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UK Group Fights Arrest Over Refusing To Surrender Passwords At The Border (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Guardian:
The human rights group Cage is preparing to mount a legal challenge to UK anti-terrorism legislation over a refusal to hand over mobile and laptop passwords to border control officials at air terminals, ports and international rail stations... The move comes after its international director, Muhammad Rabbani, a UK citizen, was arrested at Heathrow airport in November for refusing to hand over passwords. Rabbani, 35, has been detained at least 20 times over the past decade when entering the UK, under schedule 7 of terrorism legislation that provides broad search powers, but this was the first time he had been arrested... On previous occasions, when asked for his passwords, he said he had refused and eventually his devices were returned to him and he was allowed to go. But there was a new twist this time: when he refused to reveal his passwords, he was arrested under schedule 7 provisions of the terrorism act and held overnight at Heathrow Polar Park police station before being released on bail. He expects to be charged on Wednesday.
Rabbani "argues that the real objective...is not stopping terrorists entering the UK, but as a tool to build up a huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens." And his position drew support from Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group. "Investigations should take place when there is actual suspicion, and the police should be able to justify their actions on that basis, rather than using wide-ranging powers designed for border searches."
Rabbani "argues that the real objective...is not stopping terrorists entering the UK, but as a tool to build up a huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens." And his position drew support from Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group. "Investigations should take place when there is actual suspicion, and the police should be able to justify their actions on that basis, rather than using wide-ranging powers designed for border searches."
Yeah, that's how we catch the terrorists, keep detaining the same guy 20 times.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
How do you know ?
Insufficient information.
Being a Muslim should not make a difference but on the other hand the UK has been harboring a number of very radical imams whose ties to extremists do need to be monitored.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
You just have to repeat it until you make a terrorist out of the disgruntled guy, right?
Ezekiel 23:20
This type of policy won't do anything to impede terrorists. At best you'll get the low-hanging fruit of a few guilty-minded people looking for an excuse to be stopped, but I have a feeling that rarely happens. The dumbest terrorists will simply wipe anything incriminating off their phone before traveling (or not keep anything incriminating on their phone in the first place), or keep everything locked behind an app that customs is unlikely to ask for the password to. Smarter terrorists will stash a SIM on them, or carry no phone and buy a burner when they reach their destination, or have a phone shipped to them. The smartest terrorists will use no phones at all, and then SIGINT is of no help; you need old-fashioned boots on the ground to catch those.
I'm skeptical that searching these people's phones (who already seem to be on some kind of list) is an attempt to create a 'huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens.' First, a database with info on thousands of people isn't 'huge', this isn't 1980 anymore. Second, the UK govt. presumably ALREADY has data on these thousands of people... leading to them being put on the 'search their phone' list. I find it more likely that one of the main purposes is 'intimidation', sending a message of 'we have our all-seeing eye on you', along with a not-so-subtle message of "you're not welcome here." It seems the UK is giving in to Islamophobia recently, I hear.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
There are no English surnames beginning with Q,..
There are: Surnames beginning with Q
It's hardly random, to catch some sort of low hanging fruit.
"Rabbani, who studied economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, joined Cage five years ago as managing director. In August last year, he became international director, a role that includes helping investigations of torture victims."
If you keep arresting an anti-torture charity managing director and keep demanding his passwords, obviously you want information related to his work. This hardly looks random or even terrorist related. More he's investigated some company with political or police connections back in the UK.
In our defence, we did manage to imprison Anjem Choudary. (He's a slimy ISIS supporter who always tried to stay just within the law. He screwed up. I find this awfully satisfying.)
Privacy issues aside, I object to this whole idea for the simple reason that governments governments have proven themselves rather inept at safeguarding even some of their most valuable information. Some of the CIA and NSA's "crown jewels" are currently freely available on the internet (and gave rise to the Wana ransomware). The TSA in the US has a track record of being a bunch of bumbling fuck-ups with a bad IT security track record. Placing account info for millions of private citizens into the hands of people like this is just asking for it to be hacked. It's not a matter of it, it's when.
And I've seen it suggested here and other places that people can just setup fake accounts and use those. That's not going to make it past even a cursory screening. If an account is new it's going to be flagged. If a good percentage of your friend's accounts are new, it's going to be flagged. If you don't post or a good percentage of your friends don't post your going to be flagged. Setting up a proper "legacy" on social media would take years... it's not something that you can just churn out unless you have a means to fake post dates on Facebook, Twitter, etc timelines. This is not something the average person is going to have the time or the means to do and all these companies already have mechanisms in place to spot these types of accounts because they are basically "bots". What turns the logic of this wholesale data grab on it's head is it is something that an organized terrorist group would be able to do. The 9/11 attacks were several years in the making, plenty of time for an organized group of people to establish a legitimate looking social media presence. Intelligence agencies have to have already figured this out which means this is either security theater or they want the data for other reasons.
The point between when you leave one country and enter another is a very scary legal limbo. The issue is not what you are mandated to provide, the issue is that there is no recourse to reasonable justice should you disagree with border officials.
*** Don't be dull.***
You do know that almost a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, don't you? It is the second largest religion and the fastest growing. There are many denominations.
Only a tiny portion of that would be considered radical fundamentalists. Otherwise there would be a constant war between countries with different religions, which there aren't - there are isolated incidents now and then.
The most well-known incidents in recent years have been caused by people living in the West who were driven more by dissatisfaction of their position in society and how they had been singled out as Muslims than by any religious fervour.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Only Shia Muslims (a minority of Muslims worldwide; most are Sunni, although a few countries like Iraq are mostly Shia) care what Imams have to say. They're like Catholic Bishops in that few non-Catholics give much weight to what they say, but are different in that anyone can declare themselves an Imam with no centralized authority/hierarchy. The ISIS (supposed) caliphate probably could effectively be that central authority... but its leader is Sunni so they wouldn't endorse Imams anyhow. Given ISIS' wholesale excommunication and slaughter of Muslims who don't follow their rules, they'd probably put the Imams' heads on pikes instead.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
"Anyone can declare themselves an Imam"
1. Imam (leader) in Shi'a Islam refers to one of 12 people born over 1000 years ago. Most certainly no one can declare themselves an imam.
2. The "Imams" you refer to are either Sunni or Wahabbi not Shi'a.
3. 100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi. The leader (Imam) of Daesh (ISIS) for example.
Actually, its not. It is ISLAMIC terrorism. Learn the difference.
Wrong. Right-wing white supremecists commit most acts of terrorism.
https://medium.com/p/trump-false-claim-foreign-born-domestic-attacks-54e99b0e11b6
Don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out.
You are such a coward. Did they fix the troubles by naively imprisoning all Christians out of fear, or did the authorities look a bit deeper and actually figure out what was happening?
I mean, he shares his name with one of the main leaders of the Taliban movement. What else should he expect, even if the Afghan Rabbani has been dead for 16 years, it's still best to make sure.
In reality, the reason is probably because he was the managing director of CAGE, which ostensibly is a civil rights organisation, but has been accused of being apologists for terrorism. Which ever is true, it's not going to be popular with the UK security services.
He's a muslim, I'd rather they are careful now rather than sorry later.
