Man Who Downloaded Bomb Recipes Jailed For 2 Years

chrb writes "Asim Kauser, a 25-year-old British man, has been jailed for two years and three months for downloading recipes on how to make bombs and the toxin ricin. Police discovered the materials on a USB stick Asim's father gave to them following a burglary at the Kauser family home. Asim pled guilty and claimed that he only downloaded the materials because he was curious. A North West Counter-Terrorism Unit spokesman said, 'I also want to stress that this case is not about policing people's freedom to browse the Internet. The materials that were downloaded were not stumbled upon by chance — these had to be searched for and contained very dangerous information that could have led to an explosive device being built.'"

Comments

Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[killfixx]

Title should read, "Man arrested for possibly planning to become a terrorist". But still, arrested for criminal possibility.

His potential crime would have been a physical one. It needed bomb ingredients, guns, etc... He had none of the equipment, just the knowledge.

Everything about his crime is just conjecture. How do you prove that he WOULD have done anything. Were there dates of action?

I guess what it boils down to, if you're gonna have "evil" thoughts, don't write them down.

Pre-crime, here to protect you from yourself.

I'm feeling less special every day. I used to think I was a paranoid outsider. Nope, just observant.

Why do the countries witht the highest Press Freedom Index have to be so damned cold.

Update: Looks like Cape Verde has risen in the rankings... Hrmm...Might be worth the change of address.

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[ackthpt]

I would point out that England has long had it be illegal to engage in communications that are preliminary to serious crimes. There's no implicit assumption in the British legal system that communications are harmless.

2 Years seems a bit drastic, when a month or two would have been better for preventing polarization. As an American, of course, I find this antithetical to my values, but I don't have as much of a stake in British law.

Sometimes, America doesn't seem like such a bad place to live after all.

Give it time.

I remember a day when the Government didn't track every single thing you did on the internet on some monster database. When I could come and go between Canada as I pleased, without a passport. When my personal computer wasn't loaded with DRM software and the DMCA hadn't even been dreamt of.

It's creeping in - there are actually quite a lot of people who think it would be a good idea -- of course, not for them, but for, y'know, them other people, the ones who need watching.

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[cayenne8]

Think of it from the other side too, if I had a USB stick full of credit card numbers (yours & your families, let's make it personal), and I told the fed I got them accidentally and was merely researching the sequencing credit card companies used for the their # assignments, does that sound like I'd be in the clear?

Well, while it *does* sound suspicious...if they cannot show that you obtained them illegally, and cannot show that you have in fact, USED them. I can't see that you could be arrested.

The mere possession of credit card numbers is NOT a crime. It is merely information.

Heck, you could have used one of the freely available CC algorithm generators that will generate valid CC numbers,and yes, you might have done this for pure research.

But if you had not broken in somewhere and stolen them.....if you had not knowingly purchased stolen CC numbers....just having them should not be a crime.

In the US...at least for now...merely possessing information on how to generate CC's, or how to make a bomb or be an assassin are not crimes. It isn't a crime to own the Anarchy Cookbook, nor that book out years back that described how to kill people and get away with it...etc.

However, if they find evidence that you were in fact, conspiring to USE that knowledge to commit a crime, then yes...this info could be used as corroborating evidence in the conspiracy case.

But possession of knowledge is not and should not be a crime.

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually, both England and the United states have, for centuries, had a common legal principle that information, of itself, is not harmful as is protected. It is only acts based on that information that are actionable.

This censorship of information is actually pretty recent, even in England. Don't mistake policies made in and around your lifetime for "long-standing" policies; it just ain't so.

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[JSBiff]

"has long had it be illegal to engage in communications that are preliminary to serious crimes."

But there's the crux - where's the evidence this is preliminary to a serious crime? Where is there anything which strongly indicates *intent* to build a bomb or commit a crime.

I mean, it's one thing if they've got a phone recording of someone giving very explicit instructions to a hitman to kill someone, and making arrangments for payement. That's communications preliminary to a serious crime. That shows definite intent.

How does downloading plans, but never acquiring any parts, making any threats or anything else, show actual intent?

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[Hoi Polloi]

0 days would've been better. If he had Rommel's book on armored warfare would the UK government charge him with planning an invasion of Russia?

