutions frequently have different controls. A less dangerous example: You can not let anyone copy a copyrighted book that you own, whereas libraries are allowed to do that.

      Also, a knife, a car, a computer each have many legitimate uses.

      I am not saying that I agree with the conviction (I don't know the details), but saying that the law being applied to ownership of kitchen knife should be the same as the one applied here is naive.

    2. Re:Illegal? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Explain the practical uses of Ricin for the lay person. He created enough ricin to kill 9 people (500mg is lethal dosage according to Wiki). There's some hope it can be used for Cancer, but right now it just seem like it's really good at killing people.

    3. Re:Illegal? by MartinSchou · · Score: 4, Funny

      You think that's bad? Imagine what happens when the powers that be find out, that about 49% of the population have the tools needed to rape women?

    4. Re:Illegal? by damburger · · Score: 1

      You could easily argue in court that the materials you own are for personal, educational purposes. Unless, of course, the police had just found a load of homemade ricin in your house...

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    5. Re:Illegal? by selven · · Score: 1

      Every highschool student taking a chemistry course 'possesses material useful for acts of terror'.

      Wait, what? High school chemistry students sit down with pencil and paper and do chemical equations and draw what 2-phenyl-3,7-dichloro-whatever-cyclononane looks like. They don't actually mix things together - that would be too dangerous!

      And the books are too busy being pedantic about the definition of acids and bases to say anything useful about how to make stuff go boom.

    6. Re:Illegal? by parazite.org · · Score: 0

      Hey! They have legitimate uses. Counterterrorism and freedom fighting.

    7. Re:Illegal? by dangitman · · Score: 1

      You think that's bad? Imagine what happens when the powers that be find out, that about 49% of the population have the tools needed to rape women?

      Only 49%? I would think that close to 100% of the population has the tools needed to rape women. Most people have hands, fingers, feet, tongues, etc. Of those who don't, they would have access to objects that could be used for the purpose. You'd practically have to be in a coma to not have tools of rape.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    8. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you familar with the US law concerning short barreled rifles?

      Normally there are kits you can purchase, but this requires a permit from the ATF first.

      However, the law is written so broad that the mere posession of a hacksaw and rifle is in violation.

    9. Re:Illegal? by Kijori · · Score: 4, Insightful

      convicted of three counts of possessing material useful for acts of terror

      Can sombody explain why this is illegal? Every highschool student taking a chemistry course 'possesses material useful for acts of terror'. The fact that somebody owns something that COULD be used for some illegal activity doesn't make that person a criminal. Else, everybody would be in prison. Have you ever used a knife? A car? A computer? Thought so.

      The conviction in this case was almost certainly (although I can't find confirmation) under section 57 or 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. These provide, respectively, that a person is guilty of an offence if he:

      - "possesses an article in circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that his possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism."
      - "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 [...] possesses a document or record containing information of that kind."

      A legitimate reason to own the information is a defence to both of these charges - so if you're studying chemistry, for example, and your research involves making explosives you aren't guilty under this act. To make it clear what we're talking about, this is the same formulation as is used for knife crime in the UK - you can carry any knife you want as long as you actually need it, but you can't just carry a knife around because you want to. The fact that most people aren't even aware that there is a legal question operating when they carry their gardening tools illustrates the fact that the distinction works quite well.

      Since British law is defined largely by judicial precedent it is important to bear in mind that this act was based on the provisions of the Criminal Justice act 1994; the effect of this is to mean that the decision in Rowe (2007) is likely to be binding, i.e. that if the defendant introduces evidence of a non-terrorist motive it is up to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this defence is not valid.

      Note also KvR (2008) where it was held that only a document:
      - Providing practical assistance in the commission of terrorist offences, and
      - That was intended to be used to assist in the preparation or perpetration of an act of terrorism
      will lead to a conviction.

      The effect of these precedents is that this law allows the conviction of people who deliberately gather information to aid in the commission of terrorist attacks - it does not make mere possession of the information a crime, since intent is also important. It seems to me entirely reasonable that people who abet terrorists should be guilty of an offence.

    10. Re:Illegal? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1

      Read the BBC link, it relates to a different case. The guy had collected together a bunch of information and was running a business selling CDs of it. Factual information, nothing more. He was charged with "collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism", "recklessly disseminating the information" and "transferring criminal property".

      This is all despite the fact that "the court was told that Brown made tens of thousands of pounds from the business but had no terrorist sympathies". I see nothing in the article to suggest that the court believed his intent was anything other than that of making money.

    11. Re:Illegal? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1

      To quote myself:

      Read the BBC link, it relates to a different case. The guy had collected together a bunch of information and was running a business selling CDs of it. Factual information, nothing more. He was charged with "collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism", "recklessly disseminating the information" and "transferring criminal property".

      This is all despite the fact that "the court was told that Brown made tens of thousands of pounds from the business but had no terrorist sympathies". I see nothing in the article to suggest that the court believed his intent was anything other than that of making money.

    12. Re:Illegal? by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      You can not let anyone copy a copyrighted book that you own, whereas libraries are allowed to do that.

      What are you babbling on about?

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    13. Re:Illegal? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1

      The article seems to suggest that the court accepted that Brown "had no terrorist sympathies". His reason for possessing the information was to sell it for profit. Is there any reason that this would not be a legitimate defence?

    14. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm in a coma because all my blood is in my penis, you insensitive clod!

    15. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You let someone come to your house and make a private copy of book you have. This is exacly why libraries has photocopier, so you can go, read and make yourself a private copy. fuck you, you dont know shit. And owning chemicals or even weapons dont make one a criminal. One is juged by his actions, not of what he own or think.

    16. Re:Illegal? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I only finished A-level chemistry ten years ago, and I can assure you that we definitely made a lot of things that go boom. We were also taught some fun stuff that we weren't allowed to try, like how to produce TNT and how to produce certain illegal pharmaceuticals from legal ones.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    17. Re:Illegal? by iosq · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Particularly considered his supremacist agenda, we can assume he wasn't trying to cure cancer. Also, lethal dose is 500 micrograms(mcg), not milligrams(mg) - just clearing that up since TFA suggests lethal dose is .02oz

    18. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is why you have cool teachers, who actually do teach you that stuff. In 10th grade physics we were taught how to make small cannons. All from what you can legally buy at either a pharmacy without a note saying you need this from your doctor (can't remember what that is called in english) or in the grocery store.

      The textbooks are mostly rubbish, it's getting lucky with the teachers that can make this stuff fun.

    19. Re:Illegal? by ConfusedVorlon · · Score: 1

      it's a nice easy way to lock up 'bad guys'

      the labour government was all for shortcuts to locking people up. They campaigned hard for the right to lock them up for 42 days without even charging them with anything.

      the Poor Man's James Bond is available at the pirate bay
      http://thepiratebay.org/search/Poor%20Man%5C's%20James%20Bond/0/99/0

      as is the Anarchist Cookbook.
      http://thepiratebay.org/search/the%20Anarchist%20Cookbook/0/99/0

      this is a classic example, the son looks like a bad guy - but the police can't actually pin anything 'real' on him, so they do him for possessing information.

      FWIW, I downloaded the anarchist cookbook many years ago and it has lingered in my personal documents since then.

    20. Re:Illegal? by Kijori · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I suspect that whether or not he sympathised with the terrorists is irrelevant; he deliberately collated and sold information to be used in the preparation of terrorist acts.

      To rather immodestly quote from myself, the test is whether or not he provided information that:

      - Would provide practical assistance in the commission of terrorist offences
      - Was intended to be used to assist in the preparation or perpetration of an act of terrorism

      It appears that he was deliberately writing and selling bomb-making information to terrorists, and whatever his sympathies were this definitely fills both criteria.

    21. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the other guy is right. Only men can be guilty of rape; The other stuff is classified as sexual assault.

    22. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What sort of dishonest, Rush Limbaugh-inspired propaganda pamphlet did you get that from?

    23. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, a knife, a car, a computer each have many legitimate uses.

      Dating women you meet online!... Wait, what's the knife for?

    24. Re:Illegal? by parazite.org · · Score: 0

      Freedom fighting like using these assymmetric and irrregular warfare skills against evil empires and rogue states to achieve regime change.

    25. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I think that's from the leftist playbook. You know, the same one that says only white people are capable of being racist.

