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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.
...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?
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
it's under construction
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.
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"
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
the father made some ricin.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
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.