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[citylivin]

"what if he actually WAS planning on trying to make a bomb? Why should we wait until this person has actually killed potentially hundreds of people with a bomb or some similar device or act before acting against him?"

Yes of course we should wait till he commits an actual crime to charge him with one. But here i stupidly believe that one should have to commit an actual crime to go to jail. Of course i haven't been brainwashed by CSI and chuck bauer to believe that people are guilty until proven innocent. Fuck this "thought crime" stuff.

If he is indeed a danger, they could you know, gather real evidence, get a court order to tap his phones, etc. Then they should have no problem proving in court that he was meeting with terrorists, or buying supplies for bomb making or whatever. He could simply be researching a book or something! Saying he is definitely a terrorist based on a few files on his hard drive is making quite a leap that would have been an un thinkable position in the mid 90s, when MOST of us had a floppy disk with the anarchists cookbook on it. I don't believe that "times have changed". Freedom never goes out of style.

Id rather have thousands of innocent people getting killed (even if i was one of them), than have one innocent person going to jail for a crime they have not even committed. I am sure we all wrote crazy stuff in our diaries in middle school which could be taken out of context by the right government official. So if those thousand people survived, and I was one of them, would I want my children growing up in a world where people can be rounded up based on the contents of a text file and nothing more?
Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils. Still the best American motto in my opinion.

Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF?

[Hatta]

That's not clear intent, that's wishful thinking. Where and when did he intend to bomb? If there's no plan, there's no intent.

This isn't as bad as it looks

[Baron_Yam]

They ALSO uncovered letters where he stated he was prepared for jihad and was seeking guidance, plus he'd gone so far as to spec and price out his weaponry.

He wasn't just some curious chemist who happened to have an arabic-sounding name.

Re:This isn't as bad as it looks

[Anonymous Psychopath]

They ALSO uncovered letters where he stated he was prepared for jihad and was seeking guidance, plus he'd gone so far as to spec and price out his weaponry.

He wasn't just some curious chemist who happened to have an arabic-sounding name.

Reading TFA and commenting on anything but the skewed summary is discouraged.

Bombs+weapons+expressed desire to use them = probably a bad guy. "Probably" should not be enough for prison, though.

Re:This isn't as bad as it looks

[MozeeToby]

What exactly did he do that you think should be illegal? He downloaded information off the internet; price lists, and bomb recipes. He possibly contacted someone (a single letter that may or may not have ever been sent) asking for spiritual guidance in relation to jihad. Note: not asking for support or guidance on how to perform jihad, but asking for spirtual guidance in relation to his having prepared for it. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't have been investigated, watched, and quite probably seen by a psychiatrist, but he hadn't done anything outside his computer and his head. And when we start locking people up for what they're thinking, we're already 90% of the way down the slippery sloap.

Holy Fuck! Pre-crime???

[Ecuador]

Uh, oh, I am really worried about myself. Not only can I think of many ways I could construct explosive or incendiary devices, I can think of OVER 100 WAYS TO KILL someone! And there are quite a few people I don't really like! Many of them are sitting in the parliament (note: I am Greek) so they have connections to the police!
I am surely a prime suspect for potential terrorism, murder, political assassination and I don't know what else!
Oh, shit! I just realized I know where the VAGINA is! Potential for RAPE right there!!!
Where do I hide guys???

Conspiracy to commit a felony

[blackC0pter]

IANAL. Conspiracy to commit a felony can be punished pretty severely as is evidenced by this situation. Some people will argue that this tramples rights because you cannot even read something without risk of going to jail. The flip side is how do you arrest someone that is planning on blowing up a building without this law? Do you wait until they blow up the building so you can actually arrest them? What about someone planning to kill someone or rape someone? Do you wait until they commit the crime to arrest them or arrest them when you have enough evidence that they are planning to commit the crime? What if someone was planning to kill you or blow you up? Wouldn't you want them arrested BEFORE they killed you?

Re:Science text books

[dnewt]

The police certainly aren't doing themselves any favours with this statement though:

"I also want to stress that this case is not about policing people's freedom to browse the Internet. The materials that were downloaded were not stumbled upon by chance - these had to be searched for and contained very dangerous information that could have led to an explosive device being built. That is why we had to take action."

I don't know about everyone else, but that really doesn't follow to me. Whether he actively seeked out the material or not, taking action on that basis alone is still "policing people's freedom to browse the internet" in my opinion.