    26. Re:Illegal? by parazite.org · · Score: 0

      "I sell to leftists and I sell to rightists. I even sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers." -Yuri Orlow, Lord of War . It's just the way of the world to punish someone related for someone else has committed, or could commit a crime, or something is designated as crime, to prevent crime, because it according to ur government "unbiased" expert causes crime.

    27. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rape, in the UK, depends on the insertion of a penis into the mouth, anus, or vagina.

    28. Re:Illegal? by Vellmont · · Score: 1


        Can sombody explain why this is illegal?

      Because the material in question is Ricin, one of the most toxic chemicals known. It really has no other use than as a poison (unless you happen to be a cancer researcher with the ability to attach the molecule to some something that only targets cancer cells). I don't think this guy qualifies for that.


      Have you ever used a knife? A car? A computer? Thought so.

      All those materials have numerous other legitimate and everyday uses. Except for the theoretical use above, ricin really has no legitimate use outside of murder.

      --
      AccountKiller
    29. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What!?! Only 49%??? Since when did you have to have a penis to rape a woman???

    30. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      51% have the tools to rape men and they can rape thousands before someone speaks up

    31. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a very dangerous precedent. We'll have to make sure that this information is available everywhere and no effort is required to "gather" it. If you think that it is useful to make these things into crimes, we will make sure you cannot enforce it until you get a one-world government in place.

    32. Re:Illegal? by compro01 · · Score: 1

      The US army improvised munitions handbook is better IMO.

      http://cryptome.org/0001/tm-31-210.htm

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    33. Re:Illegal? by Bugamn · · Score: 1
      The definition of rape depends on the country. According to wikipedia, for example, it's only rape if it's a man raping a woman.

      In Brazil, the definition of rape is even more restrictive. It is defined as non-consensual vaginal sex.[16] Therefore, unlike most of Europe and the Americas, male rape, anal rape, and oral rape are not considered to be rape. Instead, such an act is called a "violent attempt against someone's modesty" ("Atentado violento ao pudor").

    34. Re:Illegal? by the_womble · · Score: 1

      The problem the knife carrying laws (and as far as I can see, this as well) is that it then shifts the burden of proof to the accused to prove that they had a legitimate reason to posses the info/carry the explosive, not for the prosecution to prove that they did not have a legitimate reason.

      IN any case, there is still criminalisation of mere speech in the form of the law on "glorifying terrorism".

    35. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think that's bad? Imagine what happens when the powers that be find out, that about 49% of the population have the tools needed to rape women?

      I didn't realize the tentacle-bearing segment of the population had grown so large....

    36. Re:Illegal? by guyminuslife · · Score: 1

      Wait, so in order for me to justify learning something, I need to be able to explain the practical uses for it?

      We need to start rounding up the humanities majors right now.

      --
      I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
    37. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please kill yourself.

    38. Re:Illegal? by Kijori · · Score: 1

      There is a certain extent to which that is true, but note the comments I made above regarding the fact that if the accused introduces a defence of legitimate reason it is up to the prosecution to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defence does not apply. The change of the burden of proof is thus very slight, amounting really only to the idea that someone who is knowingly supplying information to terrorists to help them commit terrorist acts is doing it with the intention that they commit those acts - it would be difficult to imagine a realistic situation where that assumption was not valid.

      Regarding the law on glorifying terrorism - this never actually made it through the House of Lords in its original form. It was rewritten and forms part of the Terrorism Act 2006, where it serves to make it a crime to glorify acts of terrorism in order to encourage the commission of further acts of terrorism. The second part of the law changes its extent hugely - it's now really a law on incitement. You can honour previous acts - indeed a major concern for the Lords was not preventing the Irish from honouring their resistance movement - what you cannot do is suggest that the acts be repeated.

    39. Re:Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...Since British law is defined largely by judicial precedent it is important to bear in mind that this act was based on the provisions of the Criminal Justice act 1994; the effect of this is to mean that the decision in Rowe (2007) is likely to be binding, i.e. that if the defendant introduces evidence of a non-terrorist motive it is up to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this defence is not valid....

      So all a serious terrorist would have to do, as part of their preparation, is set up evidence of a non-terrorist motive and they can escape to plan again. Sounds like just another law that tramples the rights of the innocent and lets the guilty get off.

  6. Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not the Anarchist's Cookbook. Rife with inaccuracies and dangerous, or so my chemist friends tell me.

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    1. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks to CIA messing with it.

      The original is safer, or so my friends tell me.

    2. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Cruciform · · Score: 1

      If the CIA wanted to fuck with the Anarchist's Cookbook, I bet they wouldn't touch a single recipe.
      They'd make changes and typos here and there to watermark copies made available to people under online surveillance and then watch for other people making copies of it available.
      If Jerry S. in Wichita has a copy, and the next thing Carl W. is found to have a printout of it in his possession there's a connection between them, however tenuous.

    3. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How to make Napalm by the Jolly Roger

      - Pour some gas into an old bowl, or some kind of container.

      - Get some Styrofoam and put it in the gas, until the gas won't eat anymore. You should have a sticky syrup.

      - Put it on the end of something (don't touch it!!). The unused stuff lasts a long time!

    4. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I got my copy of The Anarchists Cookbook back around 1994. It was distributed online via the web then, but previously via GopherNet and anonymous FTP. My copy arrived via sneakernet - downloading almost 1MB of ASCII on my 2.4kbaud modem would have taken a lot longer than being given a floppy disk.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    5. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not the Anarchist's Cookbook. Rife with inaccuracies and dangerous, or so my chemist friends tell me.

      It has been years since I read it, I downloaded it with a 14.4 Modem the last time I saw it. At the same time I was taking Chemistry in College. We had one whole class devoted to Nitroglycerin, and the 3 of 4 unstable variants. I knew from class exactly how to synthesize nitroglycerin. And, after that class was over, I realized I have absolutely no desire to *EVER* try to make it. I remember my chem prof saying (as someone who was against hyperbole) "this stuff will blow up if you look at it funny", and "what are you going to do with it if you make some? Pour it down the sink?"

      I then read the Anarchist's cookbook, and I remember the instructions of keeping the chemicals in an ice bath, and constantly stirring them... by hand...

      As I said, it was a long time ago, but reading the directions for hand-stirring nitroglycerin, and trying to keep the temperature low with a thermometer i remember thinking that the book was designed to blow someone up who tried to follow the directions.

      --
      Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
    6. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      If you mean the original version from the 70s: Remember that that thing was a book for people who found nothing strange in wiring your TV to “the wire that came out of the wall” with your bare hands. (Live wire, mind you.) I know because back then, my father owned it, and he DID wire a TV like that. ^^
      In all those states, including Russia, people are very good at make-do. And in Afghanistan, the average lifespan wasn’t <35 years for nothing. ^^

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    7. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by norletsk · · Score: 1

      The Anarchist's Cookbook also popularized the myth that smoking banana peels will get you high.

    8. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Oddly enough (and completely insanely in todays world) me and one of my friends in high school, at about that time, made some decent money selling floppies of the Anarchists Cookbook. I think we asked for like $3 for the floppy, and $5 for it printed.

      I think that today we'd be promptly expelled, locked up, and put on various lists.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    9. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      $5 for a printed copy sounds very cheap. The version that I had was about 800KB of plain text - printing it would have taken a very long time. And, like you, I was in school at the time, aged about 13 or 14 I think. It amazes me that anyone would care about the distribution of something like TAC.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    10. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Might have been more, my memories of those times are growing a bit hazy. It was lucrative enough to fetch me a new modem while staying on top of the printing costs. We had a decent bulk deal with a local printer, since we also used them to run up our underground paper...

      Ah... to be young.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    11. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition to being a terrible cookbook, it's also not very Anarchist.
        It ignores the non-aggression principle, and the fact that you can't blow up a social relationship.

        It's very much the teenage loser's cartoonish idea of "anarchism," and the book's continual resurfacing into our social mindspace perpetuates this imbecilic caricature.

      Incidentally, why is Glenn Beck afraid of anarchism?

      (Whoa, freaky. My captcha is "Liberty." HELL YEAH! Lol!)

    12. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by calmofthestorm · · Score: 1

      > If the CIA wanted to further fuck with the Anarchist's Cookbook,...

