After London Attack, PM Calls For Internet Regulation To Fight Terrorists (cnn.com)

CNN reports that "At least seven people were killed in a short but violent assault that unfolded late Saturday night in the heart of the capital, the third such attack to hit Britain this year." An anonymous reader quotes their follow-up report: Prime Minister Theresa May has called for closer regulation of the internet following a deadly terror attack in London... May said on Sunday that a new approach to tackling extremism is required, including changes that would deny terrorists and extremist sympathizers digital tools used to communicate and plan attacks. "We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," May said. "Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide. We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning."

Comments

MO

[Nemyst]

1. Terrorist attack.
2. Call for increased surveillance, overreach.
3. Learn more about the terrorists, but don't arrest the right ones in time.
4. Rinse, repeat.

This is almost starting to feel staged at this point. Every single country does this, and it always turns us more towards 1984. The terrorists are winning.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget, you need some laws in there about "saving the children"

Re:MO

[Jamu]

Terrorism: The use of unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

There needs to be a word for the use of terrorism in the pursuit of political aims. Terrorismism?

Anyway, it wasn't long before some cunt used this as an excuse to further their own political aims.

Re:MO

[AmiMoJo]

She is trying to shift blame onto the internet and companies that make secure apps, because she has utterly failed herself. As Home Secretary and now as PM, she has slashed police numbers by nearly 20,000 and tried to make up for it by increasing the use of ineffective surveillance.

Re:MO

[hcs_$reboot]

Don't forget there is an important election this week in the UK, and facing another attack the PM has no choice but to propose shocking solutions, and Internet is easy to blame.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly, I'm not that concerned about being run over by a van, on the internet, or stabbed to death by a terrorist, on the internet*, and slightly more concerned about being run over by a van, or stabbed in real life.

* which was entirely my teams fault, I would've been fine if they defended mid or bombsite A where the fucking bomb was dropped. Also: Lag.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Terrorist attack.

2. Call for increased surveillance, overreach.

3. Learn more about the terrorists, but don't arrest the right ones in time.

4. Rinse, repeat.

You forgot:

5. Let even more unvetted migrants into the country. Goto 1.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a disturbing dead zone between the watch lists and the events. You might ask yourself why it seems that all of these terrorists were on watch lists, but nothing was done about them and they committed the heinous act they were anticipated to. What was the point of the watch list then?

The government is in a position where they can't arrest you before you do something unless they have hard evidence of the plan. I have a feeling they're going to use these events as a means to push for public acceptance of "pre-crime" arrests that have flimsy standards of evidence. Only the naive will think this will be limited just to suspected terrorists. Remember the black-bag disappearances in the movie "V for Vendetta"? Yeah.. that's the future you're looking at.

Re:MO

[click2005]

No choice because May & the Conservatives are losing to their opposition on every policy except security.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

And we could fix this, simply, by cutting immigration of refugees from violence-stricken Middle-Eastern-and-North-African countries. But our government refuses to do this: it's more useful to them to use terrorism as a lever to introduce censorship.

Of course, we'd be waiting a while for it to take effect. The previous London attacks, the recent Manchester bombing, and probably these incidents as well, are carried out by second-generation immigrants, who haven't directly experienced the hellholes they idolise. We have another 30 years of this to look forward to, as the current pipeline empties itself. But at least we can set the immigration policies today that will make the 2040s safer for our children.

Re:MO

[Anonymous Coward]

The government should have no say in the numbers of police. It should be decided by the market.
--
rumour_mil

Re: MO

[Zocalo]

I wish we could, but at this point we're pretty much fucked whatever we do. Depending on how you interpret the election polls (which are probably no more reliable than the last ones anyway), there are really only two possible outcomes in the general election next week:

1. The electorate rallies around the Conservative Party (essentially "UKIP Lite" at this point), which results in at least five more years under Theresa May and a raft of 1984-style legislation as result, but at least *some* chance at getting a non-catastrophic outcome from the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

2. Enough of the electorate decides to vote for other parties that we end up with a hung parliament and all the main parties bickering and backstabbing to try and form a workable coalition which then has to run a government through what might be the most critical period of the UK's history since the Battle of Britain in WWII. That *might* rein in the Orwellian crap at least a few notches, and will almost certainly be the final curtain for Theresa May, but means we'll be going into the first round of Brexit negotiations (which is just one week after the vote, FFS!) like a headless chicken, and probably without much hope of things improving for subsequent rounds.

Never mind being careful what you wish for; the lesson here is that you need to be *really* careful what you vote for, because however this pans out it's going to be on the UK electorate just as much as it is on the politicians they voted for.

Re:MO

[Hognoxious]

Are they? Is ending up dead "winning"?

They're at something like 40 for 4 recently. The ratio needs to be the other way round.

Re:MO

[mean pun]

The government should have no say in the numbers of police. It should be decided by the market.

As a joke I think it is pretty clever, but the problem is I am not 100% sure you are joking.

Re: MO

[Anonymous Coward]

What we should be trying to do is establish a community not build bigger walls.

Re:MO

[thegarbz]

So? Crime goes down, then police numbers should also go down

So what's the goal? Try to reduce crime or try to keep it at it's current level through a closed loop regulatory system where the feedback of crime directly controls the number of police?

If that's the case the loop is broken. Crime hasn't gone done. Homicides are just about late 90s levels. Violent crime hasn't changed much in 20 years. Robberies go up and down like a slow sine wave but have been drawing a straight regressive line. But now police serve strength is the lowest it's been since the 80s.

The police's problem is they spend too much time doing paperwork / they're inefficient at it. That's partly an I.T. failure.

Citation needed, because this sentence is at odds with your previous one that crime is going down so police aren't needed. Which is it? Either police are doing their job or they aren't.

Re:MO

[darkpixel2k]

Terrorism: The use of unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Go find an old copy of Black's Law Dictionary from the 1700s. The original definition of terrorism *was* a government creating fear or harm for political reasons.

Re:MO

[Hognoxious]

She's probably after the hunt saboteurs. And quite right too, dirty horrid little oiks who would prevent us following our traditional Christian ways of hacking defenceless animals to death!

Re:MO

[Kartu]

The "don't arrest the right ones in time" is dishonest.
What we see is those who don't get arrested, but you hardly hear about, who do get arrested.
Measure doesn't need to be 100% effective to be more effective.

Re: MO

[TheRaven64]

It looks like there's a good chance that Theresa May will be gone whatever the outcome of the election. Her personal approval is now lower than it's ever been and noticeably lower than the Tory party in general. If she doesn't doesn't deliver an increased Tory majority then expect the knives to come out.

Re:MO

[TheRaven64]

Which shows a bit how broken our country is. The opposition leader was shouted down by most of the press for having the temerity to suggest that bombing random stuff isn't the solution to all foreign policy problems and that maybe nuclear weapons aren't actually that useful in massively asymmetric conflicts.

Re:MO

[kaur]

There needs to be a word for the use of terrorism in the pursuit of political aims. .

Metaterrorism.

Re:MO

[AmiMoJo]

Crime hasn't gone down, they just got better at ignoring or reclassifying it.

Re: MO

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm hoping for a hung Parliament or at least the Tories getting no better than a reduced majority and consequently needing to rely on more support from Parliament as a whole to get anything controversial done.

If that means Theresa May goes then that's a plus. I don't think she's a good PM, and it appears that many of the government policies that I disagree with originated in her office.

If it means that there is less headline-friendly political meddling in negotiating Brexit and the diplomats can quietly get on with it in the background and reach a reasonable agreement with their diplomatic counterparts, then as far as I'm concerned that is probably also a good thing. The last thing any of us need, on either side of the Channel, is a Brexit negotiation conducted through media soundbites by vulnerable Tory ministers from one side and wounded EU politicians like Jean-Claude Juncker from the other.

Re:MO

[MrL0G1C]

And you know this how? I think that's just a cynical view without any evidence. People always want more police and that's in large part because of the endless focus of the news on petty crime stories and terrorism. Doesn't matter whether crime is going up or down, MORE POLICE is the mindless chant. I think we have enough police, they aren't free and there are other things we could spend the money on, some of which could lower crime without having more police.

If we doubled the number of police, would crime halve? Would people want even more police?

How many police do we have now compared to historical numbers of police? (semi-rhetorical, take a look)

Re:MO

[PsychoSlashDot]

She is trying to shift blame onto the internet and companies that make secure apps, because she has utterly failed herself.

You are right.

I have yet to hear "we suspected the attackers were up to no good but while we were working with various Internet companies to try to get lawful access to their communications, they moved ahead with their attack."

No. We never find that to be the case. At best, the people who do these things are on list of people who "knows a guy who is related to a guy who knows a guy who has the same name as someone who once said something that rhymes with a jihad slogan."

"Regulation" won't do anything productive unless "regulation" means "blanket permission and ability to data-mine, tap, access, and record all communications at all times, without cause for specific suspicion." Which is exactly why the major governments of the world are begging for "regulation".

Re: MO

[Barsteward]

I am also hoping for a hung parliament, neither of the 2 large parties are suitable for governing on their own - too much dogma and party first, country second.

Re:MO

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Let's continue applying the remedy. Restrict basic human rights and assert more intrusive authority throughout the fabric of society. If this hasn't yet worked, it's that we have simply been too timid to apply the right measure of control. We will continue advancing this cause, until real safety is achieved for all."

It's a fucking joke, mate.

Re:MO

[Imrik]

Additionally I would guess that only a tiny percent of the watch lists actually commit terrorist acts. Arresting a hundred people because one of them might become a terrorist is a good way to get your program terminated by the ACLU or English equivalent.

Re: MO

[Zocalo]

Kind of favouring the hung parliament outcome myself, but I think it's a real roll of the dice. If it forces different political viewpoints into the negotiations then that's absolutely a good thing - not to mention restoring the part of the democratic process that seems to have been forgotten of late; ensuring *all* sides get a say and the best possible compromise is achieved - then great. If it turns into grandstanding politicians trying to micro-manage the civil servants on Sir Tim Barrow's team that will be doing the bulk of the work then it's going to turn into a pissing contest which will only help the EU's position, let alone if they decide to "revamp" the team because it wasn't appointed by the new leadership.

Re: MO

[Teun]

I would call it a representative parliament, not hung.
Only a good third, 17 of the 46 million, electorate voted for a Brexit, implementing it without a say of the other two-third is plain undemocratic.

Re: MO

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Agreed. I'm just thinking the odds are better with that roll of the dice than a roll with any of the individual parties having a working majority that puts them beyond challenge. IMNSHO, all of the main English parties have now lost the plot so comprehensively one way or another that I don't feel any of them is even a reasonable representation of my (mostly centre-ish) views at the moment. I'd rather have them stalemated than the Tories running public services into the ground or Labour bankrupting the country.

Re:MO

[CaptainDork]

I never met a terrorism.

Re:MO

[Skuld-Chan]

People get similarly upset when its suggested guys like Osama Bin Laden were made in America.

The US government via the CIA thought it was hilarious to dump Egypt's criminals (which they radicalized via torture) on Afghanistan to essentially troll the Russians.

Re:MO

[rholtzjr]

Divide and conquer plain and simple. And they are succeeding.

Re:MO

[ShanghaiBill]

Crime hasn't gone down, they just got better at ignoring or reclassifying it.

Bullcrap. The most reliable measures of crime are independent surveys. You call people up at random and ask them if they have been crime victims in the last year. This completely bypasses police self-reporting.

Independent surveys show that crime has decreased dramatically over the last 25 years.

There is no reason that we still need the same number of police. "More police" would have done nothing to prevent a car from swerving onto a sidewalk.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

I don't think there is _any_ chance of the Brexit negotiations not being catastrophic for the UK short-term. Long-term, the UK will have to re-apply to the EU, of course without all the special considerations they had before. But short-term, the EU needs to make an example out of the UK. It is a question of survival and the EU bureaucracy knows that. It is also very easy to do, just give the British the same conditions as any other non-EU country and they are massively screwed. I predict that is going to happen, because the whole British political landscape is living in a deranged fantasy about their worth to the EU and have done so for a long time. There is a large number of EU politicians that are glad to finally be rid of this petulant child that always needed something special in order to be satisfied and that never understood what teamwork means.

Re: MO

[thegarbz]

but means we'll be going into the first round of Brexit negotiations (which is just one week after the vote, FFS!) like a headless chicken

I think this is going to happen one way or the other.

Re:MO

[gweihir]

Sanity and an actual understanding of how things work are not welcome by a political class that has lost all contact to reality and that has the press mostly in their corner or reality-denial.

Re:MO

[AmiMoJo]

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep...

Re:MO

[SuricouRaven]

There is an obvious answer to that: Perhaps the watch lists are simply so that they are essentially worthless. When half the country is on a watch list, you can't watch them all any more.

Re: MO

[Dogtanian]

It looks like there's a good chance that Theresa May will be gone whatever the outcome of the election.

Yes; it was clear from the start- from May herself- that the reason for calling this election was to increase the Tory majority and thus win a clear mandate to pursue Brexit in the way that she wanted.

Of course, back then it seemed almost certain that she would increase her majority- Labour was seen to be in disarray and expected to lose disastrously, and there was no real UK-wide competition.

So expectations- and the whole reason she called the election- require her to increase her majority. If this doesn't happen- and even if she wins with a reduced majority- it's still going to look very bad for her.

Ha ha!

If she doesn't doesn't deliver an increased Tory majority then expect the knives to come out.

Indeed, even the Unionist-biased Scotland on Sunday (the Scottish Tories having positioned themselves as the party of the Union for those opposed to the independence-favouring SNP) ran with a lead story saying that anything less than the overwhelming victory she effectively promised could well prove fatal to May.

Ha ha HA.

Re:MO

[serviscope_minor]

Police don't gave much to do with terrorism anyway

Apart from that whole "stopping it" thing. You know like shooting the terrorists and stopping them from continuing their spree.

Re: MO

[Dogtanian]

Only a good third, 17 of the 46 million, electorate voted for a Brexit, implementing it without a say of the other two-third is plain undemocratic.

Speaking as a "Remain" voter... still no. Unless you're going to legally require people to vote, then that's how it works. It's arguable that (like most referenda) the Brexit vote should have been designed to require a larger majority, but that's beside the point here. The 27% of people who were eligible to vote but chose not to had their chance.