OK - can we all assume that if, one day, you were traveling to somewhere, where they felt they had reasons to suspect Christians, it would be OK to demand all your passwords, strip search you and worse, and arrest you, because "Your name is obviously Christian". There are after all Chistian terrorists, operating in the US, for example, attacking abortion clinics, am I right? Guilt on suspicion was a guiding principle once - after all, if the Spanish Inquisition, annointed by God's infallible representative, were to suspect you, how could you not be guilty? You are treading a dangerous path here, and you never know if you would end up on the wrong side of that particular legal practise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
People that think such requests for device passwords only is applied to muslims are wrong. It is completely randomly selection.
(what they make you believe of course)
Thank God I had an Irish grandfather.
This allows me an Irish passport.
This means I can continue it live and work in the EU - and so not be forced back into the UK to live under this Government of whom I so profoundly disapprove.
Which portion belongs to a religion by their own free will and not forced into it when they were kids?
Which portion of the world population is not a victim of forced religion by their own parents or other childhood authorities?
If it was forced on you, it is not your religion. You are a victim and your belonging to the religion is the result of brainwashing.
It does not matter if most of the world does it. It does not matter if it has been done for thousands of years. It is wrong and forced religions nor their followers won't get human rights protection in that regard. Their bullshit religions continue to exist because of human rights abuses. World religions would all but vanish unless they were forced on kids.
When asked to provide the password. Change the password first and give them this new password.
When you get the device back, change the password.
In response to your sig: "Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue"
If the two wolves eat the sheep, what are they going to eat next? They're going to starve because all they know is how to take from others, and the others no longer have anything to give. This is why it takes a large population of prey to support a small number of apex predators, or else the predators starve to death. Note that the prey outnumber the predators by a large number, the 'two wolves and a sheep' is the endgame. The sheep would've had plenty of time to vote the wolves off the island.
Ok, time for less metaphor. The majority hate the minority, and want them to be miserable to their own benefit. Easy solution: slavery. In practice this usually just meant 'less-favorable terms for cost of labor, goods etc.' and law enforcement looks the other way to this. A better option than systematically taking people's stuff and killing them turns out to be to get them to make stuff for you. However, what'd be ideal is if you (as part of the elite) don't have to work at all, just have a stable of untouchables doing the drudgery. That means you need a large number of the minority (sheep) relative to the elite (wolves). In a representative democracy, they can vote you out of power, and vote themselves into power. But of course, they don't want the wrong lizard (wolf (elite)) to win, so they keep voting in lizards (wolves (elites)). In contrast, in a direct democracy, the minority can present a bill that prevents discrimination and requires equal pay for their minority, fines for businesses that exploit them etc. and the (power) majority can't outvote them because the (power) minority has a numerical majority. Assuming the voting isn't rigged.
However, there's a wrinkle: propaganda. The elite will spend LOTS of money to maintain their position, and aren't above using propaganda to control the sheeple. TV advertisements are the most obvious modern incarnation, as well as paying news media to run articles/columns that parrot your talking points or happen to only consult with sources friendly to your position. Factionalization, turning the masses against one another, agents provocateur, organization infiltrators, Uncle Toms, and straight-up soapboxing are less-obvious examples. Think about how many people are against minimum wage increases, saying it'll harm the people it's intended to help, if you want an example of all this (whether or not you think it's true). It's easy to invoke learned helplessness on people raised on the idea that they're inferior and can't do anything except keep their heads down.
Direct democracy is theoretically more liberating to the masses, but undermined by the vastly increased ability of the elites to push propaganda upon them. Wage slavery is pretty much guaranteed in all scenarios, at least for the underclass. Direct democracy has a similar problem with poor laws as representative democracy.
Alice: "You voted AGAINST the Terrorist Disemboweling Act 2018? You disgust me!"
Bob: "It had all the same language and provisions as the Terrorist Disemboweling Act 2017 so I saw no need for it."
Alice: "It's a matter of principle! Have to show we're still tough on terrorism!"
And of course the 2018 version had a rider snuck into the 900-page bill requiring disemboweling of those who hang toilet paper towards the wall, but almost noone noticed until the Great TP Pogrom started.
Almost forgot to address the 'armed sheep will contest the vote' idea. The general sentiment would be 'crazy loose cannons terrorizing normal folks' rather than 'freedom fighters'. Propaganda wins this fight, hands down. Now, a potential alternative way that can go is Hutu vs. Tutsis, and there's no telling which side of the genocide you'd be on.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
You do know that almost a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, don't you? It is the second largest religion and the fastest growing. There are many denominations.
Only a tiny portion of that would be considered radical fundamentalists. Otherwise there would be a constant war between countries with different religions, which there aren't - there are isolated incidents now and then.
What fucking planet do you live on?
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years. Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created. Fighting has never stopped, and will never stop.
... to root my machine before I reset my password.
--
AC
Reminds me of CIA agent Colonel Flagg in M*A*S*H: "We'll make sure you remain loyal to the country that's going to hound your every step!"
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
You didn't actually read the article you linked... it's not right-wing white supremacists but 'anti-government extremists'
make a terrorist out of the disgruntled guy, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
By FAR the most "terrorist acts" are carried out by US and Israeli armed forces.
Islamic "terrorism" always involves handfuls of people, whereas the fore-mentioned armed forces have "terrorized" countless millions over the last few decades.
It's not "Islamic" bombs being dropped from great heights on people's homes or Islamic drones terrorizing people around the globe.
No Islamic country has invaded any other countries recently, but the US and Israel do it regularly.
Israeli groups were the first real "terrorist" perpetrators with the bombing of the King David Hotel.
Humans are perfectly capable of attaching religious fervour to anything, irrespective of its connection to deities of philosophy. Remove religion and people will go to war over access to resources, their favourite king, economic system, or text editor.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Whoops, mea culpa. Guess I got mixed up somewhere.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Remove religion and people will go to war over access to resources, their favourite king, economic system, or text editor.
Yes, but it would be harder to mobilize the peasants if they cannot do it in the name of god.
He was a Muslim, right?
Yes it should.
Most terrorism in today's world is *Muslim* terrorism, so yes, it makes sense to place heightened scrutiny on this group. That's just common sense.
With the same logic most terrorists are *male* terrorists, so it makes sense to place heightened scrutiny on this group.
Have you read about this Cage group? There seem to be many shadows around them http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... For Cage is no collection of isolated loonies. As The Telegraph will describe here, it is part of a closely connected network of extremists relentlessly — and successfully — lying to young British Muslims that they are hated and persecuted by their fellow citizens in order to make them into supporters of terror. Cage has an active outreach programme in mosques, universities and community groups. Even more disturbingly, it continues to be treated as a credible partner by respected and respectable organisations, including Liberty and Amnesty International.
Summery: ...
First they came for the Muslims
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
And you're an idiot. Better to euthanasize you now than later?
C'm on. Are you even able to *think* straight? Or is your hatred for $SOME_RELIGION so deep as to impair your senses?
The country demanding such is well document and publicised. If I don't wish to suffer these trials and tribulations, nothing is requiring me to go to that country. That is a far cry from soldiers breaking into my home and killing me for my religion.