      Fixed that for you;)

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    13. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by CorporateSuit · · Score: 1

      I believe the exhibition of ignorance is your own. The Anarchist Cookbook is not about how to live during anarchy. It's about guerilla warfare, the best drugs, spending time in jail, etc. There is some focus on subversion of an oppressive government, as that would be entirely neccessary if you wanted your precious, short-lived anarchy. Perhaps you should spend some time with Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan. See that anarchy is not all it's cracked up to be. The thought experiment should be played out a little further than when the bong runs out of water. Consider what countries look like that have no government -- (like a post-Earthquake Haiti, or the tribal regions of Africa). You can rule by fear when there is no government, and there is always someone willing to take control with fear.

      And, like Martin Luther King said: "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed" -- a non-aggression principle is laughable. You are not dealing with normal men when you speak to politicians. You are speaking to the scum that has stepped on enough of their friends' and colleagues' and twisted enough balls to get to where they are today. They are the most insidious vipers you can imagine, and they have entire militaries marching to their drum. They are, by nature, unreasonable, or they would have already been thrown to the sharks by other, more insidious candidates.

      It's called "reality" kid, and it's where your anarchy doesn't work.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
    14. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by VisceralLogic · · Score: 1

      If you mean the original version from the 70s: Remember that that thing was a book for people who found nothing strange in wiring your TV to “the wire that came out of the wall” with your bare hands. (Live wire, mind you.) I know because back then, my father owned it, and he DID wire a TV like that.

      I don't understand why you would wire your TV into the wall... Didn't they come with power cords?

      --
      Stop! Dremel time!
    15. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by steelfood · · Score: 1

      That's certainly a way to get rid of any potential terrorists. Instead of arresting them and burdening the court system, put out some incomplete information and let nature take its course. As a bonus, you get to do Darwin's work too.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    16. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're the ignorant one, "kid." I've read the cookbook, and it's a pile of childish garbage. A good way to hurt yourself and others, but not to accomplish the social transformation which makes anarchy possible. It CANNOT be accomplished while people feel helpless and look to leaders to make them feel safe -- blowing shit up will only make such people cling to leaders more fastly, and totalitarianism is the result.

        Let's just touch on the rest of this briefly.

        1) The Non-aggression principle is not a non-violence principle. It is the refusal to initiate violence, but only wield it in defense of self or others. 2) Hobbes was an autocratic ass whose ideas are discredited. 3) I don't smoke pot. Your stereotypes are a poor excuse for thinking or argument. 4) I'm probably older and better read than you. 5) Take control with fear? You seem to have failed to grasp any of the multiple implications of what I mean by "you can't blow up a social relationship."

        And finally, if politicians are so evil and venomous, what's your solution? Write a name on a piece of paper, and stick it in a little box? Or better yet just flush it down the toilet? Or maybe just do what you're told and hope your rulers get tired of holding power over you?
        Yeah, good luck with that.

        In short, read more, and figure out what anarchy is before you try again.

    17. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think the official statistic is that 95% of the people killed by home-made bombs are the people making them. That means for every 1 innocent victim, 19 idiots remove themselves from the gene pool.

      After comparing the Anarchist Cook Book (downloaded at 2400 baud) and other similar materials to reputable chemistry books, I am amazed the percentage isn't higher.

    18. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by CorporateSuit · · Score: 1

      You're the ignorant one, "kid." I've read the cookbook, and it's a pile of childish garbage.

      Reading comprehension would have helped you right here. Don't call someone "ignorant" and then parrot what they said back to them using different terms -- it only makes you look like a self-indulgent, hypocritical, illiterate douchebag.

      3) I don't smoke pot. Your stereotypes are a poor excuse for thinking or argument.

      Typically, the people who AREN'T high have already recognized that anarchy is an extremely bad idea by the time they get out of highschool, around the same time they stop obsessing that "we're all just cattle, man, we're being bred to work for the corporations, don't you see, man?" like every stupid pseudointellectual, angst-ridden teenager.

      2) Hobbes was an autocratic ass whose ideas are discredited.

      Some of his theories, such as "natural equality" have been discredited. His "state of nature" theory, however, is still very strong.

      5) Take control with fear? You seem to have failed to grasp any of the multiple implications of what I mean by "you can't blow up a social relationship."

      And you fail to grasp that I'm basing my argument on every instance of anarchy there has ever been, and probably ever will be. Anarchy ends the minute someone brings a gun to the knife fight. Then you have an autocratic oligarchy. Congratulations on destroying your ability to vote for your favorite, underhanded sociopath, now you just get the most violent one. He doesn't have to posture, he doesn't have to smile and kiss babies. He just has to kill you if you don't do what he says, and he'll know that.

      In short, read more, and figure out what anarchy is before you try again.

      I know what anarchy is, but I have to admit that I don't know what you've deluded yourself into thinking that anarchy is. I don't know if you think it's some meritocracy, a complete lack of laws, or laws with vigilantes enforcing them, or laws with no enforcement -- and frankly, none of those work -- because humans are greedy, and it only takes One greedy human to overturn your entire utopia. You ignore greed in your crusade, and that is a fatal mistake.

      And finally, if politicians are so evil and venomous, what's your solution? Write a name on a piece of paper, and stick it in a little box? Or better yet just flush it down the toilet? Or maybe just do what you're told and hope your rulers get tired of holding power over you?

      I'll start by making them hate each other more than they hate me. I'll keep them grinding one-anothers gears to the point where they have fear that they will lose power if they turn against the will of the majority. If that ends up failing, I'll do what has to be done. They may be slimey, but under the current conditions, they are forced to squirm.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
    19. Re:Useful to commit acts of terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2) Hobbes was an autocratic ass whose ideas are discredited.

      Some of his theories, such as "natural equality" have been discredited. His "state of nature" theory, however, is still very strong.

      Hardly. I was specifically speaking of his "state of nature" when I said that -- modern anthropology and sociology have pretty much shown it to be nonsense. Have a link. Hobbes Was Wrong

      And you fail to grasp that I'm basing my argument on every instance of anarchy there has ever been, and probably ever will be. Anarchy ends the minute someone brings a gun to the knife fight. Then you have an autocratic oligarchy.

      HORSESHIT. You don't know jack squat about any instance of anarchy there has ever been. If you did, you wouldn't make yourself look a fool by uttering such ridiculous claims.
      Pray tell, what imaginary instance of anarchy you've dreamed up supports your views?

      It can't be the Spanish anarchists of the Spanish Civil War. They weren't taken over by someone ruling by fear; they were overrun by overwhelming military force from abroad after fighting for several long, hard years against a fascist military machine backed by Hitler and Mussolini until their only foreign support, a rather disinterested Stalin, decided to cut ties and focus on other things. No, they don't fit your little narrative at all.

      Nor could it be the Korean anarchists of the post-WWII era. After slowly driving the hated Japanese out, they flourished for several years until the Chinese military came pouring into their northern borders. Even so, they fought long and hard, slowing the Chinese advance to a crawl despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned until their requests for aid from the US were finally answered after years of neglect.
      Of course, when the US military arrived, the Koreans got to see how badly your stupid little "pit them against each other" theory can fail in the real world -- MacArthur couldn't wrap his vicious little brain around a decentralized network of independent communities, so to "simplify the map" he collaborated with the displaced aristocracy and the bloody Japanese (for their "expertise" in handling the Koreans) to institute a military dictatorship in South Korea that effectively opened a second front inside the lines of the already-stretched-to-the-breaking-point anarchists. Thanks to that, South Korea got to recently dig up mass graves of "leftist radicals" - which is what the US soldiers were told they were helping to round up, since it sounded a lot better, more like "communist agents" than "Korean people who just want to remain free."
      So, nothing like your "taking over by fear" bullshit in there. Unless by "fear" you mean superior military force. In which case anarchy is no different from any other social setup, and your "argument", sad as it is, applies universally across the board.

      It surely couldn't be the Jewish kibbutzim, they ran fine for years until changing economic and social forces ended them. Nobody took them over.

      It couldn't be Somalia, they were never an anarchy to begin with. At the moment they're a collection of warring mini-states. If they had a good 15-20% anarchist population those warlords would be dead and buried already, as happened to fascists in the anarchist quarters of Spain back in '36.

      Hmm. Well, I don't pay too much attention to religious kooks, so maybe you mean the Amish? Sure, they've lived in a christian-themed semi-anarchy for centuries. Maybe there's been an Amish dictator who rose to power through fear lately in the news? Yeah, that must be it!
      I never did put much stock in Tolstoy's Christian Anarchy ideas.

