Slashdot Mirror
Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect
An anonymous reader writes "Saad Allami likely never expected that a simple text message of encouragement would have turned his life upside down. But as seen in a similar case of absurd overreaction by authorities, a simple text message is all it takes to have yourself branded as a terrorist. From the article: 'The Quebec man says he was arrested by provincial police while picking up his seven-year-old son at school. A team of police officers stormed into his home, telling his wife she was married to a terrorist. And his work colleagues were detained for hours at the U.S. border because of their connection to him.'"
What were the contents of the text message? That seems like sort of a key point.
They arrested him because of a simple text message, not because any actions that he took. Just speech. That's a lot worse, if you ask me.
He was actually charged with terrorism for not also send his message in French. This is Quebec after all.
But I'd really like to see the exact contents of the original text, as opposed to him giving us a vague description about how it mentioned "blowing away" the competition. That is, was it
"Go to this trade show and do such a good sales job that the competition is blown away!"
or a more hyperbolic comment like
"Blow those guys away. Annihilate them. Don't stop until they're lying in a puddle of their own blood, begging for mercy."
#DeleteChrome
The US and Canada have become such cowardly nations that anything can be made into a threat.
Knowing the DHS scrapes all of the social sites and sites like Slashdot, I would like to say that the DHS can 'blow me'.
So there...
"Telecommunications sales manager Saad Allami .. sent a text message to colleagues urging them to "blow away" the competition at a trade show in New York City"
..
Well there you have it, an obvious prima facie case if there ever were one. An Arab sounding name next to the words 'blow away` and 'New York`. The computers at Fort Meade must have lit up like a Christmas tree
AccountKiller
- His name sounds Arabic
- He wants his colleagues to "blow away competition"
- The supposed target is in NYC
- The supposed venue is hosting a trade show
He is a terrorist QED.
We need to be asking the right questions here:
He made the tweet on Jan 21, and he was picked up three days later. That is an incredibly fast turnaround for law enforcement, even for the US or Canada. They were throwing the T-word around like it was a known fact, all while terrorizing his wife and co-workers.
So, let's ask some useful questions.
1. How long have the authorities been monitoring this man?
2. WHY have they been monitoring him?
3. WHY did they go after his co-workers?
The answers are bound to be exceptionally interesting and frightening.
[End Of Line]
...there's no racial profiling going on here at all, no, no...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
...is Canada intercepting every single text message sent in their country? TFA doesn't say, but frankly I'm pretty curious. The UK people banned for the Twitter comment actually makes a little sense, as Twitter is public, but AFAIK text messages aren't.
i am just smashed thermodynamically to pieces by the kind overreaction here
one wonders if a complete shock wave of annihilation of common sense has occurred
what do we do as a society if we utterly and eruptive eviscerate and detonate our sense of proportion?
a violent cataclysm of frothing hysteria is bursting forth and is explosively convulsively disintegrating mental composure here in a frenzied fulminating volcano of bursting boiling meteoric rage and---
[NO CARRIER]
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They have succeeded in turning America and it's northern neighbours (who I thought had more sense) into paranoid lunatics!
The more technical terms is moral panic. It is beyond ridiculous that such a well understood phenomena is completely lost on people who are supposedly "experts" on criminal behavior.
Here's the part of TFA that gets me:
Allami says he hasn't been able to get a certificate of good conduct, which he would need in order to get a job working in finance.
His allegations have not been proven in court and the application is to be presented at the Montreal courthouse on March 5.
Provincial police spokesman Guy Lapointe says the force is aware of the case but will not comment as it is before the courts. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.
Police had in Laval, Que., where he applied for the certificate, found terrorism accusations and public mischief on his file, even though his public file shows no signs of the allegations.
"Without the certificate of good conduct, the plaintiff can no longer work in his profession," the document states.
First of all, you need a "certificate of good conduct" from the police to work in the financial industry in Canada? On Wall Street, you almost need a certificate of unscupulous conduct to work in the financial industry.