He meant beginning with Qu, which most would already know.
Of course he knows that there are English names that begin with
"Qu", but you won't find English names like Qatar, etc. which are
unnatural and reek of hell.
CAP === 'products'
The laptop searches are necessary for the protection of the British people from the evils of illegally obtained Britney Spears songs. Anti-terror laws should really, really applied to such cases. For the British people!
ANYTHING owned by "Facefarm" and the billion fellow idiots with a biometric riddled account would like to know. The AI they're developing keeps asking about it. It's like when kindergarteners go to the police station as a "field trip" that ends with "fun" fingerprinting, except for adults. Because you know, Facebook and other social media make forfeiting privacy "fun." But, as long as common strangers don't have access, I guess that makes it ok. Nope, that's nothing more than a peekaboo game as far as anyone that really wants your data is concerned.
Most certainly it's possible. Just watch:
I declare myself an Imam.
See? It's easy!
Wait, there's someone at my door, brb...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry, but no. The most prolific reason for bashing each other's skull in was the question who has the cooler imaginary friend.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
The Russian, French and Chinese revolutions would be good counterexamples. So are the original Luddites. I suppose you could claim that most of the wars in Europe for the last thousand years were in the name of God because the divine right of kings was invoked to get people to fight, but it's a bit of a stretch. The first and second world wars both had huge death tolls and neither side was religiously motivated.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Can someone clarify if by muslim they mean, person of islamic faith/person from the wider middle east area/person from iraq/afghanistan etc/brown person. It seems interchangeable and no one agrees on a definition.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
Did the holocaust pass you by? No, the war wasn't just about that specific issue but it was a part of it. Don't look too hard now. Most don't openly state that but it's a reason none the less. Here's one active now for you, only one of many though. ISIS stopped by to stay hi too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson??
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11442602/Cage-the-extremists-peddling-lies-to-British-Muslims-to-turn-them-into-supporters-of-terror.html
You mean the biggest two slave lords in US history?
OK, so now its clearly IS evidence fishing based on politics.
If there was actual evidence then there would be an actual search warrant on that evidence. I can see the Telegraph stories you cite, but they're just press hatchet jobs, hearsay from a neocon group, and a laughably contrived claim of 'gitmo compensation donated to Cage', story from ass.
But that just confirms the political nature of the claim here. You can't go to court and cite that as evidence because even a cursory logic check fails it.
Is there any difference? You have to be a WASP to have brains.
If I wanted to smuggle 16GB of data into the UK the easiest way I could imagine would be to copy it on to my phone and fly it there on the a plane.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
what's changed?
"Anyone can declare themselves an Imam"
1. Imam (leader) in Shi'a Islam refers to one of 12 people born over 1000 years ago. Most certainly no one can declare themselves an imam.
2. The "Imams" you refer to are either Sunni or Wahabbi not Shi'a.
3. 100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi. The leader (Imam) of Daesh (ISIS) for example.
Plus the Shia (at least in the modern world) have always seemed to me as tending to be more organised and have something that a christian would recognise as a form of centralised hierarchical clergy. It's the Sunni world where you have a bewildering flora of sometimes weird sects and any crackpot with a Quaran and a digital camera (or occasionally, a bunch of thugs) seems to be able to put on black robes, declare himself 'Caliph' and stands a real chance of being taken seriously. If I had to draw a comparisons (and it would be an extremely broad one) the Shia are more like Catholics, centralised/organised, while the Sunni are like Protestants, fragmented into many factions and sects where any crackpot whit a bible and a YouTube channel (or occasionally, a crackpot militia) can set himself up as Grand Poobah and prophet with a direct line to god.
Did the holocaust pass you by?
Nope, but that was not even a civil war. It could possibly count if conversion to Christianity would have helped. It couldn't.
LRA and ISIS are much better examples, but those are modern groups, not a 1000 year running theme.
Which portion of the world population is not a victim of forced religion by their own parents or other childhood authorities?
I know, I know! ZERO!
How else could the priests maintain and increse their wealth and influence if not by brainwashing the poor, uneducated and unwashed masses into believing in some supernatural being which only they can communicate with?
There are several different issues here which may be conflated.
Firstly, the GP said that most terrorism "in today's world" is Muslim terrorism, which is correct. The link you provided discusses only terrorism in the US.
Secondly, restricting ourselves to the US, there is the distinction between terrorism carried out by immigrants, and terrorism carried out by native US-born citizens. This is an important distinction to make when discussing immigration policy, but is not the same as the distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim terrorism: it's possible for native-born citizens to be Muslim, or for immigrants to be non-Muslim.
Thirdly, there is a distinction between non-Muslim terrorists and "Right-wing white supremecists [sic]", who constitute only a subset of these. Islam aside, the left wing is perfectly capable of producing its own terrorists.
Fourthly, there is a difference between a group supplying a majority of terrorists, and a group which is disproportionately likely to be terrorists. Muslims in the US may or may not meet the first criterion, depending on how you play with the definition (e.g. excluding 9/11), but - being a tiny minority, but responsible for at least a substantial fraction of terrorism - they certainly meet the second criterion.
Have you slept during the history lessons at school?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Shall I go on?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
So what you want is examples of 1000+ year running wars based purely on the grounds of religion where conversion can get you off the hook? If you really just want examples of warmongering over 1000 years ago based on religion alone? Read the fucking bible.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Ad hominem much? I guess that means you can't rebut the actual claim.
The entire point of the wolves and sheep comment is that the majority should not be able to overrule the basic rights of the minority due to mob mentality. That's why all of the blue states should have no right to remove individuals' gun rights any more than red states should remove the ability for people to have benefits based on their proclivity to pair with a particular gender of their own desire. Capisce?
Humans are perfectly capable of attaching religious fervour to anything,...Remove religion and people will go to war over... text editor.
Hey now! Put down your emacs and let us gather at the alter of vi/vim.
What percentage of that group are terrorists? How many leading zeroes?
Hitler was a Catholic, Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
Checkmate my arse.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Summery:
First they came for the Muslims ...
Sounds more wintery to me.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
So we need 'open propaganda'?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Which portion belongs to a religion by their own free will and not forced into it when they were kids?
Which portion of the world population is not a victim of forced religion by their own parents or other childhood authorities?
If it was forced on you, it is not your religion. You are a victim and your belonging to the religion is the result of brainwashing.
All religions are the result of brainwashing.
As the mega-rich and powerful gather more wealth and power, by exploiting the common people, they are also significantly increasing the surveillance of the same common people.
They know that when you concentrate too much power at the top, uprisings will start from the bottom. So they're increasing surveillance, in the hopes of being able to curb these uprisings before they happen, by strategic arrests and by exploiting sensitive information about key persons associated with civil unrest.
Eat the rich.
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years.
The people who pull the strings and initiate the fighting don't give fuck about religion. They just (ab)use it to manipulate their people into agreeing with wars for geopolitical purposes and for financial gain of the elite (= people pulling the strings).
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Read the fucking bible
You mean Kama Sutra? But seriously, this discussion has gone off topic. The point the AC made was:
Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created
This claim is either misguided or entirely true, depending on what speculations you are ready to believe. I am ready do entertain the possibility that religion is indeed responsible for the holocaust, red terror etc, if I believe that religion is the reason we can cooperate as a community thus build civilizations. And to commit wide scale atrocities you really need civilization.