      I know what anarchy i

  7. Bad summary. by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Summary:" first people caught with downloaded copies have been put behind bars" TFA: "White supremacist who manufactured ricin jailed" Big difference. Now, we can focus on the charges against the author/writer, but make it a bit more clear please. Its retarded to arrest someone over information, but its the UK, so what can you expect. Who draws the line, do they arrest authors of high level physicist books about nuclear devices? UK is quickly revealing the police state mentality they have been hiding for so long, I guess next time I'm on that side of the pond I'll be sure to avoid it.

    --
    "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    1. Re:Bad summary. by Trepidity · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I agree the summary's bad, though it is somewhat unpleasant that the judge in the case appears to consider the instructions themselves also illegal:

      Judge John Milford expressed surprise that the Anarchist's Cookbook was still available to buy on the Amazon website, and asked the authorities to look into it.

    2. Re:Bad summary. by damburger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the key point is that the prosecution had to show that the information these people had obtained was actually being used for terrorist acts. With the presence of the ricin, the possession of the instructions to make it became a crime because they clearly weren't being obtained for curiosity/education.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    3. Re:Bad summary. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      There's a good reason why the original "Cookbook" is still in circulation: It's no threat. Well, at least to nobody but the poor idiot actually using it as a cookbook. It's a compilation of inaccurate and outdated information. If anything, putting this into the hands of wannabe terrorists is a good way to ensure that nothing bad happens.

      The "new" book, otoh...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Bad summary. by Kijori · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As I've explained above, this law does not criminalise the possession of information. It is only an offence to gather information that would help in the commission of an act of terrorism with the intention that it be used to assist the commission of this act. I think we can all agree that people who are part of a plot to perpetrate acts of terrorism should be jailed.

    5. Re:Bad summary. by russotto · · Score: 1

      As I've explained above, this law does not criminalise the possession of information.

      From your own post: - "a person is guilty of an offence if 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 [...] possesses a document or record containing information of that kind."

      Yes, that criminalizes the possession of information. Even if there is an affirmative defense to it.

      Your knife example doesn't help, seeing how that law is commonly abused:
      Like this

    6. Re:Bad summary. by Kijori · · Score: 1

      As I explained, it criminalises the possession of information where the possession of that information is part of a deliberate attempt to assist in the commission of terrorist acts.

      And the article you cite does not involve the law on knives, it involves the law on offensive weapons - these are two separate areas of law in Britain. The offensive weapon test is primarily one of behaviour; the fact that he was convicted of possessing an offensive weapon, plus that he was pulled over and that his car was searched, would imply that the reason for this was that he was being either violent or threatening violence beforehand. This is just speculation, but what is certain is that he was not convicted under knife laws.

    7. Re:Bad summary. by http · · Score: 1

      I must have missed something. When were they hiding it?

      --
      If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
      3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
    8. Re:Bad summary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      word, oops, two words: police state
      (and the UK still doesn't have a written human rights law, just a semi-common law)

    9. Re:Bad summary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...does not criminalise the possession of information. It is only an offence to gather information..."

      K, nuff said. Thought crime.

    10. Re:Bad summary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how do you prove motive? I am under the suspicion that most acts which would prove motive /are themselves crimes/ and thus this thoughtcrime law should not exist.

  8. Recycle bin? Bad move? by Gri3v3r · · Score: 1

    If you want to get rid of something, first destroy it then delete it. Otherwise, you just have evidence sitting on your disk, because whatever you delete, just has its flag changed. So it remains there , till it gets overwritten. People who would look for the file will not just use windows' search. i bet many are going to burn their HDs now.

    1. Re:Recycle bin? Bad move? by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      on windows boxen the console command cipher /w:c: will scrap all your empty space 3 times, for a drive other than c replace as /w:x:

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    2. Re:Recycle bin? Bad move? by Gri3v3r · · Score: 1

      i wish i could mod you up. rly.

  9. Free speech wrinkle by John+Guilt · · Score: 1

    If they are white supremacists who frequently use eliminationist rhetoric, their conviction on possessing weapons capable of killing a large number of people in Harlem or Brixton could turn their rhetoric from protected speech into credible threats.

    1. Re:Free speech wrinkle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, right...you're one of those chavs that still think you -have- freedom of speech. Quaint. Here's an experiment for you; turn to your nearest surveillance camera and tell whoever is watching to fuck off, see how long that dream of yours lasts.

  10. I'd always assumed the 'Cookbook'... by John+Guilt · · Score: 1

    ...was full of guarantied-to-fail receipts---bombs that would blow up their builders, acid that would give you bad trips, opiate analogues that are a one-way ticket to LDopaville.....

    1. Re:I'd always assumed the 'Cookbook'... by blai · · Score: 1

      with great power comes great responsibility.

      Noobs are bound to die by the sword.

      --
      In soviet Russia, God creates you!
  11. Ban Bibles not Bombs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Interesting that the authorities don't ban various religious texts and holy bibles that are used to promote terrorism and hatred.

    In reality books don't kill people, and guns don't (even) kill people. Religious and authoritarian ideologies are used to kill people. But I don't expect the Authorities to ban authoritarian and bigoted hate-filled religious texts which help encourage violence. It's another great hypocrisy.

    (And I'll emphasize that I don't WANT religious texts banned, I'm just emphasizing and pointing out the logical fallacies tend to develop around Leadership and Law Enforcement).

  12. this reminds me of a kid I once knew etc. by FuckingNickName · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FWIW, I knew a guy at school who was investigated by British police about 14 years ago for downloading manuals like this and being involved with a group of people involved in distributing such material and building shit for kicks... a Bachelors and a Masters later, he is now working at the Ministry of Defence (the UK DoD) as a strategist.

    This doesn't surprise me at all. He was a fairly bright chap - though nothing spectacular - but his heart remained that of a pathological kid who liked pain and blowing shit up. The military want a monopoly on that sort of person; they'll either catch you when they can mould you, or get rid of you.

    1. Re:this reminds me of a kid I once knew etc. by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      You don’t have to lie. We knew that that guy was you. ^^
      Also, it’s OK. Since the only difference between you and us, is that we didn’t get caught.

      Hey, find me a teenager who hears “a book full of mischief” and doesn’t go: I must instantly have that one!! ;)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  13. RTFA people! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's more to do with the production and subsequent storage of ricin rather than downloading the cookbook!

  14. I'm burning all my wife's cookbooks by hellop2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    She's been terrorizing me with her cooking for years.

    --
    How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
  15. Sex Pistols track == incitement? by petes_PoV · · Score: 1

    I've got a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks which contains a track called "Anarchy in the UK" so I guess I'd better turn myself in as presumably this makes me a terrorist

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  16. fucking-chemical weapons? by syousef · · Score: 1

    ...could have been the fucking chemical weapons.

    fucking-chemical weapons? Chemical weapons now exist that know how to fuck? This war on terra is getting out of hand!

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:fucking-chemical weapons? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      No, fucking-chemical weapons are things like dildoes that have a trigger on them you press to make them squirt lubricant.

  17. Chemistry teaching in Britain by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Every highschool student taking a chemistry course

    It seems to be almost impossible to take a pure chem. course these days. What chemistry there is, is taught in such a watered down manner that it's almost an abstract philosophy class - mixed in with "vinegar and baking powder" level experiments, all done behind a safety screen with full protective gear. I doubt there are many children today who could even tell you what H2SO4 smells like.

    Comparing the Chemistry O-level I took a few decades ago with the BBC's example Chemistry GCSE (on their website) almost makes you want to cry. These days it contains questions like "what is the most environmentally appropriate use for a limestone quarry, that's been mined out?"

    However nowadyas our wonderful law enfarcement officers automitcally assume that chemistry only means either drugs or bombs, it's hardly surprising it's been demonised

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Chemistry teaching in Britain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      what H2SO4 smells like

      Warning: Do not sniff H2SO4 with remaining nostril!

    2. Re:Chemistry teaching in Britain by Chowderbags · · Score: 1

      "what is the most environmentally appropriate use for a limestone quarry, that's been mined out?"

      The answer, for those who were wondering, was BBC set. They'll even recycle it a few dozen times!

    3. Re:Chemistry teaching in Britain by pennyloafer · · Score: 1

      I work in a microfab facility that has some dangerous solutions that I need to use, like HF, H2SO4 96% and Silane gases for wafer fab.