Second, Canadians have a "public file?" This sounds like something that was dreamed up to make people feel like they could access the government's information about them. But it implies that there's a private file as well that you will never see, which defeats the purpose of having a public file. In the U.S., you can request your FBI file for a fee, but they can tell you they don't have anything on you when they do. And the best part is that one of the requirements for obtaining the file is that you have local law enforcement fingerprint all ten fingers and send that along with your $18 payment. "Mr. Smith, you didn't have a criminal record before we received your request. However, thanks to your voluntary submission of your fingerprints, we discovered you match some prints found at a crime scene that had us stumped 10 years ago. We're going to have to take you in for questioning."
Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner
Excerpt from the memoir...
What saved me was - my nose. I have a fairly well-developed figurative sense of smell, or to put it differently, a sense of the worth (or worthlessness!) of human, moral, political views and attitudes. Most Germans unfortunately lack this sense almost completely. The cleverest of them are capable of discussing themselves stupid with their abstractions and deductions, when just using their noses would tell them that something stinks. ...
As for the Nazis, my nose left me with no doubts. It was just tiresome to talk about which of their alleged goals and intentions were still acceptable, or even "historically justified" when all of it stank. How it stank! That the Nazis were enemies, my enemies, and the enemies of all I held dear, was crystal clear to me from the outset. What was not at all clear to me, was what terrible enemies they would turn out to be. I was inclined not to take them very seriously - a common attitude among their inexperienced opponents, which helped them a lot, and still helps them.
[. . .]
The morning headline was: "Hitler called to President". That produced a certain nervous, impotent irritation. Hitler had been called to the President in August and November. He had been offered the vice-chancellorship and then the chancellorship. Both times he had set impossible conditions, and both times there had been solemn declarations: "never again..." Each time "never again" had lasted exactly three months. Hitler's opponents in Germany at that time suffered from a compulsive urge to offer him everything he wanted, indefatigably and at an ever cheaper price, indeed to press it upon him. It is the same now with his opponents outside Germany. Again and again this "appeasement" was formally renounced, and again and again it gaily reappeared at the crucial moment; just so today. Then as now, one's only hope was Hitler's own unreasonableness. Would it not sooner or later exhaust the patience of his opponents? Then as now, it became apparent that their patience knew no bounds...
At midday the headline said: "Hitler makes impossible demands". We nodded, half reassured. It was only too credible. It would have gone against his nature to ask for less than too much. Perhaps the cup had once more passed from us. Hitler - the last defence against Hitler.
At about five o'clock the evening papers arrived: "Cabinet of National Unity formed - Hitler Reichschancellor".
I do not know what the general reaction was. For about a minute, mine was completely correct: icy horror. Certainly, this had been a possibility for a long time. You had to reckon with it. Nevertheless it was so bizarre, so incredible, to read it now in black and white. Hitler Reichschancellor ... for a moment I physically sensed the man's odour of blood and filth, the nauseating approach of a man-eating animal - its foul, sharp claws in my face.
Then I shook the sensation off, tried to smile, started to consider and found many reasons for reassurance. That evening I discussed the prospects of the new Government with my father. We agreed that it had a good chance of doing a lot of damage, but not much chance of surviving very long; a deeply reactionary government, with Hitler as its mouthpiece. Apart from this, it did not really differ much from the two governments that had succeeded Bruning's. Even with the Nazis it would not have a majority in the Reichstag. Of course that could always be dissolved, but the Government had a clear majority of the population against it, in particular the working class, which would probably go Communist...
In the meantime the Government would be likely to
Install trackmenot http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/ for your browser and search engines will be pushing out a lot of random search noise all day and night. :)
Randomized search-queries will flood your logs and make your user profile fun
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Only a terrorist would feel the need to deny being a terrorist. Take him away, boys!
Blank until
My name is Jack. People can get arrested just for saying "Hi" to me.