However, if we only look at causes of military conflicts, plain old looting (ala Genghis Khan), revolts (An Lushan rebellion), power struggles, imperialism and such are much more widespread. The reason I challenged AC to give example is because pure religious conflicts are rare. Even your fucking bible is more about acquiring/defending lands, and not “let's go beat up those people just because they believe the wrong god”. Believing the “wrong god” is a reason not to include those people in the “protected group” (a.k.a “us”), which means “thou shall not kill” doesn't apply, but without the religion I don't see universal “thou shall not kill” appearing
Finally, one huge problem with analysing any effects of religion is that you just don't have a control group. Since religious thinking seems to be almost part of human nature, how are we supposed to figure out which part of human nature made people do horrible things.
Original a/c's link:
"Trump : According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country...It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur,,”
The article: "Trump mentions Boston, San Bernardino, the Pentagon & the World Trade Center. None of those attackers were from countries in his travel ban...".
Yeh, so basic logic fail.
"As the Washington Post reported, “more than half of the 82 people who died in the pursuit of or were convicted of any terrorism-related offense inspired by a foreign terrorist organization, slightly more than half were native-born U.S. citizens.”"
i.e. even the ones claimed to be inspired by a foreign terrorist organization didn't come from abroad, they were Americans.
" In a 2015 New York Times article, University of North Carolina Professor Charles Kurzman and Duke Professor David Schanzer found that Islam-inspired terror attacks accounted for 50 deaths since 9/11, but that “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”"
Your claim: "Oops, maybe Trump was right if you look at the number of times someone (excerpting the attacker) got killed.". The logic is all over the place here. "you find that jihadist attacks accounted for 26 of 65 fatalities " Jihadists from these countries? You don't make that claim. Jihadists from abroad even? You don't make that claim. Jihadists even? You don't cite a source. So how would banning people from the wrong country for a wrong claim be right?
The primordial interest of the United States over which for a century we have fought wars--the first, second world war--, has been the relationship between Germany and Russia because united they are the only force that could threaten us, and to make sure that that doesn't happen.
-- G. Friedman, at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Feb 4, 2015.
(Makes one wonder what that mess in the Ukraine is about, no?)
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Atheism isn't an ideology.
2 atheists are capable of having completely opposite ideals.
What demented leftist wackos modded an AC with +5????
If this UK mentality spreads:
"You're free to pass through the border as long as tou agree to have someones dick permanently rammed up your ass"
Then its time to go back to thr stone age which is what they want anyway. They should be more honest and direct.
And Mao didn't have a favourite Pokemon, therefor we can safely assume not liking Pokemon will lead to millions of deaths.
What are they teaching you in History classes now a days? America participated in both of those wars, but by no means were they fought because of America.
Islam is a political and religious ideology.
Not all brown people are Muslim, and not all Muslims are brown people.
A vast majority of Muslims support death for homosexuality, leaving Islam, and criticism of the prophet. It is an evil death cult, but not a race.
it has politics and xenophobic policies that demand followers murder infidels and people of other religions, people deny these facts at their own peril https://www.thereligionofpeace...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Sure thing, Muhammad.
>No Islamic country has invaded any other countries recently,
You asshole, IS in Syria, Iraq, etc.
Fuck you
Neat list. I do have some issues with counting in civil wars, since often those are about loyalty to the throne. Hussites have a legit case., fair enough. Crimean war looks more like typical imperialism and land grab, but I might be wrong. I don't think I can count in Ustae, since they recognized Islam. Looks more like religion is just another tag of identity, not disagreement over tenants of faith or any other such issues.
Really? I think ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood consider themselves Muslim and that their actions are indeed proper under the Koran.
What's needed is a reformation within Islam - but to think the Muslim Brotherhood has "hijacked" Islam is BS.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
So you agree that Stalin was an atheist? The whole communism was specifically an atheistic movement, not that the leaders just happened to be atheists.
We are still buying oil from slimy Daash supporters in Saudi Arabia (and please don't call them ISIS they like the name that implies that they own an entire nation).
> You do know that almost a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, don't you? It is the second largest religion and the fastest growing.
So, can we stop treating them as a minority that has to be coddled and is above criticism?
> Only a tiny portion of that would be considered radical fundamentalists. Otherwise there would be a constant war between countries with different religions
You mean the constant war between different Muslim sects in the middle east? Or the oppression of Christians in the middle east?
> The most well-known incidents in recent years have been caused by people living in the West who were driven more by dissatisfaction of their position in society
Victim blaming.
They were driven by dissatisfaction over free housing, healthcare, food and money?
But only if you carefully define terrorism to fit your agenda, and limit the country you're examining.
The parent was speaking globally, and is correct when not using a definition of terrorism which includes "saying mean things to people."
Good points. Back to the topic it's difficult to point to a conflict as say this was purely about religion, because you're right, it is rare. But religion does have something to do, to varying, degrees with creating a lot of conflicts. Even it's just the thing separating (or unifying depending on your point of view) two groups of people who then fight over resources. You are also right though that a lot of other conflicts have zero or very little to do with religion, most combatants in ww2 will have been christian for example but no one was trying to convert anyone and no sane person would say it was a religious conflict even though in the background you had the very much religion based genocide going on.
Personally I think religion has had a hand in it more that not religion but no one has the numbers to say either way.
On the whole it probably is more that we a just a violent species and will find one excuse or another to make war on each other. Religion is maybe just the go to excuse when you don't have anything better or maybe it is a true motivator, unless we can get a couple thousand years of no religion and compare how bloody the eras are how can we really tell?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Stalin was not an atheist. His philosophy was to make the State replace the Church, not to eliminate religion. Same with Hitler, Mao, etc.
Read that 2015 nyt article, then comment.
You pretty much nailed it.
The Sunnis are slowly starting to wake up to what the Judeo-Britsh cult of Wahabbism/Salafism is doing in the name of Sunni Islam and excommunicating them as Sunnis. It's going to take a long time though sadly, 200yrs of propaganda and 40+ years of oil money washes a lot of brains.
https://eruditeblogger.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/are-wahhabis-sunnis-chechnya-conference-and-saudi-anger/
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Affairs-Britains-Collusion-Radical/dp/1846687640
Go read the NYT article before you decide whether I accurately characterized it and it's sources. I'll wait.
While you're doing that, consider where the basic logic fail is when Trump says "the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country", and your rebuttal is that the foreigners who committed the most notable attacks were not from countries named in Trump's Executive Order on travel restrictions.
It's Daesh.
Humans are perfectly capable of attaching religious fervour to anything, irrespective of its connection to deities of philosophy. Remove religion and people will go to war over access to resources, their favourite king, economic system, or text editor.
While true, war over those other issues is fundamentally rational. It may be unethical, but motivations can be explained and logic and compromise stand a fighting chance at diffusing the situation.
By definition, religious warfare is irrational. Forceful propagation of religion is a feature, not a bug, and most religions are constructed to render their victims immune to logic and reason (otherwise, the religion would cease to exist; survival of the fittest, and all).