      My worst experience back in my organic chem days was with fuming nitric acid. I blew out the bottom of a couple pieces of glassware because I was careless & left a drop or two of rinse water in them :/

    4. Re:Chemistry teaching in Britain by ComputingData · · Score: 1

      On a side note, what petes says is also true for Maths and other subjects. My son attended college and did his maths A level about 4 years ago, the college 'professor' told him (and I was there to hear it) that it was a pretty easy course and they have a virtual 100% pass rate now everything but advanced algebra had been taken out!!!

    5. Re:Chemistry teaching in Britain by Philip_the_physicist · · Score: 1

      This really deserves to get modded up. Kids these days, they just have no culture. Exterminate! the lot of them, I say!

  18. Theres ricein my soup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every day I'm more and more thankful to be living in the US.

    "seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism"

    Taking a picture of a friend standing in front of a public building could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism? How cowardly and disconnected from reality do lawmakers have to be to inact laws with this kind of language? Who isn't a criminal in the UK? Why not just pass a law saying anyone the government does not like can be sent to jail for 10 years and just get it over with already.

    I'm assuming publishers of university chemistry books will soon be publicly hung for providing information en mass that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism? Banning information only cultivates ignorance.

  19. Guilty of having a book with a banned *title*? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    (Posting anonymously 'cos I don't trust the UK Government)

    His "cookbook" differs then from William Powell's 1971 book by a similar title,

    Is that in any way related to "The Anarchist's Cookbook" that I picked up on a 3.5" Atari ST floppy disk circa 1983/1984? It was freely available through a publicly advertised freeware/shareware repository.

    From what I can remember, more than half of it was WRITTEN ON AN APPLE II BY AMERICAN SCHOOLKIDS and probably wouldn't work. The most useful thing I saw was the proper ratios for mixing thermite, which nowadays is the kind of info you could pick off Wikipedia. But, because I can't remember what I did with it, I'll keep my post anonymous. I don't want my front door being kicked in by armed police and my house torn apart as they look for it.

  20. Anyone with basic education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone with basic education from before the 1990ties can make explosives or chemical weapons from thing bought in any drugstore.

  21. Oh yeah? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's start arresting and jailing chemistry students as well now, THEY'RE ALL TERRORISTS, THEY CAN MAKE BOMBS!

    Wait, that happened indirectly by watering down Chemistry courses to the point of making it a joke. (same with all the sciences, in fact)

  22. My favourite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My favourite recipe from TTH was the one for smoke bombs / slow burning fuses. You mix sugar and potassium nitrate in a ratio of 2:3, soak some braided string for the fuse. It makes quite a lot of smoke (and a bit of heat).

  23. Absolutely ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is ridiculous, and scary.

    First off, I had the original Anarchist's Cookbook as a kid, it's easily available a million places fo sale on the web - a lot of the info is outdated, and some of it is wrong.

    I have also seen the homemade version of this, which slightly improves on some of the stuff, but still is far from the "terrorist manual" claimed.

    As a teenager, me and many others built bombs, traps, all kinds of stuff. We never hurt anyone, we never wanted to hurt anyone..We were being boys having fun..A lot of people are just fascinated by this stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that

    Being a white supremacist may be ignorant, but it's not a crime. The only thing that concerned me about all of this stuff is the Ricin that was allegedly produced - charge people with that, but but having information that is freely available everywhere? That's thoughtcrime and it's bullshit and people need to wake up and start fighting against this kind of crap or eventually none of us are going to have the right (according to the govts of the world) to know anything that isn't govt approved.

    1. Re:Absolutely ridiculous. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The only thing that concerned me about all of this stuff is the Ricin that was allegedly produced - charge people with that, but but having information that is freely available everywhere? That's thoughtcrime and it's bullshit

      Bullshit, much like the summary. It is not illegal to have a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook in the UK, despite what timothy would like you to believe. Not now, not in the past, and (probably) not ever. What *is* illegal is distributing copies, telling people to make things from those and use them to blow up or poison people, and making poisons from information found on the Internet. In other words, if you have a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook that is not in itself illegal (although it might make the police want to find out a bit more about you). If you have a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook and a jam-jar full of ricin, a sack of castor beans and the chemicals required to efficiently extract more ricin from the remaining beans (google it, if you're interested) then there's a good chance that you *are* committing a crime.

  24. Nothing to hide; nothing to fear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see the problem guys.

    Regards

    Mr Dimwit Speakes

    1. Re:Nothing to hide; nothing to fear by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Intelligence and individuality are threatening to the authorities. There's a reason the intellectuals and truth-tellers are among the first to be executed in a fascist state.

      So it sounds like you really don't have anything to fear. Except being swept away along with the troglodytes.

      -FL

  25. Crass== incitement! by MRe_nl · · Score: 1
    --
    "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
  26. High Plains Heavy Metal Iron Master here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can teach you how to cook, just send me a letter with $20 and I'll send you the tapes.
    I need to make some monayyy, boaayyy!
    I like to play heavy!
    Harvard, Nebraska!
    For $30,000 I'll train you for a month!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id0j5P9c6MA&feature=related

  27. PA Luty by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Ask him where the line is, he got jailed ( more then once ) for writing DIY gun books....

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  28. Cookbook prank is a serious issue. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At a college in the uk, a student got a hold of the password for another students account, and using that e-mailed a copy of the (a?) cookbook to a large portion of the student body and staff. As a result not only is the student banned from entering college for any reason except to sit exams (only wasnt banned completely because he's a bright kid and will do good things for the stats) but also special branch was called in for an investigation. In my view criminalisation is a thought crime, i viewed the cookbook myself when i was that sort of age. I suggest that the majority of people in posession of a copy have it merely for the idle fantasies of a bored teenager rather than any relation to malicious intent. Besides, perhaps it's a good thing to know how to be subversive if the govenment ever takes a step too far. Posted anon for hopefully obvious reasons.

  29. The book is garbage anyway by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Which makes it even that more sad..

    Being jailed for possessing knowledge is wrong in so many ways. Anyone remember the book burning in WWII by the Nazis? ( well, not in person of cousre.. )

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  30. P.S. Mister Dimwit Responded. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

    They won't be coming for me any time soon either. (I thought you were serious.)

    -FL

  31. The actual law by Muzungo · · Score: 1

    Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence to collect or make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist, or possesses a document or record containing information of that kind. There is a specific defence under s.58(3) if the person shows he had a reasonable excuse. The law was clarified by the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords in R. v. G.; R. v. J. [2009] 2 W.L.R. 724: Information is not caught by s.58 if it is everyday information that also happens to be useful to a terrorist (eg a train timetable), but information which is by its very nature designed to provide practical assistance is. If it is caught by the section, then the issue of reasonable excuse arises - and it must be an objectively reasonable excuse. In other words, saying you have bomb making manuals because you like to blow shit up is unlikely to provide a defence. That you work in explosives, or study chemistry is. So to be clear - the Anarchists Cookbook is not "banned", but if you do have it, it must be for an objectively justifiable reason. It is similar to the law on knives - you can have one in public, but it is up to you to show good cause. In practice, nerds who just collect the information are unlikely to be prosecuted, unless there is some other feature - making it available to others, having a shit-load of pipebombs and racist literature etc. (That is the law, not a justification of it). (IAAL)

    1. Re:The actual law by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 1

      What a wonderful law -- I now need to prove that I am innocent, or else I am assuming to be a terrorist, if I happen to possess unusual books.

      On my bookshelf at this very moment are several textbooks on RADAR system design. I do not do any sort of work related to RADAR; I am a computer scientist. If I lived in the UK, I guess I would have to be afraid to be in possession of those EE books, which could be used by terrorists (to disrupt airport RADAR, perhaps), since I do not have any excuse to be in possession of them, and they do not detail "common knowledge."

      This "assume guilt" strategy is dangerous for the citizens of any country.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
  32. I own a copy of the real one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And have for at least 30 years.

    Want to guess how many bombs i have made? How much poison i have made after reading this book, and ones like it? Zero.. Guess how much i had intended to when i first bought the book as a kid? Also zero.. Just having knowledge or information ( which in the case of this book, is pretty questionable.. ) does NOT mean you are a bad person. It means you are curious and want to learn things. Is learning a bad thing? Is curiosity?

    ( posting anonymously for obvious reasons.. what is legal here in the US today may not be tomorrow )

  33. Yah by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe it is because in Europe we think of the holocaust, the killing of millions of people to take their property as a bad thing. Americans think of it has "how the west was won". Really, the only difference between Hitler and the US was that Hitler went east for Lebensraum.

