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MI5 Chief Seeks New Powers After Paris Magazine Attack

Posted by samzenpus on from the let-us-look dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that the head of MI5 is asking for more snooping powers following the attack at Charlie Hebdo. "The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has called for new powers to help fight Islamist extremism, warning of a dangerous imbalance between increasing numbers of terrorist plots against the UK and a drop in the capabilities of intelligence services to snoop on communications. Parker described the Paris attack as "a terrible reminder of the intentions of those who wish us harm" and said he had spoken to his French counterparts to offer help. Speaking to an invited audience at MI5 headquarters, he said the threat level to Britain had worsened and Islamist extremist groups in Syria and Iraq were directly trying to orchestrate attacks on the UK. An attack on the UK was "highly likely" and MI5 could not give a guarantee it would be able to stop it, he said."

61 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. By all means by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We must give unlimited powers to the supreme chancellor!

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:By all means by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I caught part of a review of today's papers on the BBC News last night. The comments by the two guest reviewers actually made me nauseous. One claimed to be concerned about the implications about extending surveillance powers further and that we should have some sort of debate, yet clearly thought we should just hand over whatever it takes to keep us safe. The other was just saying he didn't care who read his e-mails, didn't feel that being spied on limited his freedom of expression, and MI5 were welcome to spy on him, with no apparent consideration for the implications of that policy for anyone else who might not share his views. The host actually quipped -- in possibly the only balancing comment in the entire segment -- that the guest sounded like he was making the old argument about having nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, and the guest just laughed and said he didn't think so.

      So it looks like there was at least one thing Lucas got right with episodes I-III: liberty really does die with thunderous applause.

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  2. Vague article by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't say what new powers he wants. It makes it hard to decide whether this is good or bad, because general surveillance of everyone is very different from powers to monitor those who are already under suspicion - with prosper controls like court warrants, etc.

    1. Re:Vague article by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      doesn't say what new powers he wants

      Leaping tall buildings. X-ray vision (especially around Lois Lane)

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Vague article by carnivore302 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Doesn't matter what new powers he wants, it will be one step further in reducing peoples privacy and freedom. At some point in time the cure becomes worse than the disease. I think we're already past that point.

      Let me be clear: it's awful what has happened. But so is the death of a child hit by a drunk drivers car. Or a swimmer drowning in the sea. If we were to stop swimming, or playing in the streets life would not be worth all that much.

      Like the drunk driver, these terrorists are losers. Don't make them anything more than that.

      --
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    3. Re:Vague article by Xest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't really matter what they are, it's bad regardless.

      Why? because if we've learnt anything from terrorist incidents since 9/11 is that the perpetrators were all already known to the authorities.

      - Lee Rigby killers? Already detained trying to head to support Al Shabab by Kenyan authorities and sent back to the UK with MI5 informed

      - Boston Bombings? Russia already alerted the FBI to the fact they'd been hanging with Chechnyan extremists and were a threat.

      - Australian hostage taker? Already on trial for violent crimes and with a history of support for Islamic extremism

      - These guys? Already on the US no fly list. Already known to French authorities for extremist sympathies. At least one already had been in trouble with police for violent crimes.

      It seems to me that a taboo needs to be broken, that the general public needs to stop assuming the security services are competent. It's clear they're not and it's clear that no new powers are needed because in each and every case of terrorism that comes about the perpetrators are already known to the authorities.

      All that's needed is for the authorities to start better determining threats from the data they have, they don't need new data. If they simply started monitoring based on the following two criteria then all of the above would've been prevented:

      1) Does the person have extremist sympathies?

      2) Does the person have a violent disposition / have they been arrested and convicted of a violent crime?

      Simply monitoring on these two criteria alone would've prevented all of the above. No new data needed, no new powers needed. It's not rocket science but apparently the likes of MI5 are so entirely inept that they can't even figure out the basics.

    4. Re:Vague article by icebike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At some point in time the cure becomes worse than the disease. I think we're already past that point.

      You have to know that the spy agencies have a list of demands they hold for situations like this. Strike while the terror is hot.

      If your tinfoil hat is on too tight you might suspect they fund some of these events when ever they don't get their way.
      Nah, that's crazy talk. Where are my meds....

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    5. Re:Vague article by Xest · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's exactly the problem, they shouldn't be monitoring tens of millions in the first place because there aren't tens of millions that are a threat. My point exactly was that they only need to monitor the few hundred or few thousand that match real actual threat criteria.

