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RC Plane Attack 'Foiled,' Say German Authorities

Posted by timothy on from the they've-got-bruce-schneier-in-the-batcave dept.

garymortimer writes with this excerpt from Sky News as carried by Yahoo UK: "German authorities are holding two men of Tunisian origin who they say are facing possible charges for the 'preparation of a serious, state-threatening act of violence.' Prosecutors say the men are suspected of 'procuring information and objects to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,' prosecutors added. Police investigating the terror plot on Tuesday launched a series of raids in Stuttgart and Munich in southern Germany and Saxony in the east. They also carried out one raid in Belgium. No-one was arrested. The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected 'an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft,' according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency."

6 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Hyperbole, anyone? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...state-threatening act of violence.

    Unless the model plane is the size of a 747 or the explosive is anit-matter, how is that a "... state-threatening act of violence." Is Germany in such dire straits that a single model aircraft can topple a whole country?

    --
    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    1. Re:Hyperbole, anyone? by dubdays · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...state-threatening act of violence.

      Unless the model plane is the size of a 747 or the explosive is anit-matter, how is that a "... state-threatening act of violence." Is Germany in such dire straits that a single model aircraft can topple a whole country?

      Exactly what I though when I first read TFS. I mean seriously, a bomb-laden RC plane couldn't take out a random balcony. They'd be better off strapping C-4 to a bunch of swallows (European, of course).

  2. Threat from r/c planes by TimO_Florida · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, I've only flown r/c planes for 40 years. They can NOT carry a big enough payload to do any substantial damage. Even full-sized Cessna's have been ruled out as not being able to carry enough explosives to be a real threat.

    1. Re:Threat from r/c planes by chihowa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Terrorists only need to do enough to make people fear.

      With news stories and government reactions like this, that's setting the bar pretty low.

      Hell, the governments themselves are doing a bang up job of making people fear without any real terrorists.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  3. What's coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Say goodbye to RC as a hobby.

  4. And people wonder why Snowden is a hero? by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected 'an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft,' according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency."

    Whoah there, fellas! So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?

    I realize the FP doesn't involve the US, but I also thought Germany had gotten rid of the whole Stasi thing back when the wall came down.
    Evidently not.