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Remove religion and people will go to war over access to resources, their favourite king, economic system, or text editor.
While I agree that people will find other things to fight about, I think the degree of that fighting would change for the better if people had a much better grasp on the idea that dead = dead, not dead = magical paradise. It might follow that people would be far less likely to go to war unless their lives were already at risk.
If I give my password to my work laptop to someone, I get fired. It's in my employee agreement. I've worked at companies where there are laws protecting access to patient data that would be on my laptop any time I traveled. How do they deal with that kind of situation?
By FAR the most "terrorist acts" are carried out by US and Israeli armed forces.
Islamic "terrorism" always involves handfuls of people, whereas the fore-mentioned armed forces have "terrorized" countless millions over the last few decades.
It's not "Islamic" bombs being dropped from great heights on people's homes or Islamic drones terrorizing people around the globe.
No Islamic country has invaded any other countries recently, but the US and Israel do it regularly.
Israeli groups were the first real "terrorist" perpetrators with the bombing of the King David Hotel.
Fun fact: Islamic terrorists kill far more Muslims than non-Muslims. In Islamic countries. Sometimes I feel like the entire Western world is just a side-show to them
.
There are too many examples of "Islamic" bombs being dropped on civilians to count, but you can start by looking at Syria now, or at Iraq just about any point in the last 50 years, at least until the U.S. attacked.
It's ironic that you claim no Islamic country has invaded any other countries so close to the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War (in which several Islamic countries conspired to attack Israel, but instead got their asses handed to them). Israel has never invaded a country except as a response to being attacked by that country. And then they left. The U.S. has only recently invaded Afghanistan (for cause) and Iraq (1. for cause, 2. no comment), but then we left (twice for Iraq). Again, we have the current situation in Iraq/Syria as a direct counter to your claim, and as proof that you are an idiot.
He also has two legs and two arms. You do as well? You must be a terrorist!!
"Go read the NYT article before you decide whether I accurately characterized it and it's sources. I'll wait."
OK, quoting it:
"THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States. But headlines can mislead. "
"In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism."
"An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. "
"In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012."
OK read it, I don't see your point, original AC was correct, so was medium, you are wrong.
"While you're doing that, consider where the basic logic fail is when Trump says "
Zero of those were from the countries named in the Trump ban. None, fatalities or otherwise, zero. So how can Trump be right in his ban if is of logic: "Terrorism is bad / terrorists are foreign/ these countries are foreign"?
And blanket bans like this are illegal under Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin.
Trump needs to get Congress and Senate to change the law to have the power to issue that ban. They're both Republican controlled, so that shouldn't be an issue. The court ruled correctly, the law says this, he is subject to that law. Instead he said to DHS "do it anyway", so the court enjoined all staff involved in enforcing the rule into the injunction. i.e. US law stands, Congress makes law, if you want to follow Trump's illegal order, then you can be sued and lose all your stuff.
So Trump was wrong, both in logic, and in method and his grabbed for power failed.
If you are so frightened of life, maybe you're the one that should be locked away in a padded cell where you'll be safe from all of the dangers of the world.
Everything.
This guy and his organisation only aim is to undermine non Muslims and defend Muslim terrorists, terrorist organisers and sympathisers. All he does is spout radical hate speech and hypocritically lives in a place he openly hates. He tries his best to make life hard for those innocent people who want nothing to do with him or his sort. Lets turn the tables for a moment, why is it that the majority of Muslim countries are far right dictatorships whose track record on human rights are atrocious. Places where you are likely to get stoned to death by racist mobs rather than a fair trial,never mind afforded human rights or common decencies. Most normal Muslims seem to realise that there are a lot racist and hateful Muslims who tarnish their religion and will do anything to escape to go to the West or anywhere else which isn't a right wing racist Islamic dictatorship. Oh, if we were all born Muslim, which I'm often told by rude Muslims who believe in fairies, then all crime is committed by Muslims... go figure!
Grab power right by the pussy!
It's in Arabic script and has been translated both ways. Epic pedanty fail especially since you were calling them ISIS instead of ISIL, Daesh or Daash before anyway - but do whatever you like, I was only making a suggestion and agree with you about Anjem Choudary.
However he's trivial in the situation - kind of like going after Jane Fonda when you really want to stop the Vietcong. IMHO freezing the assets of the people sending vast amounts of money and weapons to Daesh is more effective than putting small players behind bars to "send a message".
Don't forget, the US supplied the Taliban with weapons before they invaded, to allow them a sporting chance, and then you dare to just dismiss with "no comment" the second Iraq war, the biggest single cause of Muslim resentment against the west for decades, where thousands of US thugs and incompetents spread the Miracle-Gro of hatred across the country (and the wider world) until they were overwhelmed by the hideous blooms of terror they nurtured so blindly.
The only way for Germany and Russia to unite is for one to invade the other. We've already seen what happens when the former tries and we spent half a century trying to deter the latter from doing the same.
Can you imagine the outrage, if this had taken place in the US? You've gotta unlock your devices, if they ask, just to go to Canada. They don't even need to articulate a reason, or have suspicion. If the US did this, at even remotely this scale, the outrage would be epic. Hell, in Canada, they'll even demand your login for email, social media, voicemail, etc... I know, because I have personally seen this. Hell, they've even got a reality show where they show it happening frequently.
We'd be hearing nonstop outrage, if this were the US.
Let's hope he's not in charge of anything where details matter.
Religious warfare is just politics. The people at the top are fighting for a bigger slice of the pie.
Four people, probably more, didn't read your link. Muslim terrorists account for the vast majority of terrorist acts. Trying to obfuscate, using limited subsets of data and geographical locations, is intellectually dishonest.
My question is, why would you do so?
My other question is, who the hell moderated your post? They should actually read your link.
It does happen in the USA.
That's not terrorism. Words have meaning. Intellectual dishonesty is about the worst thing you can do to yourself. I hope you feel your cause is worth it.
We don't advocate fucking our citizens in the ass in the interests of national security. You must be thinking of the American electorate.
Citation for #3? I have trouble with the 100% part and I don't believe you. I am unsure of your motivation. I'm pretty sure you're being dishonest.
They have been constantly at war, since the inception of their belief system. To be fair, they were constantly at war, even before that. I have no idea where you get the idea that they have ever been peaceful. They are humans. They have been at war, more often than not. Read a book.
Huh... You really should share your wisdom with Reddit. Really, I want you to be happy. Reddit is much more your style and speed. We aren't smart enough to warrant your efforts. You should go there, where you will be truly appreciated.
Seriously, you should. You will build your karma up and be recognized for your intelligence. Reddit is much more deserving, than we are. Have fun. Tell them I said hello.
If I was a terrorist entering a country with the intent of collecting information in support of an attack, I'd be coming in with a clean laptop, phone and camera. On my way out, I'd have plans and photographs of potential targets. But I've never been checked on my way out. I could be carrying the blueprints for the latest top secret radar and border protection would never know.
Searching people on their way in is for one of three purposes: Harassment, in support of economic barriers (can't have people sneaking cheap videos across borders) and economic espionage (your bidding strategy and cost data will be handed to your domestic competition).
Have gnu, will travel.