      The fact they're monitoring tens of millions is precisely the ineptitude that needs calling out and dealing with. There aren't tens of millions of real actual threats present within each country, there are a few hundred or maybe a few thousand at best. You don't need to monitor anyone abroad, that's the job of external security like MI6 and your foreign partners to do. MI5 can't keep track of internal threats precisely because they're too busy snooping and gathering mountains of data on non-threats.

      As I've said before, instead of working on becoming better at finding the needle in the haystack, all MI5, GCHQ, and it's counterparts overseas seem to do now is build a bigger haystack so that even when their counterparts from overseas say to them "Hey, you've got a bunch of terrorist threats here" they seem to just respond "Sorry, too busy with head buried in massive haystack to care".

    6. Re:Vague article by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

      This may be true. Personally, I think the vast majority of people working for these organisations probably are just normal people trying to do an important job under difficult conditions.

      However, I don't think you've undermined Xest's point: if a perpetrator of a violent act was already well known to the security services for both their views and their violent disposition, but for whatever reason the perpetrator had not been effectively monitored or contained despite that knowledge, why would we rationally expect that providing any further information would necessarily improve the situation?

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    7. Re:Vague article by Vintermann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "These guys? Already on the US no fly list. Already known to French authorities for extremist sympathies. At least one already had been in trouble with police for violent crimes."

      Yeah, but it looks like they also checked all the flags for troubled kids. You'll find lots and lots of foster home boys(which those were) who are kind of attention-seekers, kind of flirting with various radical political cults, kind of narcissistic, kind of sociopathic/antisocial. What are you going to do?

      There are tons, tons of people who fit your 1 and 2. And much as they may be personality-fucked up people who go on to cause a lot of suffering for people they encounter, the vast majority of them are not terrorists. Surveilling them is not free, and is not without consequences in itself.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    8. Re:Vague article by Xest · · Score: 2

      "Surveilling them is not free, and is not without consequences in itself."

      Regardless, it's a far better step up from surveilling everybody and makes the data set of targets for more detailed analysis far more manageable.

      It's ultimately a question of whether profiling is ever acceptable. I believe it has to be acceptable at some point else you might as well just disband the security services altogether. In terms of human rights I don't think narrowing the surveillance set from "everyone" to "violent criminals with jihadist sympathies" is a particularly unfair trade off.

      I'm not recommend we profile based on skin colour, I'm not recommending we profile based on religion. But profiling based on a history of violence and/or terrorist activity such as funding and recruitment of groups overseas all coupled with a hatred for the society in which they live as a starting point for investigation? I don't think that's unreasonable.

      Those edge cases that are borderline troubled teens not yet truly radicalised can be passed off to anti-extremism programmes and any lack of progress reported back to enabled continued monitoring.

      But when you've got two guys on no fly lists, who were previously in court for supporting jihadis, and one of which has a history of violence both managing to get hold of AK-47s and reportedly even an RPG-7 and getting them all the way to central paris? Something is going very fucking wrong in the intelligence world and it simply cannot be excused as anything other than outright incompetence - it's a level of failure that would get anyone else fired from their job and yet instead we're told "Oh they're doing a tough job, we shouldn't be too hard on them. They're heroes, we can't possible suggest otherwise!" whilst their bosses tell us they need more powers to snoop on even more people in even more invasive ways as if that's somehow going to change anything at all.

    9. Re:Vague article by kevinbr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So when you can't monitor the obvious threats you already know about the solution is to add more and more to the pile ? Really? Why not ask for more manpower to monitor the known threats? Or are they busy monitoring politicians and journalists ? Who the fuck knows how they are burning manpower but the Paris incident shows that they can't do threat assessments nor properly monitor who they know about.

      If they knew these guys were a threat, then they can get a warrant already an scoop up everything. Phone locations etc. No one objects to monitoring via a legal process known threats. But with current powers available, they did not. So adding more and more powers leading to more and more data is in my opinion not a solution.

      Potentially the whole world flies under the radar.

    10. Re:Vague article by MMC+Monster · · Score: 2

      Just because someone is known, doesn't mean anything can be done.

      What should have been done with these guys before they killed people? Have them watched indefinitely? Imprison them because they may cause a crime? Limit their freedoms in any other way?