If any of them were in favour of Remain and *ever* want to whine about getting screwed over by Brexit... STFU. It's too late. You had your chance, and you wasted it. You chose to accept what you were given, even if that's only because you were too f*****g lazy to visit a polling station. You're as much to blame as the Leave voters and you deserve the consequences.

Re: MO

[serviscope_minor]

I don't think there is _any_ chance of the Brexit negotiations not being catastrophic for the UK short-term. Long-term, the UK will have to re-apply to the EU, of course without all the special considerations they had before.

Depends: we got the special consideration because our economy was shite and we were relatively speaking poor. It all turned around of course when we joined and we've enjoyed a much higher standard of living. If out economy basically tanks until we're back in the EU, then we'll be back in the same position again.

But yeah, we're well fucked innit.

Re:MO

[ShanghaiBill]

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep...

Interesting. So police self-reporting shows a less dramatic fall in crime compared to direct surveys. So instead of hiding crime (as GPP claimed) the police are actually inflating crime rates, most likely to justify keeping their jobs.

Re:MO

[arth1]

So? Crime goes down, then police numbers should also go down,

That creates an incentive for police departments to not lower crime rates, and be reactive instead of proactive.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

But yeah, we're well fucked innit.

Yes, and it is a shame. I mean stupidity should come with some penalties, but what is going to happen now is going to be more than deserved for those that voted for this and there are lots of people that were smarter and now get to suffer alongside.

Re:MO

[AmiMoJo]

The three issues are:

1. The steady fall in crime since the 90s has halted and begun to reverse.

2. Some types of crime, such a fraud (mostly online, requiring specialist investigators) and violent crime have increased.

3. The Crime Survey is somewhat misleading because it puts a cap on people being victims of a type of crime of 5 per year. So for example, on-going problems are limited to 5 incidents per year. I had more than 5 incidents of racially motivated attacks last year, but the Crime Survey would have recorded 5.

Re: MO

[Dogtanian]

The electorate rallies around the Conservative Party [..] but at least *some* chance at getting a non-catastrophic outcome from the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

Really? I wouldn't even credit them with that. May has said repeatedly that "no deal is better than a bad deal" and made quite clear she's prepared to walk with nothing more than WTO terms. This is presented as a negotiating tactic, but in truth it's obvious arrogance from someone who- along with her hard-Brexiteering colleagues and other Little Englanders- thinks that Britain still has the power, influence and position it had in the days of Empire; something that was already mostly in the past when it joined the EU in the early 1970s.

Someone who thinks that they *will* be able to demand what they want, and even if they don't will get away with it anyway thanks to their "special relationship" with the United States and supposed connections with the Commonwealth, i.e. the former empire. As this article says:-

A senior Indian official has been reported as saying, "We cannot separate free movement of people from the free flow of goods and services." Sound familiar? It's much the same as every European bureaucrat pointing out that Britain can't cherrypick its terms for accessing the single market. [..] The post-imperial delusion of "old friendships" is going to shatter in the coming months, revealing a relationship of coercion that no longer holds.

And the salient part:-

Britain is a bully going to a school reunion, only to find his victims now have better jobs and better lives than him.

Regarding your second option:-

Enough of the electorate decides to vote for other parties that we end up with a hung parliament and [etc] Never mind being careful what you wish for; the lesson here is that you need to be *really* careful what you vote for, because however this pans out it's going to be on the UK electorate just as much as it is on the politicians they voted for.

...you might begin to understand why (as a Scot in favour of independence) I'm not even considering entertaining the possibility of playing along with the UK electoral and political system that- from my point of view- is fundamentally broken, does not- and cannot- reflect the difference in political opinion between Scotland and England (and Wales) that has been growing since the Thatcher years but is now at breaking point.

We currently have 56 of 59(!) seats held by the SNP, yet are ultimately governed by the Conservative party that has just 1 seat in Scotland, but won due to voters in England and Wales.

We voted 62 to 38% to remain within the EU, yet are being dragged out because voters in England and Wales wanted to leave, as part of a campaign that started as a sop to the Tory party's Euro-sceptic right wing- primarily in South-East England- and consistently revolved around them, using the future of the UK as nothing more than a political football for their internal squabbles.

To add insult to injury, Scotland's position within the EU post-independence had been a central plank of the scaremongering "Better Together" campaign during the independence referendum. I'm surprised that the likes of Alistair Darling still have the cheek to show their faces when we saw how that turned out.

So- England and Wales heading in a hard right UKIP-like direction (UKIP themselves are only in decline because the Tories have mostly taken up that position for themselves and become- as you say "UKIP lite") while Scotland is completely different.

Do I want to remain tied to an elephant that clearly doesn't want to go the same way I do? No.

Re:MO

[MrL0G1C]

Or to fiddle with the figures so that crime rates don't look lower so either they haven't fiddled the crime rates or crime has dropped far further than they've said!!!

Re:MO

[swb]

People always want more police and that's in large part because of the endless focus of the news on petty crime stories

Burglarizing my car or my home or other theft crimes may be "petty" in some legal sense but they aren't petty from a lifestyle perspective. I made a lot of sacrifices of time and energy to get the job to make the money to buy the stuff, and if someone comes around and steals it because there's no police presence and the police do nothing but give you a case number for insurance it's basically a complete insult and a repudiation of the social contract.

So yes, I want more police, but I want more police protecting me and my property. I don't want them beating the shit out of minorities in their own neighborhoods, I don't want them chasing around drug users and I don't want them engaging in mass spying.

If they won't look out for my interests, then they should get out of the way and let me deal with the people breaking into my house.

Re:MO

[MrL0G1C]

I'm unconvinced that having ever more police and ever more prisons is the answer to reducing crime. It doesn't seem to work in the countries that do it. Other factors are more important.

Re: MO

[FlyHelicopters]

Long term, it might mean war... unless you think that is old fashioned...

Re:MO

[serviscope_minor]

Those aren't your run of the mill average copper, those are the few armed police that are currently in a few places around central London.

Yeah but they are actually coppers. Funded out of the budget for coppers.

Go to wood green or other towns and cities and you won't see those armed police about.

So?

And by stopping I mean preventing and they didn't prevent this attack.

No they didn't prevent it, but they killed them before they could kill more people. It would have been worse without them there, since it's easier to shoot a terrorist than to run one over (even if one brave taxi driver tried).

Re: MO

[serviscope_minor]

Indeed. The people who voted rexit will get what they deserve. Trouble is the rest of us will also get what they deserve.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

You mean the UK would do a "suicide by cop"? Rather unlikely, that. I mean the mainstream political culture is "stupid" at the moment, but I do not think it is suicidal. Unless you think the UK could really believe it can win a war with NATO? Don't forget they are a member at this time and know all the other's capabilities.

Re: MO

[FlyHelicopters]

The U.K. has nuclear weapons, don't count them out so fast...

They also have the US as their best friend, a lot of America would stand with the U.K.

Re: MO

[bongey]

All the bat-shit crazy decesions coming out of the EU and it's march towards fascism(again), it is good thing that Brexit happened.

Re:MO

[Kohath]

If the CIA is to blame for terrorism, then please explain the 1000s of terrorist attacks in Thailand. What did the CIA do to cause all those attacks in Thailand?

Likewise Boko Harem in Nigeria. What's the CIA involvement?

Re:MO

[MrL0G1C]

Not sure what the point of your post is, most UK police are not specially trained armed police and they're not posted to the city of London and nearby, they don't make up the 100,000ish police that the UK and I bet there isn't 1 less armed police due to cutbacks.

Re:MO

[swb]

I see too many posts on the community web site where an entire block reports nearly every car on the street was opened and rifled for valuables, thefts from multiple garages on the same alley, etc.

More frequent patrols seem very likely to result in at least discouragement of property theft if not outright arrests of people caught in the act. In a residential neighborhood of single family houses, how hard can it be to spot people going down the street and trying car doors? The same is nearly true for daytime burglaries.

While I agree that generally speaking crime is more complicated than more police, if you create a vacuum with essentially NO patrols it becomes apparent where the easy pickings are and that getting caught has very low odds.

My sense is that the police don't even *try* to stop these crimes, they simply ignore "low crime" neighborhoods (where low crime is defined by no crimes of violence). I would think "trying" would be tying at least one patrol car per every couple square miles and making it route through ONLY that neighborhood. They could cover that area several times per shift, making it much more likely that criminal behavior would be spotted. The cops assigned to this area could get to know the resident, the troublemakers and get up on potential trends quickly through relationships with the neighbors.

I think they've just kind of given up on these kinds of crimes, probably around the point that cops were exclusively in cars. As budgets shrank and ghetto crime skyrocketed, they dumped all their resources into the supposed efficiencies of central dispatch and a response-only method.

My entire precinct (many square miles) has MAYBE 4-5 squad cars active on a single night, often tied up with tedious reporting and bureaucracy.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

'as tha sin this?

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/...

Re: MO

[gweihir]

You do not understand how that works. MAD (that is the name of the doctrine) does not leave survivors on either side. If a small country, like the UK, enacts a MAD-based attack, then it gets eradicated, while the rest of the world merely gets hurt. Nukes are not practical weapons if you want to survive. And no, the US would not start WWIII to assist the Brits. They are not suicidal either.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

Ah, a PR supporter. Why you're an idiot in two words and a punctuation mark: Italy, Belgium.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

This. You can't draw any conclusions one way or the other about those who didn't vote. Electorally they don't exist.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

It's not the Foreign Secretary, there's a specific Brexit Secretary. It's currently David Davis, though it might as well be Dickie Davis for all the use he is.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

It looks like there's a good chance that Theresa May will be gone

Great. Because Haystack Head will be better.

I always suspected he went with the outies not really out of conviction (he's a bloody foreigner himself FFS) but as a step towards number ten, even if he bottled it when he had the chance before.

Re:MO

[sound vision]

I wouldn't say it's "staged", as in false flag, but I do think these terrorist groups are starting to coordinate their attacks with elections, for maximum effect.
As much as we like to think of them as purely religious fanatics, they do have more worldly goals. The big one being to cause our society to eat itself from within.

Re: MO

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"Fully costed" don't mean very much if the figures are so optimistic as to be implausible. The idea that you can just put up tax rates as high as you like on the richest and on businesses and only a small amount of financial restructuring will take place to reduce the resulting tax burden is just totally unrealistic. So is the idea that HMRC will suddenly collect billions more by clamping down on tax avoidance, as if no-one ever thought of trying that before.

Re:MO

[sound vision]

That's already baked-in. Children were targeted in Manchester. Then you also have the angle of those kids that leave Europe to marry jihadis they meet online. The only thing worse than a pedophile is an Arabian pedophile...

Re: MO

[Demena]

So does France

Re:MO

[Kohath]

I'm not trying to talk you out of your anti-CIA hatred. Just maybe don't be dumb about it. Terrorists clearly aren't mostly motivated by the CIA being mean to them. Some maybe, not most. Try to think outside your personal hate-box sometime.

Re: MO

[Demena]

You mean Britain is being the advance party for European authoritarianism?

Re: MO

[Demena]

Reversing the ratio. Would be good but at 40 to 4 they will still lose.

Re: MO

[colinwb]

Why the PR supporter is not an idiot in five words: post World War 2 Germany

Re:MO

[polyp2000]

This . instead of stopping cutbacks in funding our police and armed forces. This is why this woman should not be elected , nor her party.

Re: MO

[Maritz]

After 2015 and Brexit, there can be no trust given to the idiotic british electorate. Those turkeys will vote for christmas again, I expect the increased tory majority that Tresemmé wanted. I also expect complaints about the NHS to rise afterwards, which is laughable given that they're effectively voting to sell it off to the tories' golf friends.

Re: MO

[Maritz]

Long term, it might mean war... unless you think that is old fashioned...

lol. War. This is real life. Maybe in Putin's wet dreams.

Re: MO

[Maritz]

All the bat-shit crazy decesions coming out of the EU and it's march towards fascism(again), it is good thing that Brexit happened.

Britain is more authoritarian than the vast majority of the EU. You've got that ass-backwards.

"It's" means "it is".

Give us an example of a 'bat-shit' crazy decision, I'm just curious.

Re: MO

[stealth_finger]

May has properly fucked the job. Her problem was actual reality didn't match the reality the daily fail and s*n et al were trying to push.

Re: MO

[MightyDrunken]

1. The electorate rallies around the Conservative Party (essentially "UKIP Lite" at this point),

UKIP were always a splinter party for the anti-EU portion of the Conservatives. Now UKIP no longer need to exist.

Re:MO

[goose-incarnated]

Muslims being responsible for, say, 99% or terrorists. Doesn't mean they arent responsible for terrorists if you point out the other 1%

(Emphasis mine) - see how that works?

Re:MO

[minus9]

"Peter Kirkham, a former investigating officer in the Metropolitan Police, directly contradicted claims from Home Secretary Amber Rudd last week that "by the end of this year there will be as many armed police as there have ever been.""

In 2010, there were 6,976 armed officers in England and Wales. That had fallen by 2014 to 5,875.

Re: MO

[Hognoxious]

It doesn't work in Germany because it's PR, it works in Germany because they're German.

Re:MO

[jez9999]

The real solution is: admit that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our way of life. Imagine a country with no Islam. This problem is almost completely created by an ideology that wants to kill us and enough people willing to practice it seriously.

Re: MO

[jandersen]

As I read the election polls and the comments on BBC, we are heading towards a hung parliament, which in my view is possibly the best scenario in many ways - exactly because it isn't "Strong and Stable (TM)". Governments shouldn't be based on overwhelming majorities - it makes them far too cocky; a minority goverment is forced to seek compromises, and will therefore be more balanced. I don't think Theresa May is a bad prime minister - she seems like a decent and well-intentioned person who genuinely wants to give better conditions to the worst off; the problem is, there are still so many of the old, nasty tories about, and she is not going to have things her way, even if they wind by a landslide. They say some of the right things, but what do they actually mean? They says "the party for working people" - what they mean is "people who are in work", not those that have got kicked out of their job and can't find a new one because their skills and age are against them. It should probably be seen in the same context as another of their favourite phrases: "aspirational". I think anyone who has seen the tv series "Keeping up appearances" knows how "aspirational" tends to look, and I don't think real, working class people see themselves in that light.