A significantly higher percentage are from that group than from any other group. You also have a very slim chance of getting cancer from secondhand smoke. Yet, I don't see you insisting we accept that risk.
It's almost as if you're willfully obfuscating the concept of additional risk and trying to conflate additional risk with inherent risk. I'm not sure what your motivation is but I am a mathematician. I can tell all sorts of horrible lies, using nothing but math and, worse, I can prove my lies.
I don't, but that is because I do my best to be honest with myself and others. So, what is your motivation to get people to accept additional, unnecessary, risk?
It's like the people who claim illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes, as a group. Sure, that is true, but that doesn't actually mean what they imply it means. It is still additional, unnecessary, risk. Every single crime committed by an illegal was added risk. Even if they are less likely to offend, it is still added crime.
More and more of us are going to speak up. I am not smart enough to infer your motives. I am smart enough to understand the language that is mathematics. I am smart enough to spot logical fallacies. I am not alone. I am going to continue to speak up. I am going to continue to point out the dishonesty. I am going to continue to question your motives.
And, yes, I represent the American left. Before the idiots chime in, this doesn't mean I have joined your side, Republicans. You're still horrible people. Progressives may also be your enemy. That doesn't mean we're on the same side. I'm just disappointed that they've usurped the name. They're not even remotely interested in progress, of any meaningful type. Again, this doesn't make the Conservatives my allies.
A muslim is someone that adheres to Islam.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Like hell. Join modernity and get a GUI. Gedit, for life.
I will actually only resort to stabbing you when it comes to terminal emulators.
> Which portion belongs to a religion by their own free will and not forced into it when they were kids?
> Which portion of the world population is not a victim of forced religion by their own parents or other childhood authorities?
> If it was forced on you, it is not your religion. You are a victim and your belonging to the religion is the result of brainwashing.
I see your problem. you think I was forced to be muslim. I wasn't. I chose to be. Might be your christian upbringing, ain't like my muslim upbringing.
Choose the gold standard, become a muslim.
The country demanding such is well document and publicised. If I don't wish to suffer these trials and tribulations, nothing is requiring me to go to that country. That is a far cry from soldiers breaking into my home and killing me for my religion.
I hear this apologist argument often, and it's bullshit. You know that families regularly span countries now? Or must we give up blood connections because of stupid laws? It's a normal part of life, especially in Europe, and we shouldn't excuse it just because it's possible to artificially limit yourself to avoid it.
What part of "Georgian Orthodox" do you fail to understand? You don't know what that is?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
To be fair, and intellectually honest, the vast majority of terrorism is done by Muslims. Even though it is not politically correct, it is mathematically sound to give adherents to that specific faith greater scrutiny. The odds of a Muslim being a terrorist are greater, by almost two orders of magnitude, than they are for any other religion.
They are still slight odds, but they are significantly greater odds. If you want to maximize your chances for detection, applying the most resources to scrutinizing them is your best choice. No, that isn't politically correct. However, math ain't never cared about politics. It's not gonna care 'bout your feelings, either.
I am not saying it is the moral thing to do. I refuse to opine, in those regards. I am saying that it is the mathematically prudent thing to do.
You like logic, math, reason, and science - right? You prefer intellectual honesty, critical thinking, and open data - right? You prefer to make choices based on facts, right?
Or not... I don't really care. I'll be fine, regardless. Still, you are a man of science, aren't you? In this case, the math doesn't lie. If you die because of a terror attack, it is a near certainty that the attack was perpetrated by an adherent of the Islamic faith. The chances are so great, most people would consider it a certainty, with a trivial margin of error. Obviously, it isn't a certainty, but it is really, really fucking likely that the terrorist was a Muslim.
This is not the same thing as saying a Muslim is more likely to be a terrorist than not. No, that would just be absurd. The vast majority of them are not terrorists. However, the tiny subset of people who are terrorists are very likely to be Muslims.
It's possible to be intellectually honest. It isn't even difficult. You don't even have to work hard at it, I don't think. Hell, I'm pretty sure it is easier to be intellectually honest than it is to be intellectually dishonest. The dishonesty requires more effort, constant revision, defense, and motive. It seems likely that it'd be pretty tiring, while the truth is easy enough to cite and shouldn't need to be defended.
Trivially related, what is your motivation? What prompts you to post the things you do? Somewhere, you made a choice to ignore the science and accept an appeal to emotion. Do you know where, or when, that happened? I am legitimately curious.
Probably better than the FBI strategy of using undercover people to talk morons into doing things they would never do nor are capable of doing without the FBI doing every single thing.
What fucking planet do you live on?
I live in this one:
https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/globally-deaths-war-and-murder-are-decline-180950237/
The data point to a world where war is basically going away.
Isn't Iran considered a state sponsor of terrorism? They're not sponsoring Sunnis are they?
Ah, fictional characters. Good luck using one of those names at UK borders.
Point being, GP wouldn't like it happening to him, so his intolerance should be rewarded in kind.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
That may be, but those who implement and support the actual fighting tend to be much harder to reach.
"Communism doesn't work! Here are my observations, calculations, and predictions! Let us communicate!"
or
"I want your coal, but I don't want to buy it from you! I need coal!"
vs
"The sky god commands me to kill you!"
Fights over resources or economic models can be debated rationally. The actors want something specific. There's room for negotiation. Fighting over things that don't exist is just a sign of mental illness (imposed, unfortunately) and when the mind fails, negotiation often becomes impossible.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Not really, no. If you're a citizen, it GENERALLY only happens if they can articulate probable cause.
Only if altruism doesn't exist. People are willing to die to protect their families, their tribe, and in many cases their ideology, even if they accept that dead means dead.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No and no.
Was it illegal when Obama banned people from the same list of countries?
Yeah, you didn't quote the part where they had a different source for the number of Islamist attacks, or the study that counted both and gave the numbers I cited earlier. Nice reading fail.
100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi
Cite? Actually, this statement is pretty easy to disprove. The Taliban are not Wahabbi, they're Deobandi, and yet they clearly do commit acts of terrorism. I don't think ISIS is all Wahabbi, either, unless you consider Salafism and Wahabbism to be the same thing.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"articulate probable cause"... loophole they can drive a truck through.
A few months ago a US citizen who works for JPL was returning from a (non-business) trip to Brazil) and detained until he gave up the password to his JPL phone.
They can abuse you anytime they want.
(As others have pointed out, this is a good way to manufacture terrorists... just keep abusing people until they get so pissed that they do something rash. It's been working this way for years in the Middle East.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
can't understand why he thinks he has a reason to complain. the uk has been leading the charge of 'democratized' nations to dictatorship for over 300 years. and STILL its citizens continue to take it up the ass, keeping a stiff upper lip.
I'll only cheer if you revoke that assholes asylum and send him back to his home country. Britain has provided homes to far to many of these jackoffs and they talk shit about the country the whole time they are there. They should be sent back to their home country straight away instead of living on the dole in the UK while supporting terrorism and policies that threaten the UK itself.