      The world governments know a lot about a lot of individuals. It's just that most of what they know is circumstantial and not actionable information.

      --
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    11. Re:Vague article by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Let me be clear: it's awful what has happened. But so is the death of a child hit by a drunk drivers car.

      Actually, those people killed were the last people in the world that wanted a government with more snooping powers. Warning: Some of these drawings may not be work safe. http://www.le-livre.fr/photos/... http://www.le-livre.fr/photos/... http://www.iconovox.com/blog/w...

      That head of MI5 is just an idiot opportunist with a very poor sense of taste and timing. Of course, MI5 can't guarantee that it can stop a muslim extremist terrorist attack. No one can guarantee that, except may be North Korea.

    12. Re:Vague article by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's not really a case of incompetence, it's a case of not being able to prevent every single attack in the same way that we would never expect the police to prevent every single crime or doctors to prevent every single disease.

      It might be possible to stop more of them with greater powers. The argument is that because there are checks and limitations on spying it is harder to track every person of interest, so we should all just open up our Facebook and Gmail accounts for them. If we have CCTV in every living room, which is an actual possibility thanks to smart TVs with insecure web-cams built in, we could monitor these people more easily.

      That's obviously a stupid argument. If you put CCTV in every living room, competent terrorists won't talk about terrorism in their living rooms. These guys knew what they were doing, they didn't have traceable phones on them, they switched vehicles because they knew there would be CCTV and ANPR everywhere, and they apparently kept their online profile low enough to avoid detection as well. With hindsight it might be possible to say that certain invasions of privacy may have helped detect them, but the next guys will just avoid that too.

      The powers GCHQ has used in the past were secret. They were less useful when made public. In other words, to be most effective they need to break the law and do things that people think they are now allowed to do. Of course the cat is out of the bag now and people just assume they are monitoring everything. They screwed themselves, and asking for more powers now isn't going to stop terrorism but it will definitely damage our freedom.

      --
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  3. Please tell me that these include... by tlambert · · Score: 2

    Please tell me that these include being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

  4. Who says the events are connected? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MI5 Chief Seeks New Powers After Paris Magazine Attack

    I think it's fairly likely that he was seeking new powers before the Paris attack as well. It's just more newsworthy now.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Who says the events are connected? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      Terrorism gives some administrations leverage to get more power. 9/11 proved that point. 01/07 will prove that point.

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      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:Who says the events are connected? by tehcyder · · Score: 3, Funny

      Good point.

      Bad point.

      Counter point.

      Numberwang!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  5. MI5 Chief Seeks New Powers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's constantly "seeking" new powers, not just after "Paris attack".

    On another --similarly surprising-- news, Marine LePen is thinking aloud about death penalty in France.

    Disgusting pack o'rats. Just instrumentalising the occassion for their little dirty agendas. I'm sure *no one* of the dead folks at Charlie Hebdo would have liked that.

    Now excuse me while I go puke.

  6. Fuck the Nanny State by mentil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An attack on the UK was "highly likely" and MI5 could not give a guarantee it would be able to stop it, he said.

    I, for one, would rather be shot or blown up than live under a government that can 100% guarantee my safety. Better to live under a Sharia theocracy than a tyrannical nanny state.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Fuck the Nanny State by hlavac · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fuck them both. People are forgetting what freedom is...

    2. Re:Fuck the Nanny State by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      Better to live under a Sharia theocracy than a tyrannical nanny state.

      Why?

      Neither would be my first choice but if they were the only options I'd take the one with beer.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Fuck the Nanny State by chthon · · Score: 2

      It seems that the practical implementation of sharia IS a tyrannical nanny state.

    4. Re: Fuck the Nanny State by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

      The US is anomalous in terms of its murder and violent crime rates, of course. There are other nations where the general population is also allowed or even required to have firearms that do not suffer the same level with violence, suggesting that the problem may be one of culture rather than tools.

      Still, the statistical question is a fair one. Given that routine carrying of firearms by the general population would almost inevitably lead to some level of extra deaths, if only through accidents, and given that the number of people actually hurt or killed in terrorist-style attacks is tiny, it may still be the case that statistically it is a bad bet to routinely arm the general population of the UK as a response to that particular threat. I don't know what the actual numbers would be, but it's a fair question to ask.

      (I am not offering any view on the merits or otherwise of arming the general population for any other reasons here. I'm talking specifically about whether generally arming everyone would be a good thing in response to this kind of attack.)