    Oh and free speech in the United States? Check the McCarthy trials. Yeah, cheer up US, you can say that all other races should be killed, but not that wealth should be distributed evenly.

    I guess it is just about what you fear most. Taxes or the Holocaust.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Yah by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Check the McCarthy trials.

      Sorry, I can't find any information on the "McCarthy trials", care to tell me what you are talking about?
      Were you perhaps referring to the McCarthy Hearings? Which ended up having far more negative consequences for Joseph McCarthy than for those on the receiving side.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    2. Re:Yah by BoberFett · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, the past of Europe other than Hitler is just so peaceful.

    3. Re:Yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the lecture. You're right, we should all learn from Europe's past how to live in peace and harmony. Little things like Hitler, Stalin (yes, Western Russia is Europe), World War I, poison gas, colonialism, Napoleon, etc., etc., etc., all pale in comparison to the US treatment of the Indians. Thanks for setting us straight.

    4. Re:Yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh I also forgot - the hundreds of thousands of Americans killed in their prime of life to free Europe from its self-made monsters - also thank you for your sanctimonious drivel. As do the millions of Native Americans killed by Europeans before there was a U.S. You are so superior!

    5. Re:Yah by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Maybe it is because in Europe we think of the holocaust, the killing of millions of people to take their property as a bad thing.

      Do you seriously believe that restrictions on freedom of speech - short of a full-fledged dictatorship that'd crack down hard on everyone not toeing the "democratic party line" - would have prevented the rise of Hitler in Weimar republic?

  34. But that is the point by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful

    People do remember the Nazi's. It is all very well to talk about free speech, until you see what free speech can lead to.

    Americans LOVE to talk about free speech, but oddly enough none of them seem to remember the McCarthy trials or indeed the dixy chicks. Free speech? No, just a different set of rules of what you can't say.

    It has been proven recently in South Africa and Rwanda that free speech can all to easily lead to horrific things. SA has had race riots... well riots... the race is all black, incited by radio broadcasts. Same as what started the slaughter in Rwanda.

    Free speech? To parody Islam? Doesn't seem to exist and a lot of freedom advocates want people to self censor themselves to avoid upsetting things. Free speech is very hard. True free speech is impossible. It would require ANY and ALL speech and publication of images and ideas which are not obviously illegal in another way to be not just allowed or even tolerated but ENABLED. Think about this, if I am free to say X but have no means of publishing it, it would STILL be censorship. Everyone with a printing press could simply limit my free speech, so at least some presses would have to be publicly owned and be required to print ANYTHING ANYBODY wants. Good luck with that.

    Free speech is also more then just not being arrested for saying something, it also means the rest of society can't act against you. Like with the dixie chicks. Free speech as you long as you say what we want you to say or we will make your life impossible? No.

    Really, kid, stop thinking about free speech in such simple terms. Be pro-free speech all you want, but do it with a solid understanding of the enormous so far unsolved problems this will bring. Meanwhile the rest of the world has learned to accept that freedom only exist up to a certain point. usually when you want to end other peoples freedom.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:But that is the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free speech is also more then just not being arrested for saying something, it also means the rest of society can't act against you. Like with the dixie chicks. Free speech as you long as you say what we want you to say or we will make your life impossible? No.

      The most important distinction here is that society acted against the Dixie Chicks, not the government.

      You can blurt McCarthy all day long from years ago.. and I'll laugh at Europe while I look at Germany's laws against displaying a swastika (yes, we all know it's bad, but we can buy Wolfenstein without killing everybody) and the UK (oh, the Chinese heads of state are coming, and we don't want to offend.. keep all the protesters away and tear down all the anti-Chinese posters).

      I've lived in Europe. I've lived in the US. Europe does a lot of things right (health care in many countries), but free speech is not one of them. It's a fucking joke over there.

    2. Re:But that is the point by coolsnowmen · · Score: 1

      "Free speech to Parody Islam"
          Hop over to the south park thread from a couple weeks ago and you'ld find your answer to this. No one is stopping you from saying anything bad about Islam. But you can't expect others to say it for you.

    3. Re:But that is the point by parazite.org · · Score: 1

      "Free speech? To parody Islam? Doesn't seem to exist and a lot of freedom advocates want people to self censor themselves to avoid upsetting things." Defense in depth is not retreat till the end of the world.

  35. WTF? by rokj · · Score: 1

    This is ridiculous and obviously there is some paranoid agenda going on; and we are just days short of "finding" WMD in Iran, like they did find in Iraq. I hope someone convict George Bush and Tony Blair for actually using powers against its own nation?

  36. Sharing by drooling-dog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And this, children, is why we don't share our reading lists and other personal information on sites like Facebook. It's also why we should be wary of other people keeping track of everything we read, whether it's over the web or on devices like Kindle.

    1. Re:Sharing by sourcerror · · Score: 1

      And this, children, is why we don't share our reading lists and other personal information on sites like Facebook. It's also why we should be wary of other people keeping track of everything we read, whether it's over the web or on devices like Kindle.

      I never will lend anything from a library again.

    2. Re:Sharing by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It's ok, we can just round up all the people who don't read or watch anything. For further questioning. Not a problem.

      If they're not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide, right?

      --
      Qxe4
    3. Re:Sharing by soliptic · · Score: 1

      I never will lend anything from a library again.

      Unless you're a librarian, that's a given.

      Perhaps you meant borrow.

    4. Re:Sharing by EdIII · · Score: 1

      Or we could just go the other way and outlaw reading entirely and force 5 hours of verified television viewing to get your healthy doses of advertisements, propaganda, and um, more propaganda.

      Perhaps even form groups of specially trained men to go around and set the books on fire.....

  37. Wrong! by BancBoy · · Score: 1

    WRoNG!
    WRoNG!
    WRoNG!

    Did I win the debate?

    --
    [UID-HeinzIntel]
  38. Freedom by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Of course freedom(s) can be abused by a few, but that is not a reason to restrict it from the masses.

    Your attitude really scares me, and is part of what is wrong these days with society. Once you limit a freedom, its a matter of time before its gone completely.

    As a side note, free speech does not mean it HAS to be published, it just cant be restricted from being published/distributed.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  39. Terrorism Act 2006 by chrb · · Score: 1

    Can sombody explain why this is illegal?

    It was made illegal in the Terrorism Act 2006, which was passed following the 7/7 London bombings. The Act itself was controversial, as it brought in new crimes of "glorifying" terrorism, and "inciting someone to commit acts of terrorism", both of which have implications for free speech. The new laws have been used to successfully prosecute various people such as "cyber-jihadist" Younes Tsouli.

  40. About the original "cookbook" by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

    My father* used to tell me, that he had such a 70s “cookbook”. The original paper version. Which was special, since... here it comes... usually that was just the term for a hollowed-out book, filled with a hand-grenade. ^^

    Of course I also had to see for myself what that book contains. Unfortunately I lost the PDF of both the original version, and a early “new” version, years ago when a HDD died. :/
    But I think it is completely unacceptable to put someone to jail who didn’t hurt anybody, just because he has something that could be used to hurt somebody. Because by that logic, we all here would have to go to jail, because we could use our penises to rape women (and men).
    Key point: Doesn’t mean we are actually doing it!

    What I think is highly criminal though, is those convictions. Because other than just owning a book, those actually hurt people. There is a name for governments doing such crimes: Dictatorship.

    * One of the guys who defended Afghanistan from the Russian invasion back then, assisted by weapons the US gave them, so they did not have to do it themselves. Because of a certain sub-group of people, that kinda backfired for the US though. ;) (But hey, at least my father now has a lucrative job, interviewing people that don’t let anyone else interview them.)

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  41. Some better instructions by mangu · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you search the web you'll find:

    AF Regulation 64-4 - Search and Rescue Survival Training

    FM 3-24 - MCWP 3-33.5 - Counterinsurgency

    TM 31-210 - Improvised Munitions Handbook

    These are non-copyrighted, public domain texts prepared by the USA armed forces. They all teach how to create terror in the enemy ranks. The last one, "Improvised Munitions", teaches how to make explosives from stuff you find anywhere.

    No need to go through lengthy procedures to buy "dangerous" chemicals, they are everywhere if you know where to look. And this free manual, courtesy of the US Army, teaches you where to look.
     

    1. Re:Some better instructions by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 1

      Yep. I have the original anarchist's cookbook that I bought in the 80's just to have it. The Improvised Munitions Handbook is far more accurate and informative than the AC.