Iran sponsors Hezbollah, Hamas & Assad. Most governments consider all three to be terrorist organisations (even if democratically elected) due to their targeting of civilian populations (and yes, they consider themselves to be noble freedom fighters and everyone else to be terrorists when in response to one of their actions, a missile blows up a school/hospital/airbase from which they launched missiles/a nerve gas bombing raid.
Iran is not above sponsoring Sunni organisations when it serves their objectives but _has_ steered clear of the Sunni terrorist poles that are Al Qaida & Daesh.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
The first suicide bombing was by Hezbollah (Shia) against the US army Barracks in Lebanon.
There are plenty of terrorists wearing the Shia claim to authority, they might currently be outnumbered by the Sunni Wahabbi variety but your statement that Shia don't participate is full on bullshit.
There is not enough information in this article to draw a conclusion. If, for instance, you found out that this guy was vising Syria or a surrounding country repeatedly and his brother is a high ranking officer in ISIS, it becomes extremely reasonable to want to know what this guy has been up to. Or alternatively, intelligence sources may have implicated him regarding terrorist activity, but without sufficient evidence to arrest the guy, and they are using this as a reason to arrest him and take him out of play while they search his house and associates. The bottom line is you and I don't know all the facts, and if you routinely travel to a terrorist state, I think it is reasonable to expect to be thoroughly searched when you return to your adopted country. It is akin to visiting Nazi Germany mid WW2 and being surprised that you get arrested and searched when you returned to the UK... People need to get their heads on straight before they get them cut off.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Meh, too far fetched to be plausible.
If you want real fun & games move to most muslim nations and convert or just declare that you too are a muslim.
Then, and this is the _real_ fun part, announce publicly that you're christian/jewish/other. Doing so is committing apostacy _will_ get you caned, imprisoned and even a death sentence. Ho, ho, ho, right?
Hey, the recent governor of Jakarta (a christian) recently got sentenced to two years imprisonment just for saying the the Koran doesn't say that muslims cannot be governed by non-muslims. I'm sure you'd be having _loads_ of fun in the cell next to his...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Better to euthanasize you now than later
Funny how Muslims and their supporters always call for the death of anyone who says something they don't like.
I believe the legal/ethical principle in question is due process, and whether that constitutes a natural right (hint: yes). The 4th Amendment protects the right of individuals to be free from searches absent of a warrant, which may only be issued on the principled basis that there is reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime, or preparing to do so in a way that makes you a threat.
Any law that creates the power for a government to blanket search anyone and everyone they please simply for passing through the border (and in the absence of reasonable suspicion), effectively thus either violates the natural right to due process, or must be premised on the flimsy notion that merely travelling constitutes reasonable suspicion. It would be incredibly difficult to argue with a straight face that the simple act of travel alone constitutes reasonable suspicion that you are a criminal/terrorist. Likewise, even travelling to a so-called "terrorist state" seems flimsy to me, as there are millions of innocent people within these nations, and only a small percentage are engaged in terrorist activities.
In the case of pre-existing intelligence sources implicating a specific individual that they may be closely connected to e.g. ISIS (as your example of someone whose brother is a high ranking official in ISIS), then yes, thought the procedure should be, the evidence constituting reasonable suspicion should be used to obtain some sort of special type of warrant targeting that particular individual, which could then be used when they cross the border.
But, that is quite different from a blanket power to search everyone at the border (e.g. force everyone hand over passwords) ..... the latter would be the equivalent of throwing away the 4th Amendment in the US and simply saying, to hell with it, we can now search everyone's houses "just in case" they might be a terrorist.
Will some terrorists slip through if we restricted such searches to cases with reasonable suspicion and applied due process? Yes, likely. But we don't throw away basic human rights for everyone, to make us slightly safer, do we?
This is more or less an advocacy group for convicted terrorists and a recruiter for radical Islam. Calling it a human rights group is a stretch. Stopping someone loosely affiliated with "the bad guys" at the border and trying to inspect his communications is precisely the sort of thing that we want our border control people to be doing. This is a perfect example of the system working as designed and intended...
Do a bit of research people...
Oh and yes, to the idiots who are going to inevitably say this, yes I know the 4th Amendment is a "US thing" while this is the UK. DUh. My point is, the 4th Amendment is based on the fundamental underlying inalienable right to due process, and that underlying natural right, being inalienable, is in fact universal to every individual on earth. Government does not "grant" rights, we have rights by virtue of existing - government can only either choose not to violate them (e.g. 4th Amendment), or violate them.
I didn't dismiss the second Iraq war, I refused to justify it. How do you dare to pretend that that was where and when the problems started? The Taliban was armed to fight against the Russian invasion, and it wasn't even the Taliban when that started. Nice how you also ignored where I pointed out that everything you said earlier was wrong.
...where thousands of US thugs and incompetents spread the Miracle-Gro of hatred across the country (and the wider world) until they were overwhelmed by the hideous blooms of terror they nurtured so blindly.
Have you been reading Vogon poetry?
But it is a US thing, and no matter what a nice idea it is, it is quite clearly not universally believed or upheld.
A shit is a turd.
I am not that closely familiar with Georgian orthodoxy. Tell me, how to they make sure their members never ever become atheists?
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
Ever heard of the Extermination Order of 1838? Governor Boggs declared that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State". The background is that the Mormons generally were more prosperous than their non-believing neighbors (Mormons also were anti-slavery) so non-Mormons attacked Mormon properties and the Mormons attacked back. This escalated into the Mormon War of 1838. The Extermination Order was rescinded by Governor Bond in June 1976.
Let's hope that there's a sliver of sanity left in an insane world and they win this. It'd at least be a very small victory in times people all over supposedly democratic free countries have already lost, they just don't know it yet.
A shit is a turd.
So... you're saying that every Muslim is a terrorist. What brilliant insight you have.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You mean if he was traveling to a country he was at war with? Just to visit or something? Like an American who wanted to do some sight seeing in Germany in the 40s vice versa?
Is that what you meant?
Use a Chromebook. Store everything in your favorite cloud account. As you approach the border crossing, tell it to wipe (factory reset). Once across, log into your cloud account and allow a restore.
Exhibit A: Pepe the fucking frog. Praise Kek!
OK, that aligns with my BS detector going off on AC's claim that '100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi'. Usually when someone claims 100% of anything it's BS.
Now we will wait to see if some idiot comes in with a statement of 100% of something that's accurate to "disprove" my generic hand waving.
I'm a different a/c from the one you replied to above. It was a bit florid, I admit.
That may be true if you carefully pick your definitions of "invaded" and "recently", but some would call Saudi Arabia's ongoing intervention in Yemen an invasion.
Don't be ridiculous. That was predated by decades by (to pick two examples) Vladimir Ilych "the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise" Lenin and cronies, and a small event now called the First World War which was kickstarted by a terrorist attack.
I don't travel to religious nutjob countries. I don't even visit the US anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Pro tip: the phrase "it does not matter if" is the hallmark of the radical.
People saying "it does not matter if" this or that or the other are the root of at least 80% of all evil in this world. Yes, it does matter. Maybe not for the obvious reasons, but it matters. Always.
You could only claim that "most wars in Europe for the last thousand years were in the name of God because the divine right of kinds was invoked" if you knew nothing about history.
"The divine right of kings", as a phrase, was coined in the 16th century, and lasted less than one century before being deservedly crushed in the English Civil War.