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    5. Re: Fuck the Nanny State by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      When you say "arming the population", that implies you think the population wants to be armed, I live in the UK and in general people are much happier without these weapons. Guns are designed to kill, that is there one and only purpose. We don't (and wouldn't for long) have enough natural animals to even hunt where they would have any other use, so the prime use for guns would be to kill other people. That's it.

      I think being an island nation we have always taken for granted that it is easier, than say being part of the continent, to prevent lots of illegal firearms from spreading. The people want it to stay this way and a massacre or two will not change that.

  7. We already knew this was a possibility by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    This was a possibility before. It's still a possibility. Crime happens. We know this. We'll never get 100% crime free. We just have to do the best we can, balancing the risk against other factors such as civil rights and cost.

    It's unlikely that anything short of 100% surveillance would have prevented this, and the last islamist extremist attack in the UK was a nutter armed with a car and a machete. Is there really anything MI5 could have done to prevent that?

  8. No matter how much power we gave them ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... as long as the top level politicians are disciples of the cult of Politically Correctness the real problem, the problem with the Islamic barbarism will still remain

    In fact, those at the top are secretly encouraging them barbarian to commit more barbaric acts so that they can ask for EVEN MORE POWER

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by rmstar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As long as the top level politicians are disciples of the cult of Politically Correctness the real problem, the problem with the Islamic barbarism will still remain.

      That is true. Admitting that there is a problem with islam would be a very big step towards improvement. But since this is categorically denied, it is not possible to find a solution.

      BTW, the vast majority of the victims of radical islam are themselves muslims. Maybe it is time for muslims to stand up and say, no, peeps, contrary to what political correctness suggest, we actually do have a problem in our religion, and here in the west it is actually possible to do something about it.

      The point, rather obviously, is not to exterminate muslims, but to make the fringes of islam less barbaric.

    2. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by chthon · · Score: 3, Informative

      The police officer which was murdered by the terrorists was also a muslim.

    3. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have a very hard time seeing that the same problem doesn't exists in Christianity and Judaism

      Yeah, all of those contemporary examples of Christians and Jews doing things like shooting up rooms full of satirical journalists, and sending mentally challenged young women into vegetable markets with bombs strapped to them - they just won't stop doing that! All of those Christians and Jews that post online videos of themselves beheading their captive hostages, lining up villagers and gunning them down, burning teachers alive for daring to teach girls to read - it's definitely just like what all those thousands of Muslims are doing, no question.

      --
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    4. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You know, the reason why radical islamists are so powerful in middle east today is mostly western intervention. Be it Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or the gulf states... The islam is not more or less barbaric than christianity, it is just that the wrong people are in power right now, just like the wrong people were in power in medieval christian Europe.

      Mankind would be better off accepting that there is a fundamental problem about most religions (not faith, mind you. I am speaking of religions) and overcome it as a relic of the past.

    5. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Xest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Haven't you just disproved your own point? that if the vast majority of victims of Islam are innocent victims then the problem isn't actually with Islam but simply violent thugs?

      If the problem is with Islam itself then it seems odd that literally about a billion other muslims manage to practice it entirely peacefully. A problem with the religion itself would imply that all muslims would be effected by it, but they're clearly not, so instead we need to understand what the differentiating trait amongst the subset who are actually problematic is.

      It may be that it's another trait in conjunction with the religion itself that's the problem, sure, but it's not clear that it's definitely the religion itself, and it seems very clear that it's not wholly the fault of the religion due to the massive majority that aren't impacted.

      Note that I'm not defending religion per-se, I think it's unhelpful and demands people opt for ignorance over evidence, and maybe that is the problem - it makes them vulnerable to extremism, but I think it's clear we can't wholly blame religion, again, given how many peaceful followers of Islam there are - over 10% of the entire world's population in fact.

    6. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by herve_masson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > BTW, the vast majority of the victims of radical islam are themselves muslims. Maybe it is time for muslims to stand up
      > and say, no, peeps, contrary to what political correctness suggest, we actually do have a problem in our religion,

      I'm uncomfortable with this. Many public persons in my country (france), being journalists, politicians, whatever, make the same claim, urging muslim to react, clearly and loudly. I mean: *more* than other people. I was thinking the same way, but I recently realized it's a trap.