Ms May made a tactical mistake in calling an election now - people are sick of elections by now, they are not so much pro-conservative as simply resigned to Labour's internal struggles, and worst of all: it has made Labour bury their strife, at least for now, and they are coming out with a set of surprisingly appealing policies. In a way I hope they don't quite make it to government; the Tories deserve being saddled with the mess they have unleashed with Brexit. No government is going to come out of that unscathed, and I'd rather that it were the Tories who suffer - it only seems fair.

Re:MO

[stealth_finger]

"The has slashed police numbers" So? Crime goes down, then police numbers should also go down, I'm sick of the inane chant that we should have move police.

The idea that May cut police numbers because crime was falling is frankly laughable.

Re: MO

[mjwx]

I don't think there is _any_ chance of the Brexit negotiations not being catastrophic for the UK short-term. Long-term, the UK will have to re-apply to the EU, of course without all the special considerations they had before. But short-term, the EU needs to make an example out of the UK. It is a question of survival and the EU bureaucracy knows that. It is also very easy to do, just give the British the same conditions as any other non-EU country and they are massively screwed. I predict that is going to happen, because the whole British political landscape is living in a deranged fantasy about their worth to the EU and have done so for a long time. There is a large number of EU politicians that are glad to finally be rid of this petulant child that always needed something special in order to be satisfied and that never understood what teamwork means.

The best case scenario for the UK would be a second EU referendum. If we end up with a hung parliament, the Liberal Democrats (LDEM) will likely hold the deciding seats like they did in 2010.

LDEM are dead against leaving the EU and Article 50 can be revoked at any time, the EU has made that clear from the outset as they know that the EU will be weaker without the UK, they also know the UK will be decimated without the EU. So we can easily hold another referendum if enough politicians push for it.

The irony is that Corbyn is a eurosceptic, May was a Remainer. May had to enact Article 50 or face revolt and Corbyn is benefiting from May's bungling of Brexit. Realistically neither Labour or the Tories can be trusted to run the UK so a hung parliament is the best thing we can hope for.

Re:MO

[aurizon]

This is a good thing to lose the election on...

Re: MO

[Dogtanian]

Leaving aside your false presumption that you can tell people to shut up

That's my personal opinion, and yes I can. Those who chose not to participate are still free to bleat about the consequences of something they were eligible to change but didn't, but I don't have to respect or listen to their far-too-late regret. The "STFU" is essentially shorthand for this.

a reason to protest so far as to refuse to participate

I agree that the referendum was badly designed, but there is no major evidence of a protest "no vote" movement, and thus no prospect that non-votes would have been taken that way.

Given that, I think it's fair to assume that the vast majority of non-votes were *not* for that reason.

Re: MO

[Anonymous Coward]

So his family got in and he was radicalized here. Same difference

Re: MO

[Dogtanian]

No, you really can't. It doesn't work in politics. You waste your own time by doing it.

Patronise me all you like- I'm well aware that calling out people on what they are (even if they are that thing) doesn't work in politics- but I'm not a politician, and not trying to be one. I'm discussing my personal response to anyone in that position.

if you consider the process to be illegitimate, it is illegitimate and that doesn't change.

That only applies if you chose not to vote for that reason, and I'm willing to be that it doesn't apply to the vast majority of the 27% who didn't vote. If it had been more than a tiny percentage, we'd have heard about it.

Re:MO

[ai4px]

I think that the US and western nations have been screwing over and double crossing a lot of these 3rd world countries. The anger at the West is there, and Islam's violent components are exploited by their leaders to motivate their people to attack. Was there a religious aspect to the Japanese Kamikaze attacks?

Re:MO

[Skuld-Chan]

I only said they were responsible for Osama Bin Laden and the mess in Afghanistan. I never said they were responsible for EVERY SINGLE terrorist incident ever.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

You seem to suffer from a reversed perception.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

Well, I really hope a second referendum will happen. The UK political class has lost all connection to reality, and the citizens may by now have realized that to some degree.

Re:MO

[tendrousbeastie]

Teresa May (our current PM) has been pushing for this sort of thing for about the past ten years. Prior to her becoming PM she was the Home Secretary (responsible for policing, prisons, border security) and this has been on her agenda for her whole tenure.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

Your reasoning is broken. Even if staying in the EU has significant advantages, stupid and/or selfish politicians may convince their country to leave against the best interest of that country. (See the UK for a recent example of that gross stupidity.) And that is why the UK has to be made an example of. And it will be.

Re: MO

[gweihir]

Too stupid to understand what I said I see. You are assuming countries would be leaving for rational reasons. That is obviously not the case, but too many leaving against their own best interests (e.g. because some really stupid politicians with huge egos and no loyalty to their country are fighting over personal issues, see for example Boris Johnson) can still destroy the EU.

Re:MO

[david_thornley]

Strangely enough, none of the Muslims I've met showed any desire to kill me.

Re: MO

[FlyHelicopters]

You might take a close look at the 20th Century before you laugh so hard...

Or are you under the delusion that somehow, "that's it, all war is gone from Europe forever!"

Must have been "The War to End all Wars!", right?

Re:MO

[Imrik]

The real question is would they object if another Muslim wanted to kill you?

Re:MO

[david_thornley]

I'm positive they would object.

Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stop importing mass numbers of insane subhumans who want to kill us."

What?! That would be CRAZY! It would be like... um... actually solving the problem?

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

The device also tells me that I must eat if I wish to avoid starving to death in the future, that stepping off a cliff would result in my demise in the very near future, and other prophetic future events.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm impressed with this device you have that can predict the future.

This old thing? It's called common sense.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[religionofpeas]

I'm impressed with this device you have that can predict the future

Not that hard.. the current crop of terrorists are all 2nd-3rd generation immigrants that have never shown any desire to adopt western values. It's very likely that the next generations of immigrants aren't going to do any better, especially since they can just move into the current Muslim dominated neighborhoods, and stay far from kuffar. And that's not even counting IS militants among the immigrants.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[ganjadude]

my rock keeps tigers away so maybe we can get lisa to make one that keeps terrorists away next??

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Kjella]

I'm impressed with this device you have that can predict the future.

I'm sure the CDC would marvel at my crystal ball if:
1. We have good domestic apples
2. We import foreign apples from disease-ridden areas
3. The same bad apples show up domestically

The difference is we have no problem with offending non-infected foreign apples by denying them entry, we do this all the time with produce, animal products etc. even though it's probably 99% harmless. The problem is that even just a small handful of terrorists can keep your country hostage, France entered a state of national emergency on November 2015 and it is still not lifted. When you're in a state of emergency where the normal rule of law is suspended for years then that is the new normal. So what are they going to say, that in six months the threat of terror is gone? One year? Two years? Three years? Europe has infected itself with a virtually everlasting case of Islamic terror. Nobody knows who the next terrorist will be, but we damn well know what we've done these last couple decades to make it so.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[mean pun]

Not that hard.. the current crop of terrorists are all 2nd-3rd generation immigrants that have never shown any desire to adopt western values.

This is simply not true. If you look at the profiles of just about all recent attackers, never shown any desire to adopt western values is the exact opposite of their profiles. Even the 9/11 attackers did not match that profile at all.

It's very likely that the next generations of immigrants aren't going to do any better, especially since they can just move into the current Muslim dominated neighborhoods, and stay far from kuffar.

You were wrong about the attackers, you are now generalising without any proof or support from reality to the entire immigrant population, and you're extrapolating without any proof to future generations. In other words, you're talking nonsense again.

And that's not even counting IS militants among the immigrants.

There are so few IS militants among the immigrants that German neo-nazis had to create fake ones for their planned false-flag operations. And that makes sense, if you think about it. Which group are these immigrants fleeing from? Hint: the group has the letters IS in their name.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[AmiMoJo]

Actually, most of them have adopted most western values. If you look at the 7/7 bombers, or the Manchester bomber, they were heavily invested in British culture and most of our values.

The mistake people keep making is to think that murder and terrorism are so extreme that they require a total rejection of western values, but actually the majority of murderers and terrorists in the west are... Westerners. It's more like a general problem with human beings, and with people getting into a bubble where that shit starts to make sense.

Look at that Ander Breivik guy. Killed nearly 100 people, most of the children. Very well planned attacked. Basically radicalized himself, with some help from other extremists on the internet who convinced him that Europe was at war.

I'm not saying Islam doesn't have particular issues, but they are not unique to Islam and it doesn't help to just think that these people are somehow existing in a parallel culture inside our own.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Kjella]

Not that hard.. the current crop of terrorists are all 2nd-3rd generation immigrants that have never shown any desire to adopt western values.

Some. But there are also some that initially have been very western/liberal, had some sort of religious awakening and looking back on their past life they see it as very decadent and sinful. Those are often the leg men, who feel they owe Allah so much back taxes their only way to paradise is jihad. These people are often radicalized quite quickly in a matter of weeks or months while these feelings are new and intense and is often why it shocks the neighbors.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Londoner. I was in that area exactly 24hrs earlier. There but for the grace of god... But unlike the pathetic, terrified small subset of Americans like you I will not dump my fear on others. I will not let hate win. I have many Muslims in my area and they're fine. A few are dangerous idiots, but surprise! A ***small subset*** any group of people are (hint).
I take my chances with a bomb on the tube every morning and evening as I go to and from work. I can cope with that.I go a little earlier to avoid the thick of the crowd, I hope it tilts the odds a little in my favour if something bad does happen. It's not that I'm being So British, it's just that I deal with uncertainty.
But, fuck me, what has America become?
(and right as I type this I hear a lot of sirens outside my flat. Curious. Let's see if the dickhead brigade have been up to their silly pranks again).

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Imrik]

I'm far less worried by the terrorists than I am by the growing population of Muslims that aren't integrating with the population, even to the point that Sharia Law is the law of the streets in some neighborhoods. If this trend were to continue it is entirely possible that in the future they will start voting for their religious values to be imposed on the rest of the countries involved.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the 7/7 bombers, or the Manchester bomber, they were heavily invested in British culture and most of our values.

I'm calling bullshit on this. The Manchester bomber - Salman Abedi - is the one with which I'm familiar. He was from a traditional, "super religious" family, according to his neighbours. Even leaving aside the matter of which religion it was, being devoutly religious is already antithetical to mainstream British culture - and the fact that the family kept up a traditional Libyan lifestyle after immigrating suggests that they didn't really take on British culture, except for a few of the more superficial ones, like football and console games.

Unfortunately, the aspect of modern British culture that he did take on was social-justice activism: he lodged a complaint about Islamophobia on the part of a teacher who expressed disapproval of suicide bombings. There seems to be a worrying, and increasing, alliance between radical social-justice activists and Islamist terrorists.

Sources: A, B.

the majority of murderers and terrorists in the west are... Westerners. [...] Look at that Ander Breivik guy. Killed nearly 100 people

Anders Breivik's shooting spree in Oslo was, in fact, the third-largest attack in Western Europe since 2001 (source). Of the top ten attacks in this era by death toll, seven have been ideologically motivated by Islam, one (Anders) was extremist right-wing, and the other two were unaffiliated or unclear.

So the majority of terrorists in Europe come from the 10%-or-so of the population that are Muslim. And within that, the evidence suggests (see Salman Abedi), the terrorists come from the small subset who are devoutly religious, never really integrate into their host communities, and react negatively to any criticism of Islam, or even of violence done in the name of Islam.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[gweihir]

Even if true (and there are really not good indications it it), that may have some impact in the problem around 40 years in the future.

But I guess you are not capable of seeing how utterly demented your argument is.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[rholtzjr]

Complacency NEVER provides a solution. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Apathy should never be typical response.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Original poster here:
This is not apathy or complacency - it is not handing the terrorist prats exactly what they want. You can continue to cower but I won't. If I see something that looks bomb-ish, I'll report it. If I know someone who is talking about hurting others (in any context) they'll get reported to the police irrespective of the hue of their skin (and you would be surprised at my origins, BTW).
If you can suggest anything else I should actively do, well, by all means respond!
You are a fool. A frightened, clucking fool, folding their hand at the first sign of risk.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

>Sharia Law is the law of the streets in some neighborhoods

I don't know where you live, but it looks like fantasy to me. And please don't bring up Fox News' stupid Paris "no-go-zones", every French person knows that these are BS.

In fact I've never seen one Muslim who hasn't adapted well to the French society. Most of the ones I know are more pacific than non-immigrants.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[ganjadude]

....... woooshhhh

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[the_bard17]

May you never grow complacent in watching your guardians, either, lest you need to guard yourself from them in turn.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Calydor]

Breivik's attack was different, though. He went for a very specific group at a time when they were isolated. From a strategic viewpoint he got the people he was after without any innocent (from his point of view) bystanders.

These attacks? Paris, Manchester, London, Berlin and so on? The group targeted is EVERYONE. There is no specific target other than "As many as possible". It's all about killing as many infidels as possible before you get gunned down.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm calling bullshit on this. The Manchester bomber - Salman Abedi - is the one with which I'm familiar. He was from a traditional, "super religious" family, according to his neighbours. Even leaving aside the matter of which religion it was, being devoutly religious is already antithetical to mainstream British culture - and the fact that the family kept up a traditional Libyan lifestyle after immigrating suggests that they didn't really take on British culture, except for a few of the more superficial ones, like football and console games.

Yes, a vodka-drinking, weed-smoking party guy is EXACTLY what a conscientious follower of "traditional religious" values would be.

Salman Abedi profile.

You really didn't think anybody paid attention to the reports on him?

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a faggot. Your whole nation and way of life are doomed. When the terrorists murder you and your children from now on I'm just going to laugh. Why cry for a people who don't care about themselves and their children? Fucking worthless you are.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[rholtzjr]

We already did that once in 1776. We may have to again if they continue to on their present course.

Re: Anything except the obvious solution:

[Demena]

I think the Brits just proved that there is nothing wrong in the way in which it deals with firearms. When they are needed they have them. Their laws kept guns away from the terrorists and were available to the police quickly enough to just wipe them out. I would call that a success.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Kjella]

Look at that Ander Breivik guy. Killed nearly 100 people, most of the children. Very well planned attacked. Basically radicalized himself, with some help from other extremists on the internet who convinced him that Europe was at war.