A vast majority you say? Just like the vast majority of Christians support the stoning and murder of adulterers? Grow up Ye of little todger.
His name is....'Trumpelstiltskin'....
Better to euthanasize you now than later
Funny how Muslims and their supporters always call for the death of anyone who says something they don't like.
Yes, they can't help themselves. Their whole belief system is based on killing others, so they reveal their true nature soon enough,
So now that you've retreated from the world at large you think it's funny to pretend that lust calling oneself an imam will get you locked up in the U.S. (or wherever you are))?
Pray remember that freedom to practice your chosen religion are life and death choices in much of the world but thankfully _not_ in the U.S. Making light of that will touch nerves
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
To be fair, and intellectually honest, the vast majority of terrorism is done by Muslims. Even though it is not politically correct, it is mathematically sound to give adherents to that specific faith greater scrutiny. The odds of a Muslim being a terrorist are greater, by almost two orders of magnitude, than they are for any other religion.
Your maths may be as sound as you like, but your conclusions will only be as good as the premises you start from, and I think your choice of starting conditions is naive, at best. First of all, do you actually know for a fact that most terrorism is committed by Muslims? And assuming that we're talking about averages, over how long a period is that average taken? Are we talking about individuals who have actually committed terrorisit offences, or people who are members of a terrorist organisation, or do we include people who support such organisations in different ways? This matters - I think it is a well known fact that many American of an Irish background used to support the IRA with money and in other ways - would you call them terrorists? And if not, is it reasonable to consider people that support Daesh and al Qaeda financially as terrorists? If you want to claim to be scientific, you have to justify how you chose your data, and be willing to subject to critical scrutiny.
And what do you count as Muslim vs Christian? I would say the IRA and ETA count as Christian, and arguably the very large drug gangs in Mexico and South America can be considered terrorist organisations and would count as Christian due to their culltural background. I don't think the picture is at all clear, and if you want to argue by means of mathematics, you will have to do better.
Apart from all that, is it sensible to target a whole, loosely defined culture based on what a tiny minority does? This kind of measures will only serve to alienate the vast majority of good Muslims who genuinely like America and hate terrorists; the terrorists themselves will simply find an easy way around. How hard would it be to change your name to 'Jens Olsen' from Denmark, get a false passport and fly in from Copenhagen?
It's possible to be intellectually honest. It isn't even difficult. You don't even have to work hard at it, I don't think.
I know - I'm a mathematician myself, with a passion for differential geometry and Lie groups, and it's applications in theoretical physics. And actually, it is a bit harder to be genuinely honest to yourself; we all have views and ideas that are dear to us, and it is difficult to give them up, even in the face of evidence. You should try it - it is rewarding.
Trivially related, what is your motivation? What prompts you to post the things you do? Somewhere, you made a choice to ignore the science and accept an appeal to emotion. Do you know where, or when, that happened? I am legitimately curious.
Are you, really? I don't believe that - I think you are simply trying to disarm my argument and appear superior by pretending to be warm and interested, but let me explain my motivations, all the same. I have an opinion about scientific matters - I am confident that I can hold a sensible argument about these things, and coming from a scientific background, I am also genuinely open to persuasion by sounds arguments; but they have to be very sound, not based on unfounded assumptions and fear. I am quite passionate about things like fairness and justice, and I feel strongly that privilege and status should be earned, so I hold fairly strong, political views - I'm not sure what you would call them, but I call them socialism. Not the fantasy "socialism" that Americans have been indoctrinated to believe is about taking away everything you own and love and force you to eat lentils, but the socialism that thinks it would be a good idea if everybody genuinely had a fair chance of making it in life, and the law applied equally to rich and poor (and did not depend on being able to
Yep, we poor European peons have to get by with the ECHR. /s
Ezekiel 23:20
My point is, the 4th Amendment is based on the fundamental underlying inalienable right to due process, and that underlying natural right, being inalienable, is in fact universal to every individual on earth. Government does not "grant" rights, we have rights by virtue of existing
These are highly religious ideas that have been questioned more than once. Much like the idea that homosexuality is bad because God says so.
Ezekiel 23:20
And further, in a number of populous countries it is a crime to renounce being Muslim. Being Muslim is neither opt-in nor opt-out. A country like Malaysia may only have a minority of fundamentalists, but if you are born a Muslim your going to marry a Muslim, have Muslim children, bow to the authority of the fundamentalist morality police and Sharia law, and eventually die a Muslim. And you have no choice in the matter except emigration. It is not at all strange that it is the fastest growing religion. The fundamentalists may be a minority, but it is a minority that has taken control.
Amen.
On a related note, I see someone used the Torygraph as a link to cast suspicion at CAGE; this is the same "news" paper that calls Corbyn a terrorist sympathiser for saying years ago that we should have been talking to the IRA rather than trying to kill them all, carefully avoiding all the evidence that suggests successive Tory/Labour governments, including the one headed by their most holy Saint Maggie, were having talks with the IRA in secret in an attempt to stop so many people dying. Why is it OK for one and not the other? Follow the money. Spin, propaganda, call it what you like, but ultimately it's bullshit produced by a tabloid rag.
I don't think you are. I think your biases cloud your judgment. And you resort to silliness in your very first paragraph. "Yet, I don't see you insisting we accept that risk." Seriously? Did you somehow expect to see me comment on that in this thread? And yet you imply you already know what I think about it. Your logic is not so logical. And yes, of course you may now do the "smart guy" dance and condescendingly explain how you didn't, but you did. Instead of making a good argument you trot out a cheap rhetorical trick.
Fuck no. There were hundreds of them in the Malvinas, Ulster, Oman, Suez, Malaysia, Korean and Second wars for certain, but we just called them "heroic deaths", not "suicide bombing".
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11442602/Cage-the-extremists-peddling-lies-to-British-Muslims-to-turn-them-into-supporters-of-terror.html
the cunt and his group are actively inciting muslim youth to terror acts and protecting people like Jihadi John.
in my honest opinion, instead of searching his equipment, UK border police should put a bullet in his head.
Quod erat demonstratum. You are brainwashed.
So nearly every country in the world has provisions to search you as you enter from abroad (returning citizen or visiting alien). Even the US by default assumes that all searches as you re-enter from a foreign state are reasonable (look it up). Beyond that, I just gave you two very simple, very reasonable justifications where "merely traveling justifies reasonable suspicion" i.e. visiting family with known ties to terrorism and visiting a country which either sponsors or is saturated with terrorism.
" even travelling to a so-called "terrorist state" seems flimsy to me, as there are millions of innocent people within these nations, and only a small percentage are engaged in terrorist activities"
No, you are flat out wrong. Yes, there are innocents in countries like Syria and Iran, but most people flee from those countries and never return. People who go back and forth to those countries (outside of government sanctioned diplomats, military, etc.) typically have connections to powerful people in that countries government or faction and are very likely suspects for terrorist activity, spying or other nefarious activities. Thank sanity it is not up to you to protect the world from foreign threats, as you are woefully ignorant of how the world works. You might want to educate yourself on the topics at hand before throwing out a theoretical argument that has neither basis in reality or logic.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like