      This indirectly suggests that muslim people have something to do with those barbarians asses. It even go further in the direction: "if you don't yell loud enough, you're with them and against us", and that's really really bad to my opinion.

      We count million Muslims in our country, and a handful of dumb asses. Yes, a handful: a few hundred people have been filed as "potentially dangerous radical Islamist". The 2 that killed journalists a few days ago were in that list. Not high enough in the list apparently, but that's another story.

      Is there really a "problem with islam" ? I feel like its more a problem with a really tiny proportion of incredibly dumb people giving no value to life. They occur to attach themselves a religion, and make it a meaning of life.

      We have seen fanatics in every religion in the past, the religion of the day for those guys happens to be islam. That does not make muslims potential killers. That does not make them responsible for those assholes. We should know that Islam and those dudes have nothing in common but a name. We should not need Muslims to remind us this fact more than others.

      Now, you may consider that islam has in its foundations the seeds for such violence. I just don't feel this way myself.

      Anyway, just my one cent feeling.

    7. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm from Northern Ireland, it is/was a hell of a lot more about land, allegiance and which constitution you're following than if the pope was the head of your religion or not. Actual arguments about religious dogma never featured very much at all when I was growing up around paramilitaries. It was very much country on country hate, religion just happened to also be a convenient divider - and remember Wolfe Tone was a protestant...

    8. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by coofercat · · Score: 2

      You're just a few hundred years too late. Had the technology existed, I'm sure all the things you describe would have been happening during the Crusades.

      Rest assured, a lot of people have died in the name of $religion. Thankfully, Christianity has, on the whole, evolved beyond such things )although certain outposts in the US (including the White House) do slip up from time to time). I'll leave the question of Judaism's evolution, and its effect on the Israel/Palestine region to the reader.

      I think it's fair to say that just because you're in a club, it doesn't mean that the actions of everyone in that club are things you agree with or support. On occasion, people will join a club in order to give themselves an air of legitimacy, or to give their cause a greater meaning or voice, whilst they continue with a course of action that is contrary to the majority of club members beliefs or support.

    9. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by dablow · · Score: 2

      Umm...you realize that the Nazis where mostly Christians that tried to exterminate the Jews....Although it was never referred to as a jihad......And if you look in Africa I am pretty sure there are more recent atrocities committed by Christians towards others.

      Also we should not forget the irrational hate & fear Christians have towards homosexuals (mostly in the US though)....

      Christianity is not that far ahead my friend.

    10. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Lumpy · · Score: 2

      They were not standard terrorists, That was a military strike team. This is not the typical idiots that shoot with the gun over their heads, these guys were Navy Seal level of skills.

      Yet none of the news outlets are talking about it.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    11. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by dablow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are correct, organized religions and dogmatic though is a serious problem for the human race.

      But, as much as I do not like saying this, it is more of a problem for the uneducated & poor, who are more easily duped into committing atrocities. It's not their fault, they just never had a proper education and given the required skills to be able to avoid extremism. It's also a lot easier to blow yourself up when you have 0 hope of ever earning a decent living and getting married (you would be shocked how important this factor is actually).

      This is also the outcome of when you go in and destroy the legitimate governments of other countries and leave a power vacuum. Local warlords fight, and sometimes these fights spill over to other nations.

      Saddam Hussein, for example, was no angel, not by ANY stretch of the imagination. However he had succeed in creating a relatively safe and peaceful state in the middle east, mostly secular (at least at the central government level) and women enjoying unusual amounts of freedom (compared to it's neighboring states). Is the world a better place, overall, now that the west violently removed him? I personally do not think so (although I am sure a lot of people who suffered at his hands might think so).

      Same with what happened in Iran in the 1950's....And so on and so forth....

    12. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Informative

      They were not standard terrorists, That was a military strike team. This is not the typical idiots that shoot with the gun over their heads, these guys were Navy Seal level of skills.

      Yet none of the news outlets are talking about it.

      Yes and no.

      They had *just enough* training to be comfortable with the weapons and have a plan, but consider that they went up against newspaper editors in an office, and not a hardened military squad. And yes, judging by my radio on the way in, it is being discussed (albeit on the more right-leaning shows... the left-leaning ones are too busy trying to loudly restate the obvious, as in "OMG islam is a peaceful religion and these guys are not representatives of it and OMG they're no different from Jerry Falwell when he sued Hustler!**

      I mean, c'mon - we're used to bumbling fools like the frickin' underwear bomber, so any terrorist with even a small modicum of military training is going to look like a 'SEAL-Delta-Para-Ranger-Force-Space-Shuttle-Door-Gunner(!)' to the masses.