More like under a silent invasion by Islam, that an Illuminati-like cabal is creating Muslim refugees, blocking their entry to other Islamic nations and funneling them into Europe and that they will eventually try to take over through civil war and bring Europe to Islamic rule. In his mind he was the savior trying to stop it and I believe he still thinks history will prove him right. I don't believe in the conspiracy, I abhor his methods but he's hardly the only one concerned about the future of Europe...

As for his choice of targets the primary target was the bomb at government headquarters, it mostly failed because of a parking garage and a flaw in the bomb's construction but it should have brought the whole building down killing hundreds. His secondary target was a former prime minister speaking at the youth convention whom he considered the grand traitor. The youths were only a tertiary target, a way to salt the earth. His goal was to eradicate as much of a political party as possible, but it drowned in the atrocity.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[AmiMoJo]

Your own link debunks your theory:

"cannabis-smoking, drinking, sometimes angry teenager who underwent an abrupt transformation within recent years."

So he clearly rejected much of Islam, which doesn't allow drug use or drinking, and then went through a sudden change. Not at all as you describe.

Also, your attempt to link terrorism to social justice is just pathetic.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[Maritz]

Apathy should never be typical response.

The typical response is to whip up a frenzy about terrorism (exactly what they want) and to attack moderate muslims (again, exactly what ISIS want). Apathy is more helpful than either of those things.

The UK made it through WW2. Survivors of that would be embarrassed to see the frenzy over this. Terrorism sucks, but it is not and never will be an existential threat. It's a matter for the fucking police.

Politicians like it because it justifies power grabs and overreach, and xenophobes love it because it justifies their views. Both of these peoples' goals align with ISIS.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[rholtzjr]

So says, the anonymous coward.

Re: Anything except the obvious solution:

[rholtzjr]

No, ignorance.

Re:Anything except the obvious solution:

[mjwx]

If you look at the 7/7 bombers, or the Manchester bomber, they were heavily invested in British culture and most of our values.

I'm calling bullshit on this. The Manchester bomber - Salman Abedi - is the one with which I'm familiar. He was from a traditional, "super religious" family, according to his neighbours.

I'm calling bullshit on this one.

The family had religious ties, but no more than many other Britons. However because the I word was involved, the media makes it out to be much worse.

As much as you try to dress it up in xenophobia, the fact is this person was a British born citizen, educated in British schools. Like it or not, British society was where this individual was born. Trying to use irrational hate and fear means that we'll never be able to treat the real cause.

Job prospects for youth post Brexit are a serious concern. Hey, but it's easier to blame That Thing You Hate.

Re: Anything except the obvious solution:

[ganjadude]

clearly you have never seen the simpsons before....

Should be simple

[OhPlz]

We'll just add to the captcha.. check the box if you're a terrorist. Easy peasy.

If the geniuses that lead our countries would just look in the mirror once in a while they might understand the problem. We let people in to our countries and they end up attacking us. The governments have already failed to vet these people. What the hell are internet companies supposed to do? Twitter is going to run a deep background check on every new account? Nope. Going to blockade certain countries? Well.. Trump tried something like that. Courts didn't like it. Closed borders? In Europe, that died with Le Pen's failure to win. So what now? Turn off the internet and hope the attacks stop? Doesn't sound like a winning plan.

Re:Should be simple

[Whorhay]

I think the only long term morally correct answer is to correct the behavior that helped provoke the jihad in the first place. We're talking about a decades long effort here. In the meantime there will be more deaths on all sides and we'll have to work through that and find ways to cope that don't involve inciting more violence. Essentially this is chickens coming home to roost that were released over the previous decades, centuries, and even eons. Is it fair, nope, but life isn't fair and if we want peace eventually someone has to be the better person and bury the hatchet instead of using it.

Re:Should be simple

[OhPlz]

I think you're horribly wrong by suggesting that modern nations are responsible for this. Those aren't our chickens coming home to roost. Sectarian violence has always been a thing in the parts of the world that are fueling this fire. The mistake we made was letting "refugees" migrate to our countries. Now it's those refugees or the spawn of those refugees carrying out these small scale attacks. They come to our countries and bring their baggage with them. Anyone who doesn't believe what they believe must die. And now we've brought them inside our borders. That's reality. Letting this go on for decades with the hope that things will get better with no plan would be even more of a disaster. We're going to get to the point were everyday people refuse to put up with this anymore to the point where they defy our governments and then all hell is going to break loose. We don't have decades. Maybe the US does, but large parts of Europe do not. Censoring dissent on Twitter is going to change that.

Re:Should be simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is Islam itself. Arguments about it being a poverty or education issue don't hold water: the people on the planes on 9/11 had college diplomas, they were doctors or engineers. It's not a society issue; many of the terrorist acts were committed by second generation Muslims, who had grown and been educated in first world countries. The common factor is Islam.

The problem is that we're not allowed to say anything about the root causes. It's "islamophobic" and "racist". Let Islam be shown for what it is, and let the civilized world defend their values, instead of the shameful pandering that happens every time more people are murdered by crazy believers. We should speak publicly about the many ways Islam isn't compatible with the modern world; that it's barbaric to consider women less valuable that men; that it's barbaric to murder people that criticize Islam or dare to draw a portrait of the Prophet; that it's barbaric to impose the death penalty for apostates. Instead, the Western world is cowardly discarding their own values to avoid offending barbarians. We create laws against free speech, because, if we dare say that maybe Mohammed marrying a nine years old is not a holy and admirable action, some fanatics may be offended (and anybody who thinks it's OK to marry a nine year old IS a fanatic, no matter what he or she says). As Theresa May proposes, we should relinquish our freedoms and live in prisons, because that's the only way to be secure, as if the threat is a nameless unknown.

Instead, what should be done is speak openly and forcefully about the problems. We should encourage Muslims to quit a barbaric religion - heck, we should make this a condition for immigration. We should cut links with countries like Saudi Arabia that spread the poison all over the world, with any country that has Sharia law, with any country that has the death penalty for leaving Islam.

Re: Should be simple

[OhPlz]

Yea, the US gets a lot of blame for the whole puppet government thing. But you know what? Sectarianism has existed for far, far longer than the US has. As for the coalitions.. they went in to bust up terrorist breeding grounds, to stop genocides, to try and get democracy to take hold. Some of it was misguided, sure. We can't fix that now. As for colonization, what are you smoking? No one is setting up colonies in those places. What new American, British, or French flagged colonies popped up as a result of the coalition's activities? None.

Re:Should be simple

[Brett Buck]

"Provoke Jihad"? What the hell are you talking about. These people have been killing people at what any rational human being would describe as random for 1200+ years. It's a fundamental part of their belief system. All the other world religions grew out of it, but not Islam, it's as bat-shit crazy at it has always been.

      The only thing that has consequentially changed is that about 20-30 years ago, "western society" became so concerned about possibly offending someone that we started tolerating it. Or in your case, excusing because you feel guilty about being part of a wildly successful, superior, culture.

Re:Should be simple

[Lost Race]

Censoring dissent on Twitter is going to change that.

Really? It's that simple?

Re: Should be simple

[Demena]

I disagree. This is really conflict about the secular and the religious. Seems to me that the terrorists are largely societies failures. Since when are successful people involved with things like this?

I cannot recall a terrorism case when the perpetrator was not a loser.

left wing terrorists, Muslim terrorists, right wing terrorists; they are all tossers making excuses for their own failures or excesses. It is never going to stop while spoiled people think they are deprived.

Re:Should be simple

[OhPlz]

Yes. I am fully on board with the new regime and all their wonderful ideas. Today is a great day, and tomorrow will be even better.

Re:Should be simple

[david_thornley]

The problem is that we're not allowed to say anything about the root causes

And you go right on about the root causes. The problem I have with your arguments is not that they're islamophobic (although they appear to be) or racist, but that, as far as I've been able to tell, they're wrong. You're attributing a lot of stuff to Islam that isn't really there, that's cultural stuff I dislike that religious leaders have wound up with Islam. A Muslim friend told me he never realized what Islam actually was until he came to the US, because the imams in Pakistan messed so much else into it.

You see that with some Christian groups also: they take what they want, and they attribute it to Christianity so it sounds more convincing.

So, sure, let's talk about the problems, but the real problems. Islam is not the big problem here.

the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Created by engineers.

Destroyed by politicians.

May it RIP.

Religion is basically evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam and Christianity are both dangerous evils. Let's be done with this fictional nonsense.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Catholic priests rape boys and church leadership let's it happen and protects it.

Yeah, that's the same as a fundamental tenet of the religion being "behead the unbelievers".

How about try growing up as a Pentecostal and being homosexual. That's a fun experience. These are just two examples. Sure Christian's stopped beheading centuries ago but now their danger is still there but hidden below the surface because in today's media blood leads.

You got to grow up, didn't you?

I never knew the Pentecost church stoned gays to death.

Were you Islamic, you'd be dead.

If you can't see the difference, you're being deliberately dense.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[Imrik]

The same sort of things happen outside the church as well, it just doesn't get as much coverage because people aren't as interested when they can't blame religion.

Re:Religion is basically evil

[schwit1]

Religion? The same craziness is happening at Berkeley and Washington's Evergreen College. The student's attitude is I have a right to assault you if your ideas are different than mine.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[dfenstrate]

Equating Islam and Christianity is a dangerous lie. You are willfully ignorant of vital differences in theology, and ignore the wildly different societies that spring forth as a consequence.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[dfenstrate]

"Faith never disappears, it merely changes it's object." De Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Re:Religion is basically evil

[BitterOak]

Islam and Christianity are both dangerous evils. Let's be done with this fictional nonsense.

Stalin had the same idea and he murdered about 20 million people to help wipe that evil out of the world.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[Demena]

It is only turn the other cheek until they are in control, then they make laws, then they (metaphorically?) burn you at the stake. Remember being religious implies you have no morality only what you think god wants. If you think god wants you to lie then it is moral to do so. If you think god says, kill, then you must.

Trusting the religious to do the right thing? For what flavour of 'right'?

Re: Religion is basically evil

[Maritz]

Equating Islam and Christianity is a dangerous lie. You are willfully ignorant of vital differences in theology

Yeah. In one the dish ran away with the spoon, and in the other the spoon ran away with the dish.

Re: Religion is basically evil

[dbarclay10]

Equating Islam and Christianity is a dangerous lie. You are willfully ignorant of vital differences in theology, and ignore the wildly different societies that spring forth as a consequence.

I think it's you who miss the point. Both Christianity and Islam teach their followers to believe without question, to believe in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to believe despite all rational logic and reason. It's that blind faith which is dangerous, not what they have faith in.

Also, you're just plain old crazy if you don't think Christianity can be every bit as bloody and brutal as modern-day Islam. We don't have to go back far to find atrocities. (Hell I'm in Canada, and we had horrible, shocking, disgusting Christian atrocities as recently as the 1970s.) Sure, Christianity in general might be "nicer" at the moment, but that can change in a hurry due to the blind faith they inculcate into their followers.

Not Just the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop at regulating the Internet? They were driving a white van when they carried out the attack so clamping down on white van use seems like a good idea right now. They were also carrying knives so those must be made illegal or their sales closely monitored.

What I'm waiting for is the usual statement that 'these men were already known to the security services', further proving that all of the Internet monitoring and phone tapping is of no use whatsoever.

Re:Not Just the Internet

[mrbester]

Not so long ago, buying kitchen knives in a supermarket got flagged at the checkout. Most people weren't too bothered as that isn't a regular purchase, but when it got extended to potato peelers enough people got the store manager out from their office to tell them not to be so bloody stupid it was quietly reduced to be just as "difficult" and "controversial" as buying alcohol, i.e ask for ID if you look under 25. Most times they don't even bother.

Re:Not Just the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen many interviews with security experts who claim that it's actually counter-productive. They have to devote so many resources to just filtering through the reams of data coming in, that there's little opportunity to actually analyse it and create risk analyses.

Re:Not Just the Internet

[antdude]

Just ban all humans! :P

Re:They don't use the internet

[SirSlud]

This is weapons grade stupidity. People who commit terrorist acts use the internet, have cellphones, all that.

So in other words, ban porn?

[squiggleslash]

That's what this is actually about. "Oh noes! Terrorists! We must immediately implement my agenda of Internet censorship, which is actually about porn not terror but shut up!"

You know what I'm fed up with? Politicians who crap their pants every time a terrorist does anything. That means you Ms May. You're doing exactly what they want you to do. For all Thatcher's faults, she didn't act like you and the majority of those politicians who proclaim themselves anti-terror do.

Terrorists are not going away. Either live your values, or live in fear. Your choice.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

You know what the difference between today and the 1980's were? That the attack in San Bernardino and Pulse Nightclub both could have been stopped. What happened? Oh that's right, people were afraid to call police/terrorist tiplines/etc for fear of being labeled "racist" because muslim. Huh let's look in the UK, and all those previous terrorist attacks with the same reason that nobody called tiplines. And how about more in the UK, with those girls raped and being sold as sex slaves(just a fyi it's happening in the US too). And the muslims trying to take over schools to turn them into extremist breeding grounds(see trojan horse scandal). Well what do you know? In those dozens of cases it was all the same thing too.

I think we've got a problem. You know what it is? People are too politically correct and afraid of being labeled racist/islamophobe/etc. So afraid that they'll turn a blind eye to people preparing to carry out a terrorist attack. Until that changes this isn't going to change either. We could, avoid the whole "implement internet agenda thing." The answer is in this paragraph. And you know as well as I do that the left has a very long history the last decade of going after people for daring to say "that muslim looks like they're going to blow people up." After all, that's what happened in Rotterdam and why 1000+ girls were raped and used as sex toys after all....for over a decade.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[dbIII]

people were afraid to call police/terrorist tiplines/etc for fear of being labeled "racist" because muslim

Seriously?
Most people are not that sort of quivering weakling fearing being called names.
Are you?
If so keep in mind that you are a rarity and there is no point projecting.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

Most people are not that sort of quivering weakling fearing being called names.