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    2. Re:Some better instructions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you learn of ways to make nitric acid from readily available products, you're already half-way to being dangerous. That's like one of the starting steps to making a variety of compounds that goes boom. (Gun-cotton, gun powder, sugar based rocket fuel, nitro glycerin, TNT, etc. Of course you're just as likely to blow yourself up or suffer from poisoning if you don't really know what you're doing.)

    3. Re:Some better instructions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you learn of ways to make nitric acid from readily available products, you're already half-way to being dangerous

      Here. One of the ingredients is potassium nitrate.

    4. Re:Some better instructions by turgid · · Score: 1

      The thing is, you can buy or borrow books about things or read about them on the intertubes, but when you really get down to it, anyone with a good pass at GCSE or Standard Grade Chemistry could figure out how to make those things all by themselves.

      Education is a dangerous thing. If you give people the tools to be able to think for themselves, you have an entire population of potential terrorists or traitors. Lukcily, people are too stupid and lazy to learn things like Chemistry, Physics and Maths in the UK these days.

    5. Re:Some better instructions by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      No need to go through lengthy procedures to buy "dangerous" chemicals, they are everywhere if you know where to look. And this free manual, courtesy of the US Army, teaches you where to look.

      As deadly as ricin? According to wiki, a dose smaller than a grain of sand will kill you. That kind of sounds like it's in a higher class of toxin than, say, the bleach under my sink. I've heard of one successful assassination where the assassin seems to have dipped a needle in ricin, put it at the end of an umbrella, walked up to the guy and then "accidentally" poked him. You couldn't do that with any of the chemicals found in my lab (a research lab, not a meth or chemical weapons lab) let alone a house. Pretty sure anyway. I mean, I'm pretty clumsy and haven't died yet.

    6. Re:Some better instructions by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      There's a big difference between reading a manual, and actually being able to pull something off though.

      Most extreme example - how to make a nuclear bomb. Well you need the materials, and it needs to be refined, and at some point you need an reactor to do this. Not for the faint of heart or budget - even if you had all the schematics, blueprints and facilities to do it.

      Then there's surviving on your own - I remember doing the survivalist merit badge as a boy scout - it wasn't easy fishing, hunting and scavenging for your own food, never mind making your own guns and ammunition.

    7. Re:Some better instructions by mangu · · Score: 1

      Then there's surviving on your own - I remember doing the survivalist merit badge as a boy scout - it wasn't easy fishing, hunting and scavenging for your own food, never mind making your own guns and ammunition.

      That's what the "AF Regulation 64-4 - Search and Rescue Survival Training" is for. You'll even learn - in several different ways - how to light a fire by rubbing sticks. Plus how to disguise your fire so the enemy will not see it. And how to fight panic, resentment, and anger. Care of the mouth and teeth, care of the feet. Contact with people and changing political allegiance. Land travelling and climbing ropes. Camouflage, radiation detection, and types of residual radiation. And etcetera.

    8. Re:Some better instructions by mangu · · Score: 1

      As deadly as ricin? According to wiki, a dose smaller than a grain of sand will kill you.

      If you want to make ricin, the best source of information is the United States Patent Office.

      Getting the castor beans is no problem, castor plants grow as weeds in most tropical countries. It's harder to get rid of them than finding them.

    9. Re:Some better instructions by damburger · · Score: 1

      "dipping a needle in" underplays the complexity of that attack. The ricin had to be deployed in a specially manufactured pellet (the design of which confirmed Soviet involvement, IIRC)

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    10. Re:Some better instructions by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Lukcily, people are too stupid and lazy to learn things like Chemistry, Physics and Maths in the UK these days.

      Yeah, it's less work in the US where you just need to learn math instead of maths. ;)

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    11. Re:Some better instructions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hm, modded "informative". You slashdotters are all friggin' terrorists. I knew it, I tells ya.

      Anyway, Mr Mangu, you just collected information which could be used by a terrorist in committing an act of terrorism, so I hope you ain't planning to go to the UK anytime soon.

      Yay, thoughtcrime!

    12. Re:Some better instructions by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      The Improvised Munitions Handbook is far more accurate and informative than the AC.

      After reading TACB, I used to think that it would be pretty hard work to produce something that was much more dangerously uninformative than TACB.

      Then I went to see what some of these Al Quaeda "manuals" are like.

      The ones that aren't straight re-hashes of TACB are ... almost amusing. I'm pretty sure that the authorities don't make any effort at all to prevent distribution of these because they contribute a lot to national security and, more importantly, the maintenance of the average IQ of the species. In a Darwinian sense. Who needs "survival of the fittest" when you've got things like an Al Quaeda "manual" and an idiot combining to make a rather messy room and an end to a particular blood line of idiots.

      I'm sure they make life easier for the police too. No need to go around actually hunting for terr'sts when they can just go around sponging the evidence out of the craters.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    13. Re:Some better instructions by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Hmm, "improvised munitions" sounds interesting. Looks familiar though. Yes, the electric bulb initiator ... I remember reading that and thinking "I figured that out for myself two decades ago". Gelled fuels. Yep, seen this before. But reasonably worthwhile.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    14. Re:Some better instructions by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      Like I said - nothing like reading the book and then actually trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together - it requires a great deal of practice and skill.

    15. Re:Some better instructions by Gandalf_the_Beardy · · Score: 1

      Like almost any chemistry or physics graduate in the UK I'm effectively a walking compilation of "information likely to be of use to a terrorist". I mean it's not hard - any competent physics grad can be assured of making a really big crater with 100% reliability if you actually got given the raw material. Chemists can make smaller, but still impressive craters and can make the raw materiel themselves from a variety of sources. Just thinking off the top of my head I could probably synthesise a good half dozen chemical agents from stuff in the house and car. I suspect I'm not the only one. So what do I do now the UK govt has decided that for us to be legal we should get a lobotomy? Well we firstly voted in a more sensible Govt than the hideously invasive and illiberal mob that we used to have. Secondly - I don't go round with the intent to actually use this knowledge, at least not for bad stuff. These white supremacists were not jailed for owning/downloading the anarchists cook books - they were not really jailed for making a piss poor chemical weapon (please - enough ricin to kill just *nine* people? You could do much more damage with a burning cross and firebombing the church). They were jailed for desiring and starting to carry out acts to commit terror - the anarchists cookbook is a mere sideshow, a bagateulle, it's nothing. The intent, proved by the actions was what got these people nailed - everything esle is just froth and oam

  42. URL for the book? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I suddenly have a strong desire to aquire said al-quaeda manual

  43. Knowledge should not be illegal. by coolsnowmen · · Score: 1

    Why is it illegal to teach people how to make bombs when the government does it everyday. Or is that the social contract, 'You can have this knowledge, as long as you serve us for 4 years.' I just see it as raising the bar on terrorism.

  44. If you want to protect your home from a burglar... by 3seas · · Score: 1

    ... learn to think like one and then find teh ways into your home and fix them, so a burglar can't get in.

    Though I haven't read any terrorist educational material, I'd imagine the same applies here.

    Ultimately its a mindset thing and how to counter bad mindsets, which you cannot do if you do not know the mindset you are trying to counter.

    And who exactly are those who don't want you countering terrorist mindsets?

    A: those who partake in terrorism themselves.

  45. Wonderful by Stolly · · Score: 1

    May i be not the first to say what a steaming pile of **** this is.

    --
    Lest we forget http://www.stolly.org.uk/ETO
  46. Hmmmm.... by Rod+Beauvex · · Score: 1

    I wonder ow much being a white supremecist hurt him in the conviction.

    I find it interesting that everyone on Slashdot seems to be overlooking that little tidbit.

  47. They weren't jailed for possessing knowledge by ctid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the father made some ricin.

    --
    Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
    1. Re:They weren't jailed for possessing knowledge by compro01 · · Score: 1

      The guy in the first article was. The 2 articles are about completely different stories.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:They weren't jailed for possessing knowledge by ctid · · Score: 1

      Oops. You're right. I shall RTFAs in future!

      --
      Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
  48. Burn the Libraries by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    Hmm, it is time to burn all the high school and university libraries, since they contain physics and chemistry books.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  49. Re:If you want to protect your home from a burglar by parazite.org · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How did it go?! "We don't allow people having guns, so why would we them allow having ideas."

  50. Deja Vu All Over Again by ChiRaven · · Score: 1

    Something haunting reminiscent about the Steve Jackson case about this. The government doesn't seem to want certain information to get out, regardless of its validity.