      TBH, at most they probably have about the same skill and training as, say, the typical Army boot half way through OSUT training. In other words, they know and are skilled enough to pull off the stunt they did, but would most likely collapse/die/fail if they faced anything stronger than a gaggle of cops (which is pretty much the most that they'd had to go up against so far).

      ** No shit - some idiot commentator on MSNBC made that comparison yesterday. And they wonder why no one takes that damned channel seriously these days...

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    13. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      Worship of and total allegiance to the State is not Christianity.
      A leadership who actively pushed a pseudo-norse mythology based on ubermenchen and "racial purity" is not Christianity.

      Nice try and all, but your argument fails. It fails twice over in the face of the fact that activity from the Vatican itself managed to directly rescue an estimated 800,000+ Jews and similarly-targeted folks throughout WWII (and indirectly rescued far more) - in spite of it being unarmed and surrounded.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    14. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by dablow · · Score: 2

      Never said that the Vatican himself was a Nazi. I was pointing out Christians (and the far majority of Germans where Christian at the time) behaving badly towards those of another faith. And it happened in recent history.

      My point is, most of the major faiths have committed and are still committing atrocities towards people of other faiths and to humanity in general.

      Israel's treatment of Palestine comes to mind....

      Christianity has no better track record than Islam, Islam has no better track record than Judaism, and so on and so forth......

      It may seem like Christian nations have made some progress, in reality a lot of those nations where hatred and overall violence have diminished have adopted more secular values over the years.

    15. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by ikhider · · Score: 2

      Certainly, the deployment of drones for extrajudicial executions throughout the Muslim world is less barbaric. So is wholesale bombing of the Middle East in order to play whack-a-mole with ISIS/ISIL/whatever. This extremists did not pop out of Middle Earth looking for The Ring, there are decades, no centuries of foreign policy initiatives that let to a radicalized populace who do not even have political say in their own country. Take post 2003 invasion Iraq, a lot of ISIS/ISIL guys are former Baath party members who were denied political involvement hence a significant demographic became outlaws. The "muzzies" do not come to Europe and North America for the burgers and porn, but to flee war torn regions. If they had their choice, they would stay in their respective lands. Need I remind you that France is also a major colonial power that shaped much of the way the Middle East and Africa is today. When you colonize a region, you had better take on the responsibility that comes with it. When your new subjects come to the doorstep of their new ruler, the ruler had better be willing to take on the problems, not just the wealth of the regions. When you oppress and marginalize a people in their own lands, do not be surprised when radical factions arise and lash out. You want to take the wind out of radicals? You don't need a security apparatus, work out why these people are doing the actions they do. Put pressure for a just, not colonialist foreign policy--then you will see radicals disappear.

      --
      "SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
    16. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by dablow · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't be surprised to find out that our own Western Govs are funneling money to them indirectly (via heads of states like Saudi Arabia etc).

      Keep us in fear, and you keep your people in check...Also convinces a lot of people to WILLINGLY give up their rights and freedoms.....

      Of course this is just my speculation......no proof

    17. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by datavirtue · · Score: 2

      I have seen protestant rich-kid heathens machine gunning and sniping civs from the top of a building while laughing and jumping around like school girls. I dont care who you are or what label you reside under....evil is deriving enjoyment from the pain of others...I have seen evil.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    18. Re:No matter how much power we gave them ... by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 2

      A leadership who actively pushed a pseudo-norse mythology based on ubermenchen and "racial purity" is not Christianity.

      Yeah, that must be why Wehrmacht soldiers' belt buckles were emblazoned with the motto "God is With Us." It was Odin's fault all along, I guess.

      Nice try and all, but your argument fails. It fails twice over in the face of the fact that activity from the Vatican itself managed to directly rescue an estimated 800,000+ Jews and similarly-targeted folks throughout WWII (and indirectly rescued far more) - in spite of it being unarmed and surrounded.

      As usual with the Catholic Church, most of their acts of charity and compassion are directed towards fixing social problems they actively participated in causing.

  9. Would that help? by Roodvlees · · Score: 2, Informative

    It seems clear that extremism cannot be fought with violence. Afganistan? Irak?
    9/11 came with a massive increase in power, and what has that done for us?
    Aparently there is no such thing as lessons learned for these guys.