And yet that's the exact reason why those things happened. But you'd best realize that most people actually are afraid. That's one of the primary findings of the rotherham case. That's also one of the findings of the san babernandio attack, and pulse. And they're afraid of losing their job if they speak up. Of being attacked by a lynch mob on twitter for saying something. Of friends and family doing the same. I'll bet $20 that it was the exact same thing this time too. Or it could simply be the outright refusal of muslims inside the community deciding to ignore it, that one happens quite often too. Sometimes the local mosque is complicit to boot, which was the case of the parliament hill shooter here in Canada.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[MtHuurne]

Huh let's look in the UK, and all those previous terrorist attacks with the same reason that nobody called tiplines.

People tipped the authorities about the Manchester attacker on 5 separate occasions. The problem in stopping these attacks is not a lack of information. Which also means that additional surveillance will not lead to better safety.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, ban porn.

That's what this is actually about.

Well, ultimately, it's actually about about the ultra-rich wanting to be even richer.

There are number of simple things that could be done to reduce economic inequality (and make things better for ordinary people). Obviously, there's raising taxes on the ultra-rich to provide basic necessities for ordinary people. But there's also other (very easy) things like raising the minimum wage. And then there are more subtle things like improving the bargaining power of ordinary workers. But these things would make the ultra-rich slightly less rich. And they don't want that.

So the rich people have their media companies tell ordinary people that the reason things are tough economically is because of those bad nasty foreigners. And then they play to that narrative by taking away people's porn and blaming it on the foreigners:

"Oh deary me! Those foreigners are just so bad and nasty that we had no choice but to take away your porn! If you want your porn back then you'd better elect one of us ultra-rich politicians who is promising to get rid of all those foreigners."

Never mind that when the foreigner-bashing ultra-rich politicians get elected they mostly focusing on enriching themselves by pushing though laws that allow them to exploit ordinary people even harder.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[fustakrakich]

I hope you realize the futility of lecturing psychopaths. The choice belongs to the voters. Either they vote for them or not. At the very least let's recognize where the problem is. Hint: The politicians are a mere reflection.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[darkonc]

Uhm, no. It's not about porn. It's about control over, and access to, what people say to each other in private.

The death toll in this attack is roughly equal to the number of people who have died in the UK because of DUI. The only difference is that DUI deaths are so common and so continuous that they're rarely front page news, much less international news.

In the US, you have on average, 650 gun deaths per week. 500 can be attributed to 'Christians'. Less than one per week can be attributed to 'Muslim Extremists'..

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[aaarrrgggh]

Exactly. You have too many people that are effectively high-risk, and there isn't much you can do about them. I am somewhat surprised that the police don't have informants keeping tabs on more of them; it doesn't sound like the formula is that difficult.

To stop terrorism, you need to stop the money. First focus on foreign influence, then local supporters, and eventually squeeze them from regular organized crime.

You also need to stop labeling everything as terrorism. Limit the use of that word carefully, and instead label the people doing bad things as "nutjobs" or "crazies" with a death wish in the media. If it really is "terrorism", deal with it on the investigation end appropriately.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

Really? Masses of quivering weakings like yourself?
I don't think so.

You seem to be projecting. Either that or you can't read, not sure.

Most people are nowhere near as pathetic as you think they are. Perhaps you should consider being less a pathetic seeker of blame yourself.

So glad you're blind as to the exact reasons of what's going on here. Perhaps you should go back and read those links. Let me know when you get to the part where police and security agencies directly ignored the tips. Where people directly ignored the warning signs because they were afraid. It doesn't get much more black and white then that, that's the face of political correctness gone amok.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

Which is exactly what the inquiries have said over and over and over again as well. Or did you miss the part where I said people were afraid of being labeled racist? You think that something like the Trojan horse scandal or Rotherham didn't happen because no-one called the tip lines? No it's because people were afraid of being labeled racist. And those people were in the police and security services.

I made a general statement as people, not the agencies themselves. The agencies might have the info, it's again the people being afraid of using it because of rampant political correctness.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[jareth-0205]

Bull-fucking-shit.

The attackers yesterday were shot 8 minutes after they started. How in your parallel universe would you expect a bunch of guys with knives and a van supposed to be stopped sooner? Are we to report all brown-looking people in vehicles? There are about 1 million 'muslim looking' people living in London.

There are 2.7 million muslims living in the UK, and your advocating treating them all with suspicion. They are in the same boat as the rest of us, trying to get on with their lives while a few crazies make everything worse.

Fuck you very much and you stereotyped, ill-informed crap.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

So trying the "I am not doing X you are doing X" playground argument on for size now?

Considering you haven't said anything to dispute my points so far, it seems more likely you actually are projecting because this struck far too close to home.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

How in your parallel universe would you expect a bunch of guys with knives and a van supposed to be stopped sooner? Are we to report all brown-looking people in vehicles? There are about 1 million 'muslim looking' people living in London.

Bet in a few days we'll see that they were known to police, had multiple times they were picked up on the radar and they did nothing. Just like with the manchester suicide bomber.

There are 2.7 million muslims living in the UK, and your advocating treating them all with suspicion. They are in the same boat as the rest of us, trying to get on with their lives while a few crazies make everything worse.

You mean 50% of which are against gay marriage. ~25% believe that Sharia law is the only law, and roughly the same number believes that the UK should be forcibly converted to it? ~40% believe that a women should obey her husband? Haven't even touched on the believes homosexuals should be killed outright, that religious police are okay, that suicide attacks are fine and they wouldn't report someone who knew that they were about to launch one. All of which hover between 30-45% too. Or any of the other things which are fundamentally against core parts of western. Like the 20% that believe a women is worth less then a man, or the 35% believe a women's place is in the home.

Fuck you very much and you stereotyped, ill-informed crap.

Keep burying your head in the sand. Funny how it's always those similar results though isn't it? You see the same numbers in Canada, and in the US, and in France, and Sweden... Maybe it's time for you to grow up and realize that the dream of multiculturalism only works when a society is actually compatible.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deport all Muslims!

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[AmiMoJo]

He was reported on multiple occasions. Those people don't seem to have been afraid.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

"he Manchester suicide bomber was repeatedly flagged to the authorities over his extremist views, but was not stopped by officers, it emerged Wednesday night.

Counter Terrorism agencies were facing questions after it emerged Salman Abedi told friends that âoebeing a suicide bomber was okayâ, prompting them to call the Governmentâ(TM)s anti-terrorism hotline.

Sources suggest that authorities were informed of the danger posed by Abedi on at least five separate occasions in the five years prior to the attack on Monday night."

By the way, what is that Rotterdam bullshit you just made up? Got any shitty blogs to cite for it?

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

He was reported on multiple occasions. Those people don't seem to have been afraid.

But you can't read. Keep going.

By the way, what is that Rotterdam bullshit you just made up? Got any shitty blogs to cite for it?

Did you try that link? You know the one that goes to the royal inquiry, that openly states that. Or are you going to claim that the royal inquiry is a shitty blog because it doesn't fit your agenda.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Ron Goodman]

As I recall, several Muslim associates of the Manchester bomber reported his behavior to the authorities prior to the attack. Nothing happened.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[DogDude]

You're right of course. Nobody called the police before Dylan Roof killed all of those people because of racism.

You stupid fuck.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Zocalo]

I was going to say the same thing - they did, and that apparently not only included close associates, but one of them was the Imam at his mosque who had also apparently banned him from attending because of his controversial views. If the security services can't pick up on such a blatent red flag as that, then what hope have they got of picking them out of petabytes of mostly random innocuous data being hoovered up through bulk surveillance?

The problem isn't lack of surveillance, or people failing to call tiplines, the problem is that the security services are unable to effectively process the data they have as often as they are expected to do - and *want* to do - without the terrorists getting that one chance they need. That's not something that can be fixed with broad dumb surveillance such as May is proposing here; it's something that has to be fixed though smarter and more targetted surveillance. They need fewer items of high-quality data they can focus on, not more items of low-quality data that they have to pick though and hope they are luckier than the terrorists.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[AmiMoJo]

Oh, you meant Rotherham... I thought you had invented some new European outrage.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[thegarbz]

Sometimes the local mosque is complicit to boot, which was the case of the parliament hill shooter here in Canada.

The way I recalled a recent case the local mosque kicked out a guy and reported his extremism to authorities. Somehow he managed to them bomb Manchester a few weeks ago. What happened after? Oh well the security services responded that he was "known to authorities".

The number of terrorists who it turns out were "known to authorities" is ridiculous. Was it the underwear bomber's own father who reported him to the FBI and the guy didn't even end up on a no-fly list?

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[SuricouRaven]

Who isn't known to police? They probably have a file on me somewhere, because I've given a statement in the past after witnessing a car accident.

Some drunk prat managed to flip her car right upside-down. On a flat road. I'd really like to know how they managed that.

I'd like to see a citation on your survey, because I suspect it might be the Daily Mail.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[jareth-0205]

I don't know where you're getting these numbers from, but if you'd said they were from lovely safe white Christians I wouldn't have been particularly surprised. Having views I disagree with over marriage doesn't equal wanting to destroy society. Plus unless people actually break the law, which the Manchester bomber hadn't, what actually do you want to do? What sort of a society do you want to live in?

It's very plain from the way you talk that you don't live in an area with many muslim people, and I would guess you probably don't know any at all. I do, and do, and I'm telling you they're just people.

It must be very reassuring to be able to push an entire culture into an 'incompatible' box, and be able to dismiss them all. It's still dickish, unhelpful, and wrong. Perhaps go meet some people rather than get your opinions from niche websites.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[serviscope_minor]

You know what the difference between today and the 1980's were? That the attack in San Bernardino and Pulse Nightclub both could have been stopped. What happened? Oh that's right, people were afraid to call police/terrorist tiplines/etc for fear of being labeled "racist" because muslim.

Ah I see you're back to your regularly scheduled programme of simply making stuff up. So, go on, post some links to, uh, support your case.

PS: those links you just posted? Yeah, they don't actually back up what you said.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[serviscope_minor]

Uhm, no. It's not about porn.

It really is. May is fucking obsessed with filtering porn out of the internet. Just look at her history as Home Sec. This is an excuse to clamp down on the internet, which she loves to do because porn.

The death toll in this attack is roughly equal to the number of people who have died in the UK because of DUI.

Seems low for DUI, but yay on drunk driving becoming really socially unacceptable. Its fewer than the number of cyclists killed on the road in London last year. And VASTLY VASTLY VASTLY fewer than the number of premature deaths in London due to air pollution because the murderous Tories refuse to do anything about that, and try to prevent the Mayor from because they can't stand the idea of Labour having more power even if it means literally killing people.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Kohath]

The only difference is that DUI deaths are so common and so continuous that they're rarely front page news

No, attacks aren't the same as mishaps caused by drunks. Attacks are done deliberately. Attackers escalate. When attackers succeed, they use their success to recruit and encourage a greater number of more severe attacks.

Everyone instinctively knows this.

Whatever your position, please stop peddling the fictional equivalence between attacks and mistakes. It's wrong, and it makes you sound like an apologist for murderers, which I'm sure you're not.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[bongey]

LMGTFY http://bfy.tw/CB9x

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[darkonc]

Yeah!.. Same thing with Columbine, The Oklahoma bombing and Sandy Hook.

Hold on.. Those were all right wing white Christians. Nobody would have been afraid of being called racist for ratting out right wing white Christians! ... So how did those people not get stopped? Because police were afraid to be seen taking down white kids? Should police be more nasty to white folk too?

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[dbIII]

You are clearly suggesting that speech suggesting something bad about a person in a minority group is being self-supressed in the UK and USA to the point where criminal actions are ignored, when in reality they have been reported because your scared little strawman terrified of some sort of mythical PC police does not exist.

It's utter bullshit designed to use victims of crime to push your disgusting little agenda.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Maritz]

Oh that's right, people were afraid to call police/terrorist tiplines/etc for fear of being labeled "racist" because muslim.

I agree that 'islamophobia' is largely bollocks, but this? Dumb as fuck. Idiots can't handle nuance.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

http://www.channel4.com/progra...

I hope you enjoy the BBC, because that's where it comes from.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

You mean those numbers from the BBC? Well you enjoy that.

So tell me what parts of "death for apostates" "you can rape women" "women are valued less then men" "death for homosexuals" "ban on gay marriage" etc, etc, etc. Is compatible with western culture? Because large segments, even 2nd and 3rd generation kids strongly believe in those ideas, some even more so then their parents do.

No, you know what would be reassuring? That if someone comes to the west they actually want to integrate. You know, like my parents did. One half which was from west germany, and the other half from japan. Who dumped their old world beliefs when they came here, banned speaking anything but english at home and embraced the new culture.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[JesseMcDonald]

So tell me what parts of "death for apostates" "you can rape women" "women are valued less then men" "death for homosexuals" "ban on gay marriage" etc, etc, etc. Is compatible with western culture?

None of it, obviously. But while we're on the subject, please tell me what part of "people should be punished for what they believe, rather than what they do" is compatible with western culture? Because that is what you are proposing. Personally, I couldn't care less what they believe so long as they behave themselves.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[david_thornley]

I'm not as familiar with the San Bernadino shootings, but the Pulse Nightclub shooter was being watched. The problem is not that nobody reports these people, it's that we can't tell who's actually going to open fire until they do so. Minority Report was intended as a dystopia, and we don't have precogs anyway.

The problem is that we can't shadow suspicious people 24/7 with enough force to stop them if they start shooting. We can sometimes keep tabs on if they get suspicious things, like potential bomb ingredients, but guns are so common in the US that we can't really keep suspicious people away from them.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

Personally, I couldn't care less what they believe so long as they behave themselves.

That's the thing now isn't it. They aren't behaving themselves, they're actively advocating and implementing things that are contrary to the civilization that they live in. Some of them are now going as far to advocate attacks against that same civilization. And when people decide to go and do those attacks, large swaths of the people who believe this ignore that it happened, or silently or openly express support for what they did.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

Did you try the royal commission? Enjoy your source. You can read the case on the trojan horse scandal when you're done.

If that's too long you can read this article right here.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[Mashiki]

1/3 isn't bad, but I'd turn around and try again if you really want to clean up that gibberish. Let me know when you read this as well, wait until you get to the part where the police and local councils did nothing because of the fear of being labeled racist.

Re:So in other words, ban porn?

[JesseMcDonald]

Personally, I couldn't care less what they believe so long as they behave themselves.

That's the thing now isn't it. They aren't behaving themselves, they're actively advocating and implementing things that are contrary to the civilization that they live in. Some of them are now going as far to advocate attacks against that same civilization.

Again, punishing people based on what they are "advocating for" is not compatible with "western culture". If someone actually goes out and implements an attack then punishment of some form would be a proportional response. However, so long as they interact with others in a civil and voluntary manner, attempting to punish them for holding and advocating for their beliefs and working peaceably to implement them would be a greater affront to our own culture and ideals than anything they've done.

At least she gets what she wants

[Opportunist]

At least someone benefits from the terrorist attacks.

Re:At least she gets what she wants

[PopeRatzo]

At least someone benefits from the terrorist attacks.

And just in time for the elections, too. ISIS are Tories.

Re:At least she gets what she wants

[fustakrakich]

A lot of people do. This stuff is good business. It's no lie: They're only in it for the money.

Bringing a router to a knife fight...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Madam, a bunch of barbarians with knives jumped out of a van and killed civilians!"

"Begin spying on people on the Internet. That'll surely prevent it from happening!"

As if said barbarians are using internet to communicate at all, much less for openly discussing their acts... "Nahoul, have you acquired the weapons of our holy jihad to take place on London Bridge on June, 3th?" — "Yes, Assoud, very long sharp knives and a Hertz van".

They probably discuss shit in private in some back alley or something, geez.

Re: Bringing a router to a knife fight...

[Entrope]

Well, they'll be able to arrest the perps if those perps post video of the attack to YouTube! If we're really lucky, Google will prevent those videos from being monetized via ads.

Re:Bringing a router to a knife fight...

[gweihir]

Somehow this extremely obvious fact must be to simple and clear for a lot of people. How this can be is beyond me, except if a majority of people do understand exactly nothing. That would be hugely more catastrophic than all terrorism combined ever could begin to be.

Re: Bringing a router to a knife fight...

[bongey]

Crazy but that is how the UK thinks now. Watch "caught on camera with nick wallis" no one cares to stop a crime in the act, often they say "oh well we have them on camera, we can catch them later" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X...

Why not fight them in their backyards?

[steak]

Instead of ours, oh yeah then the politicians can't get their jollies by exerting more control over the populace.

Re:Why not fight them in their backyards?

[religionofpeas]

Their backyards are large parts of our cities. I hope you're prepared for civil warfare.

Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

If you still believe in "multiculturalism" and "all cultures are equal"*, go fuck yourself.

And do it before some jihadi slits your throat.

* - unless the culture is white, Western European based. Funny how those cultures are less equal than others...

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

You're condemning a lot of people based solely on the actions of less and 1% of their population. You would be very unhappy if you were judged on the actions of others, especially if your connection to them was tentative at best.

Re: Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[Entrope]

Is it so silly to try to change things because of how the 1% behave?

If so, I've got great news for Republicans.

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[KiloByte]

You're condemning a lot of people based solely on the actions of less and 1% of their population.

Have you actually read their holy book? You're assuming the Koran to be like the Bible -- it's not. The latter is a big honking pile of contradictions, and you've been trained to cherry-pick only parts which your religious leaders like. On the other hand, Uthman edited the Koran into a remarkably consistent work. There's even a clause what to do in case of a contradiction -- originally used by Muhammad only as an excuse whenever he wanted to have yet another wife above the limit he himself imposed -- but which then came to play as he transitioned from a mere religious kook into a bloody warlord.

There's a bunch of people who call themselves muslims yet don't actually believe -- they do so mostly out of tradition and of fear of the believers (remember, apostasy is to be punished by death!). Yet those closet unbelievers don't make over 99% of the population as you say, I'd put them at at most 20-30%.

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of people who identify themselves as Muslim, live their entire life without murdering or maiming anyone. It is irrational to assign a label to the whole of the group (any group) when only 1% of the group exhibit this behaviour.

I note that you didn't refute GP post's claims that the Koran is a consistent book that, among other things, demands the death or subjugation of all non-Moslems.

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[KiloByte]

They don't murder or maim unbelievers as they are less evil than their holy books tell them to. They do, however, cheer the murderers, and demand laws to put unbelievers to death. Likewise, most nazis (21M kills) -- or worse, communists (~180M) and christians (~100M) -- didn't personally murder anyone.

The thing is, while Christianity cost us ~1500 years of scientific progress, ~100M of directly killed and untold billions of deprived of important joys of life (because "sin"), the grip of Christianity is slipping and mostly already gone. The Islam, though, is on the rise.

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[KiloByte]

Should we treat players of GTA with suspicion because the game tells them to kill prostitutes after they give you a blow job?

GTA tells them to kill prostitutes in a game -- with no effect other than flipping a few bits, and satisfying violent urges that a (thankfully, tiny) minority of players would fulfill in RL instead.

If you and me get murdered in RL, though, we do stay dead.

Re:Multiculturalist? Go fuck yourself

[Cederic]

1% is a massive proportion, and you're also disregarding the active or tacit support of another 20-30%.

Shit, go to Pakistan and the percentages are higher than that.

I live near a city with over 300k residents. You think 3000 of them are violent, and another 50,000 support that violence?

Yeah, I think targeting the fuckwits that believe in invisible pink unicorns is appropriate. I think mocking their stupid beliefs is needed, I think preventing them brainwashing children is long overdue and I'd absolutely cut off all of their governmental funding and tax the hell out of any money imported from overseas.

goto step one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does she have any evidence these people actually used the internet to plan what they were doing?

And if so, why didn't all the existing mass surveillance catch them? Is ratcheting up the level of surveillance really going to help? That was their excuse for implementing it to begin with, and so far it hasn't.

There is no end to it:

(1) call for more censorship and surveillance.
(2) another attack happens anyway.
(3) goto step one, because it must not have been enough yet.

Re:goto step one.

[Kohath]

Sound like the plan to wipe out poverty:

1. Take money from people who earn it, give it to people who don't work
2. People who don't work continue to be poor, and their children are poor
3. More giveaways. Because "something must be done" and no one ever learns.

Repeat. Say mean things about people who don't want to double down on the same failures over and over and over.

Re:They don't use the internet

[AmiMoJo]

It's electioneering. Normally politicians wait for the bodies to be cold, but in this case there is an election less than a week away so...

She wants to shift blame away from herself, and be seen to be doing something. I really doubt she thinks that mass surveillance will make any real difference.

More attacks on Free Speech

[gurps_npc]

Since the dawn of time, people have confused 'stopping speech' with solving the problem. It doesn't. Despite the lying panic, communication does NOT 'radicalize' people. Instead it lets other people find out about the radicalization. While it is true that a small number of lunatics that were considering minor criminal actions upgrade to larger actions, free speech does not create problems, it REVEALS them.

Stopping free speech delays the problem at best, rather than solving them. Eventually the pent up issues burst forth into violence.

Better to have a constant small stream that is deal able rather than a flash flood.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[SpinyNorman]

Terrorists obviously think spreading videos on facebook etc helps their cause, even if you don't. This in of itself should be enough reason to stop it. Even if this wasn't the case, why would anyone in their right minds want to allow terrorist organizations to use FaceBook/etc as their publishing and distribution partner? FaceBook is an immoral compacy - they'd rather err on the side of keeping users than on offending a few by taking a moral stance and stop supportng terrorist material under the guise of "free speech". Seeing as these companies won't do it themselves, the govermnet needs to change the law to make this type of terrorist assistance illegal.

Sure, cracking down on FaceBook, etc for distributing terrorist content is only a part of the problem, but it should be done anyway. Not allowing free press for the IRA was a great policy, and the same should be done here.

What infuriates me about these attacks is that inevitably it turns out the attackers were already known to the authorities and on some terrorist watch list. In the recent Manchester attack the FBI had even warned the UK about the attacker(s) in addition to the UK themselves having been tracking them.

The UK (and US too, for that matter) has FAR too high a tolerance for known extremists being allowed to live there. Some of these people need to be stripped of citizenship if applicable and deported (or jailed if that's not possible)... maybe institute a "three strikes and you're out" type of policy. Maybe change the law to have first generation immigrants "on probation" with lower levels of proof required for deportation.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[gurps_npc]

Terrorism is an attempt to generate PUBLICITY using violence, not an attempt to generate violence using publicity. The only reason they kill is to get attention. So when they publicize their terrorism, you have misunderstood cause and effect. I.E. They are not publishing on Facebook to convince people to join their violent movement, they are using violence to convince people to read their publicity. As such, cracking down on Facebook merely encourages them to be MORE violent so that the News covers them instead of being less violent.

Your other advice is true, we generally are aware of the dangerous people, but the reason we do not pick them up is that we have a list of 1000 people, 999 of which are non-violent activists, while one is a real terrorists. That is why we don't crack down on the people we suspect.

Worst of all, remember these people are trying violence most often because they have a real problem that is being ignored. Their solution may be horrible, but those 999 out of a thousand are the good guys trying to end the real problem WITHOUT violence. For example. the Irish were mistreated by the British. So your suggestion is that we crack down on any one we suspect of being an IRA member in order to get to the few IRA members is simply Fascism. Not allowing the pro-irish movement free speech is why and how the IRA was formed.

Finally, as a side note, the fact that terrorist think something is a good idea is not evidence that it is a good idea. These are people stupid enough to think violence is a good way to generate publicity.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[Cederic]

Some of these people need to be stripped of citizenship if applicable and deported (or jailed if that's not possible)...

Oh sure. Destroy 800 years of justice because you're scared?

Fuck that. Jail/deport criminals, not people that have the wrong point of view.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[Cederic]

These are people stupid enough to think violence is a good way to generate publicity.

"I don't like you." -> Nobody gives a shit
"Fine, I'll kill 8 people." -> Global headline news

I don't think you have to be stupid to realise that violence is indeed a good way to generate publicity.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not really true. I don't know about the UK but I've just talked with an someone who has analyzed the radicalization of young US 'jihadis', who are mostly middle-class white urban kids. They do indeed usually communicate over the Internet with some handlers who often reside directly in Syria, and they turn from normal kids to 'sorry mom, I love you but I would kill you if necessary' within a few weeks to three months. It's amazing and a process she cannot really explain. Her suspicion was that it's a generational issue that has to do with the social habits of Millenials.

That being said, the UK is already a half-totalitarian police state and you can only prevent terrorist attacks by going fully totalitarian. It's simply not worth it.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[SpinyNorman]

When terrorist attacks are being carried out by people already suspected of being terrorists there's a failure in the system. You need to act before the crime is commited, not afterwards, else what's the point?

You needs a calibrated response. It's not an all or nothing deport all muslims else let them all in and turn a blind eye as they preach hate in British mosques or go overseas for terrorist training.

What's wrong, for example, with my two suggestions:

1) A parole period for immigrants

2) Rather than allowing terrorist watch list members to rack up more and more evidence against them without ever taking any action, how about having progressive thresholds of evidence at which action will be taken?

You're OK with a point system for losing your driver's licence I suppose? It's not all or nothing... as evidence racks up that you are a dangerous driver the points rack up until you eventually lose your licence. "How unfair!" YOU say..."we should have waited until he actually killed someone on the road before acting".

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[Cederic]

I don't get points on my licence without breaking the law.

But since you ask,
1 - A parole period does fuck all to help with someone born and raised in Manchester that's nonetheless enough of a fuckwit to kill several people including himself

2 - They already do. Just because you can't see the actions doesn't mean that they aren't being taken. Shit, the whole Control Orders thing was a visible action that was a fucking terrible idea and condemned people to house arrest despite never being convicted of a crime.

I don't support that, and fuck you if you do.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[SpinyNorman]

Yeah - it's a complicated problem that requires a multi-facted response. So what if a parole system for refugees won't solve everything? Why do you even bother to say that?

What a parole system *would* do is simply to hold recent immigrants to a higher standard until they've proved themselves by the passage of time. Come to the UK and start communicating with a network of known terrorists within a month or so, or be subject of a warning from a foreign intelligence agency? Get deported.

What the thresholds for action are for people on the terrorist watch list, neither of us know, but I'd say evidentially they are too lax.

If you want to prevent rather than just after-the-fact-punish terrorist attacks (I do, maybe you don't - you tell me) then you need to be willing to act on the data you are gathering, and given the pathetically predictable history of attacks by folk where there had been a zillion red flags known to authorities (have they announced the current attackers and their contacts were already known yet?), I'd say current thresholds for action are too low.

BTW congrats on using the word "fuck" a lot. Really impressed.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[bingoUV]

When terrorist attacks are being carried out by people already suspected of being terrorists there's a failure in the system. You need to act before the crime is commited, not afterwards, else what's the point?

The point completely depends on

1. the proportion of false positives in the number of "people already suspected of being terrorists".

2. action that is proposed against the "suspected" people

If false positives is 1 out of 1000 i.e. only one actually carries out the terrorist attacks out of 1000, the point is "waste of resources".

If the number of false positives is not much, if proposed action takes any of their rights, the point is "innocent before proven guilty".

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[Cederic]

No, I don't want to prevent terrorist attacks, if it means losing basic values of British culture.

Yes, I'd rather have people die to terrorism than prevent justice.
Yes, I've been the target of terror attacks.
Yes, I've known victims of terror attacks.
Yes, I've lived in a warzone.

No, I'm not going to throw away essential liberties in a failed attempt to stay "safe". At risk of impressing you further, fuck that.

Re:More attacks on Free Speech

[bingoUV]

s / "If false positives is 1 out of 1000" / "If false positives is 999 out of 1000" /

How about fight back?

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

How about starting to fight back in a serious way? They are at war with us. It's time we realized that

Re:How about fight back?

[dbIII]

The idea of "fighting back" in the last week was a deal for billions of dollars worth of weapons to the country spreading the twisted cult that's given all of Islam and all of the middle east a bad name - epic fail there. The whaddists (such as Daash/ISIL) must be laughing at how stupid we are, helping those who are funding and supplying them instead of cutting off their money supply and making it more difficult for them to influence people like the bunch of criminals that attacked in London.
They WANT us to treat it like a war, and attack the mainstream so they can get more recruits to their cult from the mainstream.