    By the way, street rumor has it that the original 1971 work has long since been heavily "improved" courtesy of the CIA and/or others in the government, and that reprints since the mid-70's have not been reliable.

  51. out-of-kitchen by parazite.org · · Score: 0

    Putting terrorists out of business by eliminating the terrorist cooking cookbook infrastructure the cooks use as abstract training camps.

  52. You're all crooks now! by HungryHobo · · Score: 1

    everyone who is in the UK and opened this slashdot plage is now a criminal!

    The Al Qaeda Manual
    The attached manual was located by the Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an al Qaeda member's home. The manual was found in a computer file
    described as "the military series" related to the "Declaration of Jihad." The manual was translated into English and was introduced earlier this year at the embassy bombing trial in New York.
    GOVERNMENT
    1677-T
    UK/BM-1 TRANSLATION
    IT IS FORBIDDEN TO REMOVE THIS FROM THE HOUSE
    UK/BM-2TRANSLATION
    DECLARATION OF JIHAD [HOLY WAR] AGAINST THE COUNTRY'S TYRANTS MILITARY SERIES
    [Emblem]: A drawing of the globe emphasizing the Middle East and
    Africa with a sword through the globe
    [On the emblem:] Military Studies in the Jihad [Holy War] Against
    the Tyrants
    UK/BM-3 TRANSLATION
    [E] 19/220
    In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate
    PRESENTATION
    To those champions who avowed the truth day and night......Andwrote with their blood and sufferings these phrases...
    -*-The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostateregimes does not know Socratic debates...,
    Platonic ideals..., nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.
    ***... Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They are
    established as they [always] have been
    by pen and gun
    by word and bullet
    by tongue and teeth
    UK/BM-4 TRANSLATION
    In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate
    Belongs to the guest house
    Please do not remove it from the house except with permission.
    [Emblem and signature, illegible]
    UK/BM-5 TRANSLATION
    Pledge,O Sister
    To the sister believer whose clothes the criminals have stripped
    off.
    To the sister believer whose hair the oppressors have shaved.
    To the sister believer who's body has been abused by the human
    dogs.
    To the sister believer whose...
    Pledge, OSister
    Covenant, OSister...to make their women widows and their children orphans.
    Covenant, OSister...to make them desire death and hate appointments and prestige.
    Covenant, OSister... to slaughter them like lambs and let the
    Nile, al-Asi, and Euphrates rivers flow with their blood.
    Covenant, OSister... to be a pick of destruction for everygodless and apostate regime.
    Covenant, OSister... to retaliate for you against every dog who touch you even with a bad word.
    "O
    UK/BM-6 TRANSLATION
    In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate
    Thanks be to Allah. We thank him, turn to him, ask his forgiveness, and seek refuge in him from our wicked souls and bad deeds. Whomever Allah enlightens will not be misguided, and the deceiver will never be guided. I declare that there is no godbut Allah alone; he has no partners. I also declare that Mohammed is his servant and prophet.
    [Koranic verses]:
    ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam"
    "O mankind! Fear your guardian lord who created you from a single person. Created, out of it, his mate, and from them twain scattered [like seeds] countless men and women; fear Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual [rights], and be heedful of the wombs [that bore you]: for Allah ever watches over you."
    "0ye who believe! Fear Allah, and make your utterance straight
    forward: That he may make your conduct whole and sound and
    forgive you your sins. He that obeys Allah and his messenger, has
    already attained the great victory."
    Afterward,
    The most truthful saying is the book of Allah and the best
    guidance is that of Mohammed, God bless and keep him.
    [Therefore,]the worst thing is to introduce something new, for
    every novelty is an act of heresy and each heresy is a deception.
    UK/BM-7 TRANSLATION
    Introduction
    Martyrs were killed, women were widowed, children were orphaned,

  53. Anarchist Cookbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a real anarchist, I've been following issues around the "Anarchist Cookbook" for the past two decades. First of all, the Anarchist's Cookbook has nothing to do with actual anarchism, anarchists, or the anarchist movement. But that really isn't that relevant here. The infamous Anarchist's Cookbook has been widely available, online and offline, for many years. As a few wits have said above, every other teenager has a copy of this book.

    The book has been disowned by its original compiler and editor, but its publisher has made millions of dollars from the sales of the paper version of the book. I haven't checked sales figures on the book since the late 90s, but I remember running across a Publisher's Weekly news item, circa 1997-1998, which stated that millions of copies of the book had been sold since the early 1970s.

    Arresting and convicting somebody for mere possession of this book is more than just an assault on civil liberties and free speech, it's just an overreaction. Millions of people own this stupid book and haven't used it to make bombs or anything.

  54. Was it Lewis Black? by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 1

    I saw a similar bit by Eddie Izzard. Wow, you must have to get up pretty early in the morning for that.

    Death, death, death, death, breakfast, death, death, tea, death, death...

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
    1. Re:Was it Lewis Black? by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      I think they both commented on it.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  55. Train timetables? by mangu · · Score: 1

    Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence to collect or make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist, or possesses a document or record containing information of that kind

    Let's see: a terrorist that wants to blow up a train needs to know at which time that train will go by. So, a train timetable is "information of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist".

  56. "Not a popularity contest?" Right... by Shauni · · Score: 1

    Not everyone sees the end goal in an argument as getting to a "true" resolution through reasoned debate. They just want their opinions to "win". And without enough people in the discussion who DO value interesting debate and communication over funny anecdotes and opinions that coincide with their point of view, any value in the discussion is lost. And don't kid yourself; those kinds of people exist on /. too.

    Switching topics back to the world outside of /., I don't believe banning books is the answer to all extremist problems. But nor should rational, critically thinking people be so quick to engage wingnuts on their own turf. That gives them legitimacy, or perceived legitimacy. And if they have no interest in making a compromise, it's a loss all around.

  57. 1984 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you do realize that you are jailing people for owning a book right?

    jailing people for knowledge is ultimate violation of human rights. there are no excuses, only totalitarian governments do this

  58. My copy of the Anarchist Cookbook... by MrScience · · Score: 1

    I took a copy of the older Anarchist Cookbook to PAX, shortly after the airing of Leverage in which Wil Wheaton played the hacker Chaos.... and asked him to sign it as such. He thought for a moment, then handed this back. Too meta? :)

    --

    You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco

  59. The Blair government was waging war on freedom by UpnAtom · · Score: 1

    Unbeknownst even to most Brits, the recently deposed British Government was waging war on our freedom.

    This document is a little out of date but is otherwise an excellent and terrifying source.

    Some snippets for you.

    The Blair govt twice passed bills which can rewrite the constitution (including that bit about holding elections):

    The first one was the Civil Contingencies Act - which can declare a instant dictatorship upon a minor national emergency, uncannily familiar to Hitler's Enabling Act.

    The second one was the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act. This one can amend constitutional laws without requiring any discussion in Parliament.

  60. Thoughtcrime had nothing on the Serious Crime Bill by UpnAtom · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey ABG, LTNS.

    Did you notice Blair's Serious Crime Bill, via which you could be punished eg forced to move hundreds of miles, by merely doing something which would inadvertently aid any potential serious crime, whether or not a crime was committed?
    It was amended by Brown to make the punishment proportionate.

    Blair actually out-1984'd Orwell.

  61. Anarchists Schmanarchists by Gaian-Orlanthii · · Score: 1

    I think it was about 15 years ago that I downloaded 'the cookbook' from a warez site.

    It was a TOTAL disappointment. Most of it was outdated (how to phreak public payphones and hack Yahoo! email circa 1998) or overrated. Lots of stuff about how to make pipebombs or pick locks but nothing really interesting, like how to set up and manage a pirate radio station, or how to grow marijuana or how to build an engine and generator or a list of your legal rights.

    Fuck it - there wasn't even anything on rifling the barrel of a firearm. And I bet there wasn't much like that in these guy's downloads either.

    But do you know where you could learn these secrets of self-empowerment??

    In the science section of your local library.

  62. Oblig. xkcd by Sparx139 · · Score: 1
    --
    Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
  63. What about Jolly Roger? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a copy of the Jolly Rogers coolbook on an old Amiga floppy... if my house is searched does that make me a terrorist?

    Answer: yes. I am a terrorist... ph34r me! Rar! I have enough diskette bombs to absolutely ruin all your old computers in your garages and attics!