    Even more so with these guys. So what we must do is try to understand the underlying problem.

    In my opinion that's religion. It blocks people's ability to think rationally about something because of indoctrination.
    We should stop supporting religion. People are free to believe whatever they want, but they should pay for it themselves.

    More police power just reduces the freedom we have, which is exactly what these terrorists want.

    --
    Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
    1. Re:Would that help? by Zocalo · · Score: 2

      It's definitely part of the solution and can definitely help in some situation, but it's not the best general approach and has the highly likely side effect of perpetuating the problem by creating more extremists as a result of the actions taken again existing ones that goes wrong. This has clearly been happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and everywhere else this approach has been used where many extremists cite past attacks against earlier extremists that have claimed the lives of friends and family (innocent or otherwise) as their motivation. As you note, it also gives the terrorists exactly what they want; forcing those they are attacking onto the backfoot and reducing the freedom of the people to the point that there's not really all that much difference between the control enforced by the state and the control the extremists want to enforce.

      The wake of the attack on Charlie Hebdo has given us a look at a far more effective general solution in my opinion, and one that ought to be used far more than the usual approaches of guns, smartbombs, mass surveillance and security theatre. The use of "Je suis Charlie" has been a rallying cry by which people can stand up and be counted as being opposed to what the extremists are trying to achieve. More importantly it has done so in a way that does not offend those that the extremists probably believe they are acting on behalf of so that they can (and have) stand up and make a statement to the effect that this is not what they want - something simply reprinting the original images does not. Demonstrating to extremists that, actually, most people - including those you think you are fighting for - don't feel the same way ought to make at least some of those that are not just in it for the violence to start questioning whether they are on the right path after all, and maybe stand down without any further bloodshed - on either side.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:Would that help? by nickmalthus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fear is a great fund raiser for the military industrial complex. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars will cost between four and six trillion dollars. Think of what all that money could have paid for and what we got for it. I am much more afraid of dying a long and painful death from cancer rather than being killed in a terrorist attack which is statistically next to impossible to happen. All four of my grandparents were diagnosed with cancer and two died from it. Where is the trillion dollar war on cancer? On the other hand some brainwashed malcontents assaults a small group of people and one would think it is the apocalypse. Certainly the government, the media, and their corporate sponsors will exploit every penny possible out of this tragic event to further their institutional objectives.

      --
      If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
  10. "They always want something more..." by Loki_1929 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "They always want to meet; the SS love to meet, and they always want something more, 'til they have everything."

    — Dr Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, Conspiracy

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  11. Insult to injury by seoras · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was just waiting for some dick head in the establishment to show the same sort of insecurity that led those self righteous arseholes in Paris to murder cartoonists.
    In they step over the bodies and blood looking for the best spin, angle and outcome for their own agendas.
    They didn't stop these deluded morons this time and their laws won't stop the next ones. There, sadly, will always be a next time.
    What pisses me off is that they patronise us with their "we'll do something about preventing it happening again in exchange for you giving up some of your rights and freedoms".
    The truth is they (the establishment) are as afraid and insecure about all of us as the few violent extremists that are out there.
    What happened in Paris in 1793 at the Place de la Révolution is probably of more concern to Andrew Parker than what happened to Charlie.

  12. Re:Attention all (potential) subversives by bmo · · Score: 2

    The point of going dark is to make surveillance expensive. You want "them" to spend as much money as possible. Currently, just about everyone sends plaintext through the Interbutt, for example. Archiving all of this in a building in Utah and using search technology to sift through it, building "instant dossiers," is well within the budget capabilities of many governments.

    If everyone uses encryption, there isn't enough computing power in the universe to sift through all of that. At that point, "they" will have to devote actual warm bodies to do surveillance, aka "spies." Spies cost money. They cost a not insignificant amount of money to train and require weekly paychecks. Plus they are quite a bit slower than computers sifting through plain text and unencrypted Skype calls.

    What we want to do is break their budgets.

    The only drawback to all of this is the instant you mention encryption to Joe User, you get this glassy eyed stare, dead eyes, like a doll's eyes, to butcher a line from Jaws.