Re:How about fight back?

[misexistentialist]

globalists claim there is no "us" so they drop bombs on Muslims while simultaneously supporting Muslim colonization, and casualties of terror attacks are also not "us"

Re:How about fight back?

[Anonymous Coward]

"They"? The teeny, tiny fraction of idiotic losers that are hard to identify among millions of law-abiding citizens? How do you go to war with that without the side effect of going to war with a lot of innocent people?

What you describe is a recipe for a civiilization to go to war with itself. The surest way for the terrorists to win is not for them to accomplish great things, but for them to provoke a more powerful enemy to attack itself. That would be us. The real danger here is overreaction.

Re:How about fight back?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the Israeli and Russian solution: if the attackers were from outside of the country or even have relatives outside of the country, their towns of origin or where their loved ones are get blown to hell.

It's really not that hard... you kill one of mine, I kill 10,000 of yours. We have a lot of ground to make up for with 9/11. If you want to fight subhumans you must meet them on their level. I've served in the active military and we cut them way too much slack.

If we in the West are eager to survive in the long term (make no mistake, this WILL get worse and we are massively outnumbered) we need to take off the gloves and assert ourselves, possibly partnering with Russia and China on it.

Re:How about fight back?

[thegarbz]

Fight back against who? We're not at war with a nation. We're at war with an extremist sub-ideology of a major world religion.

Fix it now or Europe as you know it is history

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaked Report Says 6.6 Million Refugees Are Trying to Get into Europe

The solutions may be politically incorrect, but Europe is now a war zone whether they like it or not. Just look at what ISIS did to the Syrian people and historical sites in their path. Imagine this being done throughout Europe.

The alternative is in 100 years the current European culture will be little more than a chapter in a history book.

Re:Fix it now or Europe as you know it is history

[fustakrakich]

Europe is now a war zone

Eh, 71 years of relative peace... not a bad run, in fact, probably a record.

Re:Fix it now or Europe as you know it is history

[fustakrakich]

A brief spat (though without the treat of more bombing, the war would indeed flare up again, which poses the question, who does keep the peace in Europe since 1945?) Before the end of world war two Europe has been in a constant state of warfare throughout it's history, well, after humans arrived. Truth be told, world war one started many thousands of years ago (maybe 13 billion years ago). This is just a temporary truce held together by an irresistible force.

The other side of the coin

[PopeRatzo]

The terrorists and the political leaders who are most vociferous about "fighting terrorism" need each other. It's almost like they're fighting for the same side.

One thing for sure: nothing that any of these leaders have proposed or implemented - mother of all bombs, travel bans, heightened security theater, arming the populace, internment, keeping people from bringing nail clippers on airplanes, foreign wars, building walls - is going to do anything to reduce terrorism.

Re:The other side of the coin

[fustakrakich]

Cui bono? Ask nothing else...

Re:Of course it's staged

[Anonymous Coward]

So, of the seven tier 1 trauma centers in Boston, one of them was close to the route of the Boston marathon? Well, that proves it, it must have been staged!

The internet is not an issue

[AHuxley]

Interesting people can move messengers around the world and wait for a week for a message to be delivered in person.
Faith groups working in closed communities don't need to bother with an internet that is been watched. They have their leaders, teachings and have a large protective community around them.
This is not groups in the 1980's getting funds from banks, making phone calls and moving funds around using computers, emails and fax machines.
This is not the Soviet Union where the GCHQ can surround the Soviet Union and listen in on Soviet officials making daily phone calls.
The UK needs to fund MI5 overtime and get its expert surveillance teams out into UK cities.
Fund the army, MI5 and let them do their work in every UK city. Watch groups, who they meet, who they talk to, who they listen to.
Map the networks of people.
Keep all results away from any groups or people in the UK gov who talk to the media.
Learn for Ireland in the 1980's. Trust only the GCHQ, MI5, the elite UK mil units and any version of Special Branch that is as secure and dedicated as the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch was. That will ensure no information gets to groups/workers/contractors who will sell/talk/give UK policy information to the UK press/media/their company.
Learn from the 1920-70's issues when the UK had to hire a lot of experts on trust. Just as Communists filled the UK clandestine services for decades expect interesting groups to try and fill the ranks of the UK security services with needed new staff. Only hire on merit and after deep vetting of all new UK staff.

Repeat after me: This does not help

[gweihir]

Basically all terrorists in Europe of the last 10 years or so were _known_ to the state before. Did that help at all? No, it id not. And now they want to put everybody else under surveillance, despite it being completely clear that this will not help? That is at best utterly stupid, and at worst a preparation for the establishment of full-blown fascism.

They are no longer "theories" at this point

[Anonymous Coward]

What used to be called "Conspiracy Theories" are now "Conspiracy Facts".

They are so out in the open now you can't even argue against them without being totally ignorant.

What were the total deaths that day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seven people died in these attacks. How many died that day as a result of other crime? Car accidents? Accidents? Disease? But extremists are always guaranteed the headlines and a 24 hour news cycle... gee I wonder why extremists keep doing it?

Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[dbIII]

So glad you're blind as to the exact reasons of what's going on here

I'm blind to you saying the problem that racists are the real victims here?
No - I can see exactly what shit you are up to by pushing this line.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[Mashiki]

I'm blind to you saying the problem that racists are the real victims here?
No - I can see exactly what shit you are up to by pushing this line.

Apparently you are, not only that you're an idiot to boot. The "line that I'm pushing" is people are afraid of doing something and being labeled racist for doing it.

To make it very simple for you: They're willing to look the other way because of fear, and they're willing to look so hard in the other direction that people are dying because of it.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[dbIII]

The "line that I'm pushing" is people are afraid of doing something and being labeled racist for doing it.

It's not just utter bullshit that didn't happen (see other people's posts) but bullshit attempting to push a racist agenda.
Racists are too scared to speak out? Pull the other one - it's got bells on it.
What a bit of slime you are.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[Maritz]

So people don't phone police during a terror attack, because they're afraid of being labelled a racist? Riiiiiiiight.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[Mashiki]

"Racist agenda"

So which race is muslim again? I'll wait for you to figure out where you went wrong.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[Mashiki]

Didn't say that, go back and read. When you're finished you can read this as well. Now when you're done, you can think on this. Why is it that the UK is more interested in denying entry to someone like Pamela Geller, but can't detain people who are on video saying they want to kill the kafir.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[dbIII]

"Racist agenda"

So which race is muslim again? I'll wait for you to figure out where you went wrong.

Let's quote your own words to see why I wrote that:

people were afraid to call police/terrorist tiplines/etc for fear of being labeled "racist" because muslim

By the stupid argument you are attempting (which race is muslim again) no white supremicists are racist, and it also contradicts your claim that people are scared about being seen as racist as well. You are trying to take it both ways and attempting to blame me for something that is your own mistake if it's a mistake at all.

One thing showing your bit of filth as bullshit is that several people in Barking did report on one of the perpetrators before the act and were not scared of being seen as being racists in doing so.

Re:Not blind - I can see what you are doing

[Mashiki]

Let's quote your own words to see why I wrote that:

And that moment that you're too dense to realize that the politically correct amok have been pushing "muslim = race" for over a decade, and in turn people are afraid of being labeled racist?

By the stupid argument you are attempting (which race is muslim again) no white supremicists are racist, and it also contradicts your claim that people are scared about being seen as racist as well. You are trying to take it both ways and attempting to blame me for something that is your own mistake if it's a mistake at all.

One thing showing your bit of filth as bullshit is that several people in Barking did report on one of the perpetrators before the act and were not scared of being seen as being racists in doing so.

You mean the fact that I'm reporting on reality? Kinda like all up and down the UK where girls were forced into sex gangs and traded like cheap toys and people were afraid of being labeled as racist and that was the reason that they didn't call police? And when they did call the police, the police refused to do anything for fear of having themselves labeled as racist? Or the town councils were afraid of being labeled racist so they told the police to do nothing?

I made no mistake. Either you're ignorant of what's been going on and haven't read commission reports, or royal commission reports. Or you're so young that you're just learning about this stuff for the first time.

And the police didn't pick them up despite having actual evidence that they were a ticking bomb to boot. $20 says that when the inquiry happens it'll be another case of "the police were afraid to do so because they'd be labeled racist." You're welcome to come back and visit this comment in 9mo or so.

will the also want cellphone firmware that has no

[Joe_Dragon]

will they also want cellphone firmware that has no auto wipe / pin code time lock down. So they can force update an locked phone and try code after code to unlock it?

Re:They don't use the internet

[Zocalo]

Of course they use the Internet and phones, but, other than the really dumb ones that are most likely not part of any serious group or at the very bottom of the ladder, there's not a great deal of public evidence that shows they use them for much more than the rest of us do. In the case of the more organized groups like Daesh, it's often the opposite and it seems they now actively avoid using means that can easily be monitored for planning and carrying out their activities except where it doesn't matter anymore. Daesh's leadership appears to understand OpSec and PerSec pretty well, and you can be sure they're going to be hammering that into their more immediate subordinates, if only to try and protect themselves.

There may well be mountains of classified actionable intelligence data - *something* has to be enabling all those drone strikes - but that's not much use when it comes to a member of the public forming an opinion as to whether politicians are trying to pass over-reaching surveillance legislation or not, is it? Especially if the impression J.Q. Public is getting is that most of the time it's either essentially useless until after the fact because there's just so *much* of it, and/or it didn't contain the necessary data that would have enabled the attack to be prevented in the first place.

What a joke

[Murdoch5]

Theresa May thinks she'll be able to get global social networks and application to sacrifice data integrity and encryption because some people in 2017 still think religious views, belief and devotion, is anything else then a mental illness.

Rasicalized Muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

Every terrorist attack in Europe has been done by "radicalized Muslims" in last decade. Lately, they have been proclaiming their allegiance to IS/ISIS/ISIL/the assholes with the western weapons. And IS or whatever is taking credit for it.

I try to not be a bigot (Muslim isn't a race), but when week after week of seeing more folks getting killed by a "radicalized Muslim" (reported that way by every news outlet - it's not some Fox News thing) and Andrea Merkel giving speeches where she chooses her words very very carefully, I just have to ask, What the fuck?!

And fascism is growing again - and I mean Sieg Heil! fascism.

I think the assholes who think that they are on the side of "God" and that they are going to die and get 72 virgins and an all you can eat buffet should keep in mind that they are pissing off people that have one of the most advanced economies and technologies in the World and actually have a track record of killing millions of people just because they didn't like their religion.

And these people are giving them a tangible excuse.

Some of these assholes want some sort of war with the West. They should be careful what they wish for.

Re:Rasicalized Muslim

[Maritz]

Every terrorist attack in Europe has been done by "radicalized Muslims" in last decade.

Be careful with the word 'every' or you end up seeming like your point is dumb. Islam is a problem, yes. Religion is a fucking problem in general. But people are playing right into IS' hands, going after moderates. That is precisely what they want.

So the terrorist want to cause chaos

[future assassin]

to the western culture and she's giving them their prize for their attacks by clamping down on the biggest communications invention in human history? Because we all know before the internet and telephone there were no radicals/groups/freedom fighters that could communicate secretly. Before the internet we were all safe...

Politicians don't know how to do their jobs

[gilgongo]

Too many politicians think the only way of making the world better is by legislating things in or out of existence. In response to every event, their minds turn like clockwork to the question of what laws they can pass or repeal to make the problem go away.

Before wielding the ban hammer, good politicians first consider whether they can do anything to make the use of the hammer unnecessary. In this case, how about re-considering support for Saudi Arabia, or Israel? Or how about the role of climate change, or of NGOs, or evangelical Christian groups?

If we wanted to just create laws every time something happens that we don't like, we'd do better to have robots (or hey, direct democracy) for that instead. See also "cone syndrome" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm not saying non-legislative efforts might always work, just that legislating and leaving is clearly not working. It's lazy and debases politics such that nobody believes in it any more.

Depends on the problem you're trying to solve

[rsilvergun]

if the problem is "Acts of Violence against the general population" then yeah, doesn't work. If the problem is "Theresa May isn't going to get re-elected because she's hopelessly in over her head and can't govern since she hails from a party that doesn't believe government can be effective in the first place", well, carry on then.

Sure it does

[rsilvergun]

suppressing free speech and controlling national discourse will massively help Theresa May's reelection bid.

Oh. You mean the terrorism thing. Yeah, I suppose you're right there.

Finally!

[Elixon]

- Year 2013: "BBC's websites killing Press and threatening local democracy, says Theresa May" https://goo.gl/ccgTPH
- Year 2014: "Theresa May: We need to collect communications data 'haystack'" https://goo.gl/Ew4gMf
- Year 2015: "Theresa May: Internet data will be recorded under new spy laws" https://goo.gl/1hNBdk
- Year 2016: "Theresa May's Snoopers' Charter dealt major setback as EU court rules against 'indiscriminate' collection of internet data" https://goo.gl/455OWU
- Year 2017: "Theresa May Wants A ‘New’ Internet Monitored By The Government" https://goo.gl/mGPKlx

That woman simply hates that people can freely speak through the medium she does not control!

Terrorist attack? We need more control and censorship.
Child abuse? We need more control and censorship.
Meteor heading to earth? We need more control and censorship.
Is it Sunday today? We need more control and censorship.
Nothing happened? We need more control and censorship.

why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Manchester attacker was a very recent returner from Libya,others have also been allowed to return..
If we must change laws in the UK, how about making it much more difficult to go to mid-east and then return,if you want to leave the UK,you supply a checkable itinerary of where you are going and you check in daily with local authorities,just as we make some offenders report to police in the UK,if you don't stick to itinerary or there is any doubt about what you have been doing or folk you have met,you get told before you return that you are going to lifted by border authorities and then you are going to have to prove what you have been up to,if you fail to satisfy checks, out you go,straight back to mid-east.
Another simple one is that anyone that is known to have been fighting,for any side is told/knows already,you will not be allowed back into the UK/eu, under any circumstances.
It might be racist but how many recent attackers have been white UK born national's ?
So concentrate resources on non-whites who want to leave and return,include Indians,Pakistanis, afghans etc etc,that would also help with our massive heroin problem..
I can think of lots of fairly easy,cheap ways of making life a lot more difficult/impossible for attackers, but most would be considered racist and non-pc,so stand little chance of being put in place..
Multiculturism is a joke,always was,always will be,show me just one country where it can be shown to have worked ...

Re:why ?

[Cederic]

Are you some sort of total fuckwit?

I left the UK twice last year. I'm not sure the US police would understand what the fuck I was doing if I tried to check in with them and my employer would want to know why I wasn't in the office.

I left the UK earlier this year. There were no local authorities with whom to check in. When you're inside a volcano the police tend to be too fucking sensible to open a local office for you.

Late this year or early next year I'm going to be going abroad for a couple of months. I know where I'm going only as far as I need to prepare visas and car insurance. At times I'm going to be a full day's drive from the nearest town. I'm also going to be within easy driving distance of "the middle east"; I could easily turn right and end up in Iraq, or Iran, or Afghanistan.

So concentrate resources on non-whites

No wonder you're posting anonymously. How about we focus resources on key risks, and not be bigoted racists about it.

That's all you've got?

[dfenstrate]

Uhm, no. It's not about porn. It's about control over, and access to, what people say to each other in private.

The death toll in this attack is roughly equal to the number of people who have died in the UK because of DUI. The only difference is that DUI deaths are so common and so continuous that they're rarely front page news, much less international news.

You're not particularly offended that someone actually wants to go out of their way to kill you? That's perfectly fine with you?

In the US, you have on average, 650 gun deaths per week. 500 can be attributed to 'Christians'. Less than one per week can be attributed to 'Muslim Extremists'..

Any statistic about guns cited by a milquetoast left-winger can be taken for a lie; this one is no different. For starters, "gun deaths" is a rubbish category because it's dominated by suicides; a vast majority of the remainder are gang-bangers offing each other without any sort of religious motivation. (Included in the latter are 18-25 year olds who still mysteriously qualify as 'children' for left-wing agitprop purposes). You keep whittling down the garbage in your statistic and you'll find the very rare abortion clinic murderer who actually cites service to God as his motivation; these folks are vanishingly few in a country of 300 million +.

Theresa May is Obsessed with Internet Regulation

[Deb-fanboy]

This news is no surprise. For as long as I have been reading about Theresa May she has been campaigning for more internet regulation. She was instrumental in eventually getting a UK 'Snooping Charter' on the books while she was UK Home Secretary. She is reputed to be a control freak in Government, which figures that she wants to create a new UK internet that she can control.

Her main problem is that she seems to have limited grasp of her brief, and is very exposed when she is asked unprompted questions. For example when a nurse told her that she has been on the same salary as a National Health Service Nurse as she earned in 2009, she looked the nurse in the eye and declared that there is no 'Magic Money Tree'

She has coped with her poor people skills by refusing to turn up for election debates, instead using the tame UK media, papers like the Daily Mail, and the BBC to promote her. However her lack of ability has become so obvious that what looked like a massive majority (which is the reason why she called a early election) is evaporating and it looks like the UK will enter Brexit negotiations with a hung Parliament)

To add to her problems She has refused to liaise with the Scottish Parliament to the result that they have asked for a referendum on Scottish Independence to co-inside with the end of the Brexit negotiations.

Theresa May may go down in UK history as the most incompetent Prime Minister in our long history.

The UK has talked about the knife thing

[Sycraft-fu]

They have in the past talked about banning knives of a certain size. There's a hilarious quote from a doctor that I can't find right now who claims that "Nobody needs an 8 inch knife." Of course every chef in the world is saying "U wot mate?" since an 8" chef knife is the sole most useful knife in a kitchen.

But ya, they have seriously proposed banning big knives, and this was years ago. The UK seems to have a very "Just ban objects and we'll all be safe" mentality.

Heroes

[myid]

These people are heroes:

1) A British Transport Police officer didn't have a gun. Instead of running away, he fought the terrorists with his baton.

2) As people were escaping out of the back of a restaurant, a woman stayed at the front of the restaurant. She stayed there to block the front door closed with her body, as the terrorists were trying to force their way in. Her blocking the door saved about 20 people, by giving them time to escape. After the terrorists overpowered here and forced their way in, she was able to escape.

I sometimes wonder how unselfishly brave I would be, if I were in a situation like that. I hope I'd unselfishly brave, like those two people.

Re:Heroes

[Kohath]

She stayed there to block the front door closed with her body, as the terrorists were trying to force their way in. Her blocking the door saved about 20 people, by giving them time to escape.

So keeping terrorists out of a place saves lives?

NO...

[MerlTurkin]

Fuck that. Regulate this!

Fight back

[p51d007]

London police had a flyer...run, hide, tell. SCREW that. Too bad they don't allow their own citizens to protect themselves. I have a better idea! http://s16.photobucket.com/use...

An analysis

[jd]

Claim: The Internet is used to radicalized
Evidence: None.
Observation: The place people get radicalized changes with the wind.

Claim: Terrorists use encryption
Evidence: Unless burner phones and open Skype sessions qualify... no.
Observation: Encryption is rarely even used by the military, because it's potentially vulnerable and draws attention. (I worked at SPAWAR.) Terrorists and the military far prefer staying out of sight.

Claim: Banning encryption everywhere will prevent radicalization
Evidence: People download the Anarchist's Cookbook off unencrypted sources, so.... no.
Observation: It'll also ban eCommerce, credit cards and banking. Unless the plan is to fund the psychos to death.

Claim: Tech communities aid fundamentalism
Evidence: The complete lack of technology in fundamentalist areas and the near-complete lack of fundamentalism in technological areas, so.... no.
Observation: Fundamentalists from Cyrus (bishop of Alexandria) to the heads of ISIS abhor science and technology. It's used as last-ditch. Reducing it won't affect the 95% of the problem.

Again...

[thedarb]

...fuck you. No.

We've been down that road before, it doesn't work.

[Marful]

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of Human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt, British House of Commons, November 18, 1783

Re:Another dumb fuck

[Jamu]

Every pixel in that photo is accurate, especially those four pixels where his little finger might be. It's not like it's an enlarged image of a lossy jpeg. You can clearly see that his hand is covered in barnacles, and he's holding a large glowing white crystal. Also his little finger isn't behind the crystal, it's obviously completely gone! In fact, I think I can see his missing finger in the same photo. See the woman to the left? There's a bright spot on her nose, which indicates there's an object lodged in her left nostril.

There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Demena]

The vote was made on a non-binding referendum. It wasn't 'go right ahead' it was a 'let us consider this'. If it had been advertised as binding the result may not have been the same and assuming that it would be is not democratic.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It was advertised as binding. It literally said the following in the leaflet that the government sent to every household at great expense:

This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.

Look, here's the PDF of the referendum leaflet so you can check for yourself. It's right there on page 20.

Moreover, numerous MPs said in very unambiguous terms while debating the enabling legislation for the referendum that the people should be given the final say. This is reported in Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings, and is also available for any member of the public to read. The intent of Parliament when they voted to hold the referendum was clear.

The usual argument that it was a non-binding referendum is based on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. That is a principle that most normal people (i.e., non-lawyers and non-historians) had never heard of before the referendum. It is a principle that many seem to misunderstand to this day: the historical principle is about Parliament's status as the ultimate legislative body in comparison with the monarchy or the church, not in comparison with the people, who after all are charged with electing the MPs. While parliamentary sovereignty has been assumed as a basic principle of modern UK law, it has very questionable validity when interpreted in this way. Can you find any reasonable argument for the democratic legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty as a legal principle that does not also make a vote by the electorate as a whole just as legitimate? In short, as a basis for Parliament overriding the result of a democratic referendum, this sort of argument is what gets lawyers a bad name.

You can debate the wisdom of holding the referendum in the first place, the choices offered, who was eligible to vote, and no doubt many other aspects of the whole affair, but arguing that the result was non-binding on anything but a possible legal technicality is a stretch.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Maritz]

You can debate the wisdom of holding the referendum in the first place, the choices offered

Ding ding. "Leave EU or remain in EU?"

How about customs union? (what's that?) Single market? (what's that?) Passporting? (What's that?) Schengen agreement (whats that?)

Most popular google search the friday after the vote "What is the EU?". These goons voted out because the papers made them think it would make all the foreigners go away. The British do what the Mail, Sun and Express tell them to do. Good little peons.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The referendum was on exactly one point. How the result, either way, would be implemented in detail then becomes a political question. The politicians need to figure out why people voted as they did and respect those motivations if they want to keep popular support, just like any other policy. The diplomats need to try to secure any relevant international agreements in order to implement the politicians' decisions, just like any other treaty negotiation.

I mentioned the leaflet because the person I replied to claimed that the referendum was not advertised as binding. Evidently that claim was false.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[tendrousbeastie]

All nation wide referendums in the UK are non-binding, on the principle that no other body can dictate to parliament. All referendum results are subject to a confirming vote in parliament. The EU vote was no different than others in this regard.

"There are two types of referendum that have been held by the UK Government, pre-legislative (held before proposed legislation is passed) and post-legislative (held after legislation is passed). To date the previous three UK-wide referendums in 1975, 2011 and 2016 were all post-legislative. Referendums are not legally binding, so legally the Government can ignore the results; for example, even if the result of a pre-legislative referendum were a majority of "No" for a proposed law, Parliament could pass it anyway, because parliament is sovereign."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You're welcome to continue ranting if you like, but your strong views about the process being bungled don't seem particularly relevant to the discussion the rest of us were having.

If you don't think an official document, published by the government and setting out its official position, sent at taxpayers' expense to every household, is sufficient to constitute how the referendum was advertised, then I don't know what standard you would consider acceptable but somehow I doubt anything that anyone could ever do would satisfy it.

And if you want a technical legal argument in favour of the referendum being binding, go read the Hansard comments on the second reading of the enabling legislation and then entertain yourself with Pepper v Hart for a while.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Demena]

I do not contend the legality, I contend the morality.

Re:There is a reason you are incorrect.

[Demena]

Understood

You links don't support you

[dbIII]

You've linked to things that do not support your assertions up to and including "And they're afraid of losing their job if they speak up. Of being attacked by a lynch mob on twitter for saying something"

It's kind of disgusting seeing someone actually use a tragedy to push such a petty little agenda as a "crusade against political correctness".

just Nuke isis Terirories

[wolfheart111]

when ever there is an attack use a nuke on one of their cities.

How to lose an election:

[jago25_98]

How to lose an election: Try to profit from a stabbing.

Doesn't this kind of thing backfire these days? How many times can you flog a dead horse?

Push the moderate muslims to OUR side

[KayakFun]

The old MO was:
1. Wait for a terrorist attack
2. Tweet how terrible it was
3. Put a 'pray for [insert name of city here]' picture on your FB account
4. Police arrest a few people like family but will let them go later
5. Have no clue at all when the next attack will happen, goto 1

What Theresa May said is to attack the safe space the terrorists enjoy in our society. To me this includes:
a. Close all Salafist and Wahhabist mosques in all of Europe
b. Block their bank accounts and use that money to pay victims damages and expenses
c. Kick out all their imans to outside Europe so they cannot continue underground
d. Post a notice on the closed extremist mosques where the moderate islam mosques are
e. Make it a responsibility of the moderate mosques to signal and report any extremist ideas and people.
f. Monitor the moderate mosques on their progress towards integration and open mind towards western culture and society
g. When a terrorist attack takes place close the mosque the terrorists visited for 3 months.

This puts the moderate muslims on OUR side. Which is opposite of IS and the right-wing xenophobes mutual plan to push the moderate muslims towards IS. Moderate muslims now do not feel responsible for terrorist attacks because to them Wahhabism and Salafism is not their (flavour of) religion, so they are not to blame. By shutting down all (branches of) religions that reject our society you take the rotten apple out of the basket.

Clamping down

[jandersen]

"We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," May said.

This is of course true - but this is at best only treating the symptoms and leaving the disease to fester. Introducing restrictions is what we do, when we don't know what else to do; we can give morphine to cancer patients, but any doctor would much rather be able to cure the cancer. There is a point, when only treating the symptoms becomes a sign of incompetence; I think we already know at least some of the cure that is needed to get rid of terrorism: address inequality, both at home and abroad. Of course, that may require us to be painfully honest about our own role in creating the inequalities in the first place.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan

[Dr_b_]

Because in Afghanistan, where there is no internet, they do not have terrorism.

CheapSkate

[speardane]

It's cheaper to insist the tech companies do something, than reinstating all the police jobs, the conservatives have destroyed.

Even the Daily Telegraph (one of the most right wing papers in the UK) are reporting on the drop and the security risks. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Not a word about 'net restriction?

[doccus]

On an online forum like this you would expect the very first comment to be about the impending loss of internet access. Yet, not a word. I scrolled down , and down, and gave up when all I saw were comments (although justified) about overreach against "terrists". Isn't loss of internet freedom a concern to the /. crowd at ALL ?

Re:Not a word about 'net restriction?

[doccus]

OK, looks like all the appropriate comments re internet control have been submitted by members with very low member numbers. No surprise there. You would , after all, expect that. And at least that's there, but are the newer members missing the boat here?

This will create another Snowden...

[iq145]

Or as i call him, Snowflake. Sure, a country's Constitution guarantees the freedom to share more information in the public, and the right to free speech is great... but NOT when it will cause a danger to National Security. The info Snowjob likely possesses is probably EXACTLY the kind of stuff al Qaeda wants leaked out so they can learn better of how to successfully find ways to kill Americans at will. Not to mention, maybe names and locations of counter-terrorism spies that the U.S. has out in the field infiltrating the ranks of those would-be murderers. People want to complain about the NSA and allegedly "spying" on them, but then they'll also complain about not feeling the government is doing enough to protect them from al Qaeda! The NSA is not "hiding" anything, but they'll be truly ineffective if EVERYONE knows what they're working on. They're not interested in photos of your baby or mom's recipes. Has NOBODY stopped for a moment and asked "why" the NSA has been doing what they're doing? Did people think the authorities use magic to uncover terrorist plots? Which would you prefer, "spying" on you or terrorism on you? Special Ed (a high school drop-out) did what he did for the fame (for the escape from obscurity that everyone wants... although most average people simply use Facebook).