    --
    BMO

  13. No one is calling for extremination of Islam by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    What I am talking about is the problem of Islamic barbarism --- not Islam itself

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  14. thank you snowden by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well now that snowden has told AQ, north Korea, China, ISIS, etc how we USED to spy on them, we now have the first of many coming attacks. The real problem, is that 5Is have already taken things to the edge of legal (or beyond). Personally, I am hesitant to extend things. If UK goes over the edge, i suspect that america will try to follow.
    At this time, we may simply have to acknowledge that AQ and Isis are about to bring major terrorism to the west.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  15. The barbarians will murder anyone they want by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Remember that American aid worker Peter Kassig that got his head cut off?

    He has converted in Islam but that still didn't prevent them barbarians from cutting his head off

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:The barbarians will murder anyone they want by tehcyder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember that American aid worker Peter Kassig that got his head cut off?

      He has converted in Islam but that still didn't prevent them barbarians from cutting his head off

      Surely this shows that it is not Islam itself that is the problem?

      It is not "political correctness" to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and terrorists who are Muslims.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:The barbarians will murder anyone they want by Kartu · · Score: 2

      Pardon me, but how does this show that Islam itself is not the problem?
      It merely shows that being Muslim doesn't save you from Muslim fanatics.

      Now, examples that you have mentioned, pardon my cynicism, were more of a collateral damage. The terrorists weren't after these people because they were Muslims. However there have been dozens if not thousands of Shia Muslims vs Sunni Muslims terrorist attacks in Iraq.

      Problems with Islam:

      1) Apostasy in a crime punishable with the death penalty

      2) To qualify as apostasy, one doesn't even to renounce Islam or join another religion, just questioning "fundamental tenet or creed" of Islam is enough. (e.g. Sharia law)

      In 23 (!!!) (as you'd guess, Muslim) countries apostasy is covered through criminal laws (which is a violation of universal human rights) it is THAT bad.

  16. Parent is NOT insightful by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

    Rubbish. Whilst I agree that a lot of the recent abuses of power are inexcusable, the job of the security forces is not easy.

    Lack of resources mean that they cannot be physically watching every suspect all the time, (probably a good thing, you might say).

    So, what do you do with the people who meet your criteria, (and there are many of them). Detain them without trial?

  17. It's political correctness that LIE to the people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is not "political correctness" to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and terrorists who are Muslims

    Hmm no!

    It's PRECISELY because of Poltical Correctness that the Islamic Barbarism movement has sprouted

    Those who subscribe to Political Correctness will label people who dare to call a spade, a spade, such as identifying the barbaric tendency amongst many Muslims "Haters"

    Precisely because of Political Correctness no one dare to voice out when things started to go wrong

    And when no one voicing out when things started to go wrong, the things that went wrong went MORE wrong, and those things grew and grew, until we have ...

    * The Boston Marathon Bombing, the
    http://www.cbsnews.com/feature...

    * The Murder and videotaping of an 8-year old girl in Toulouse
    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012...

    * The Hostage taking and murder saga at Sydney
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

    The list could go on, and on, and on, and the one common thread, apart from the Islamic barbarism is POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

    If it wasn't because of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS all those barbaric fuckers would have been flushed out long before they carried out their dastard acts

    Those motherfucking Islamic barbarians hide behind the curtains of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS and thriving

    Their number is growing, and they are everywhere

    Thanks to the motherfucking POLITICAL CORRECTNESS more and more bloody episodes of Islamic Barbarism will happen on the Western soil

    More and more innocent people will be needlessly butchered, and we have POLITICAL CORRECTNESS to thank for !

  18. Re:Powers????? by tehcyder · · Score: 2

    I am speculating however that if even 2 or 3 of the weekly's personnel carried (and used) the odd .38 or 9mm, it would have mattered substantially in the outcome

    There were two armed and highly trained policemen guarding them, and that didn't help much.

    If all the staff had been carrying machine guns, the terrorists would just have bombed the offices instead. In Afghanistan and Iraq there are a lot of armed people around, so the terrorists use car bombs.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  19. Fixing Islam is Simple by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 2

    Establish a policy that you deport the families of perpetrators of terror attacks.

    It is hard to celebrate the idea of being a martyr is you know your family is going be living back in squalor of the 3rd world as a consequence of what you've done.

    It isn't hard, just attach a fair and meaningful stigma and mean business about it. You can't be toothless about it like France has a history of doing; doing nothing and looking the other way does not solve problem. And France has historically done nothing with these problems and to nobody's surprise they keep happening again and again.

    --
    Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory