In the UK, Possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook Is Terrorism 602
Anonymous Terrorist writes "Back in the midsts of time, when I was a lad and gopher was the height of information retrieval I read The Anarchist's Cookbook in one huge text file. Now it appears the UK government considers possession of the book an offense under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is prosecuting a 17 year old boy, in part, for having a copy of the book. 'The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000. The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year. The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.'"
Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch as they call me an extremist for suggesting that crime prevention is an absurd attempt to trade freedom for security and will *never* work.
Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a bit vague... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't this mean they can pretty much charge anyone for having any kind of information relating to Bus/train/airplane times? Software Vulnerabilities? Google Earth? The Location of the White House?
perhaps he was arrested to protect the child (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you have to be afraid of, if you're not a Terrorist?
Now that i think about it... You'd better come in for questioning, seeing as you're in on a Terrorism charge, we can hold you indefinately while we investigate which books you have.
Aaarrgh.... too much paranoia.
But... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope that accurately summed up the sheeple's confusion on this one. Of course, in reality, children (especially 17 year old ones) that break the law should be prosecuted (maybe not quite as harshly as an adult would be) and terrorism should be stamped out, but this is -neither-. The 'kid' was probably just interested in what all the hubbub was about, and thought the book was the cool thing to have.
As far as I can tell, the 'material' he had was only the book, and the 'information' he had was also the book. Unless he was actually BUILDING a bomb, he hasn't done anything wrong. In fact, from a career standpoint, he's just prepping for a good military career as a demolitions expert. (Or other demolitions expert, for that matter.) The entire world is far too quick to jump on someone for possible terrorism when they are simply going about their daily lives.
Horrible (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I the first person who gets to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the process we forget the mere possession of a book doesn't necessarily mean we're attempting to do what's written in it.
Wow, I just protested against a government policy, they better put me in jail before I kill someone.
Re:Am I the first person who gets to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Hmm, didn't know the exact text. So, in short:
People should have rights, except for when they don't
Nice.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say anyone actually attempting to use the "recipes" to make explosives should be considered suicidal rather than terrorist.
As we keep seeing, those two states of mind are far from being mutually excusive.
Re:That's a bit vague... (Score:5, Insightful)
never mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, we arrived at thoughtcrimes (Score:5, Insightful)
Could someone try to explain why knowing something is a crime? I know how to build bombs, I know how to create LSD, I have done neither. Why do I know it? Same reason man flew to the moon: It's there, and I wanted.
Did he build a bomb? Did he threaten to use it? Did he do anything resembling a crime besides wanting to know something?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, we're getting to where Pol Pot wanted to be: The dumber you are, the better citizen you are. We're really where it is becoming dangerous to know too much. Now you don't only get to be liable for something happening to you if you ought to know what you're doing, now knowledge itself is becoming illegal.
I, for one, don't welcome our new stupid overlords.
Re:He was making explosives (Score:1, Insightful)
I had obtained a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the intent of the manual was malicious, but I think I gained some insight from it. The computer stuff was obsolete by the time I had it, and the chemical stuff was shaky, at best. However, it inspired me to study science and the potential for change it possessed.
This file contributed more to my love of science than any teacher or professor I've had. Prosecuting kids for being inquisitive is a surefire way to lose one's edge in the natural sciences. Goddammit, don't fuck this up as we have.
Re:Cue the knee-jerk reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the core question of the problem is, who gets to label? Who gets to dictate what knowlege is harmful and which is good? Who may know what and why? Do you want a system in place that limits what you may learn and to what extent?
Do you think it would stop at explosives? I'm fairly sure the next thing banned would be books on the creation of drugs and medication. Close behind is pretty much anything dealing with biochemistry. Not far behind there will be knowledge for exploiting security flaws in real life locks, as well as computer programs. "Hacking" guides and tools (Germany leapt there already). Manuals explaining how fireworks and firearms work.
And so on. Where do you think it will stop? I doubt it will. After all the "dangerous" things are forbidden, companies will muscle in and do their worst to get all the knowledge outlawed that's required to escape their stranglehold, to protect their IP and markets.
Bottom line, when you open the door for outlawing knowledge, you'll soon only be permitted to know what's necessary to do your job and nothing else.
And, personally, I could rather live with 17 year olds reading the AC and getting a virtual boner over the (partly phony) "cool things" they could cook up. Knowledge alone has never hurt anyone. What it comes down to is the question how the knowledge is applied. If anyone, blame the person using it if he uses knowledge to commit a crime.
Re:ugh.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Anarchist's Cookbook is one of the few solid examples that comes to mind of a book that really should be kept away from children. The problem isn't that it might warp the mind (based on the results, there's little justification for leaving that job to parents, churches and TV). It's that the mind in question may be splattered all over the fridge if kids try cooking up some of those recipies in the kitchen.
At what point do the dangers of censorship overcome the dangers of content? I'd say 16 years of age, but I'll settle for 18 or 21.
Re:That's a bit vague... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same thing. It gives the authorities extra charges they can add to increase the severity of the punishment and make it more likely that they can secure a conviction. If the state starts sliding towards a real police state, it also allows them to arrest anyone for practically anything - for instance, for a government to have political opponents arrested, by using nebulous laws that can practically make any object "useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism". A police state would go through, say, the government opponent's garden shed and find some sodium chlorate weedkiller, and arrest the opponent on the grounds that this is an ingredient for explosives and useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.
Re:Am I the first person who gets to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
The danger is that accepting this means accepting that knowledge may be illegal.
Where does it end? (Score:4, Insightful)
This doesn't directly effect me as I don't live in the UK, but sure enough these same undercurrents are affecting my country as well. Terrorism is pushing rationality to breaking point. When I was 12 or 13 I read the Anarchist's Cookbook as well - curiosity gets you at that age. I had no plans to actually use anything from it, and it's unlikely that this kid did either. It's the same interests that lead me to the summer camp that taught us how to make gun powder (shock horror you say in this post 9/11 world!) - science, chemistry and that little pyromaniac who lives inside of every one of us.
The real worry that is brought forth here is that in this case merely the possession of knowledge is a crime. I'm sorry, but a chemistry book I have lists gunpowder and some pretty volatile reactions too - will they charge me with possession of that? I have another Manifesto [wikipedia.org] - am I now a political dissident too? As they whittle down the prerequisites to treated as criminals we shall soon discover more and more of us come under scrutiny...
"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."
PS. Sorry to Godwin this, but in this case it's actually relevant. =]
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I just protested against a government policy, they better put me in jail before I kill someone.
They would, but the jails are all overcrowded, so there just isn't space...
This all just sounds barmy to me. There was probably more information useful for bomb-making in my A-level chemistry textbook (which I read at the age of 17) than in the Anarchist's Cookbook. Perhaps we should arrest everyone studying chemistry (and presumably physics, engineering...). And anyway, what self-respecting geek didn't read some book or other with a similarly provocative title at that age?
There are words that describe attempting to keep knowledge from the population, and criminalising people just for reading or watching something. There are words that describe governments that do it, too. But I guess they only apply to the bad guys, and our government are obviously the good guys.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaarrgh.... too much paranoia.
It's only paranoia if they're not out to get you.
As the current administration has so capably demonstrated, it has no qualms about going after anyone. There was a story just last week about armed police taking two disabled guys down to the station and questioning them because they had the audacity to sit outside their local pub having a drink, open an item of mail, and look at the (heavily armed) police officers nearby. They were just outside the Labour Party conference — the same event, IIRC, where an 82-year-old, long-time member of the party and Holocaust survivor was forcibly ejected a couple of years ago for daring to heckle the man who took us into a highly dubious war, and then preventing from re-entering under the same Terrorism Act referred to in this story, and the following day an elected MP's camera was wiped because he had taken pictures of the queues to get in. Apparently that individual has enough backing that the people are willing to elect him their representative and let him make law on their behalf, yet he can't be trusted with a couple of photos of his own. Was that security, or just trying to prevent politically damaging material leaking out?
Re:Remind me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quit sensationalizing everything (Score:1, Insightful)
After the 7/11 thing in the US, Blair tried to use terrorist Retoric to get more funding for his pet projects. (ID cards ect)
Having spend 50 years with Irish Terrorists, the UK population werent quite ready at that time to swallow it.
The only way people swallowed all this crap, is if its liberally spread with a layer of bullshit.
Unfortunately, it looks like they are.
Order of evaluation problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. (possession of material) for terrorist purposes
and
2. possession of (material for terrorist purposes)
where material = information
It's not clear from the post which of these is the intended meaning of the law. From the article, it seems the guy was doing a lot more than just reading. So, it sounds like #1 is the basis for the arrest, and #2 might not have been applied yet (at least not by this case). It does make you wonder if "reading in a web browser" would fit #2...
--
IANAL, but I play one occasionally just so I know what it would be like to hate myself.
terror is a tactic, and we use it too (Score:5, Insightful)
Police live by this tactic, they don't call it that but they know they can't catch everyone so they grab someone and throw the book at them once and a while to send a message.
And take nuclear terrorism, we (the US) INVENTED it. We didn't have enough bombs to level Japan, but we acted like we did and pretty much everyone turning blue in the face over 'the terrorists' these days would say it was a good thing (it probably did save millions of Japanese lives, you have to admit that- they weren't exactly ready to give up). Of course, that wasn't the only city we leveled. Some we leveled more or less to send a message. Some cities weren't great military or industrial centers and were relatively untouched in targeted bombing, so they just made that much more of a statement when the whole thing burned to the ground one night in a massive firestorm.
At any rate, someone in the government needs to look up 'moral superiority' in a dictionary fast. All this emphasis on 'Terrorism (tm)' just makes us look like hypocrites, when we, in strict numerical terms have killed far more old men, women and children than Al Queda ever has (not that they're not working on it...). That's just a fact. Americans have killed lots of innocent people and when you look at the justifications, you cannot deny that many of these people were killed simply to scare, demoralize and disorient our enemies. Sure we were fighting Nazis, but we forget sometimes 'the good war' was pretty much the most unholy fucking disaster to ever befall mankind. Taking the lesser evil, even the far lesser one, requires one to do evil, and we only came out 'clean' by comparison. Al Queda are horrible people and they need to die, but just saying they're terrorists and we're not isn't going to convince anyone other than ourselves.
Al Queda chops people's fucking heads off if they shave or sneak a sip of whiskey. It should NOT have been hard to convince the Arab world these people are a dead end. You see, it's a simple (but not easy) war to win- the moderates who make up the majorities of these countries turn against the extremists. We just had to help them- and yet we couldn't even do that. It was a PR war all along and we lost it so fast no one noticed. We've been so determined to hunt grasshoppers with our howitzers, we missed a pretty obvious point: the average modern war, even one conducted with restraint, is a absolute PR nightmare. So much so, I often wonder if Al Queda WANTED us to invade Afghanistan.
Soft power used to be our greatest asset, you know, the Statue of Liberty, Elvis records, cheeseburgers. That's what really brought down the Iron Curtain, enough people finally saw us and said, 'screw this, we're doing it their way'. Our enemies were dying to hang themselves and when they had enough rope the alternative for their oppressed people was obvious.
Nowadays in the Muslim word, seeing your broken Government and thinking it would be great to do things the American way is a good way to get your head chopped off. So if they fall, it sure won't be the democratic types taking over.... We've conducted the worst advertising campaign for democracy in the history of democracy and are clearly our own worst enemy.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quit sensationalizing everything (Score:3, Insightful)
Any specific meals you can suggest? Personally I'm more than happy to eat: Steak & Kidney Pie, roast potatoes & mashed swede
Roast Beef 7 Yorkshire Pudding
Fry up with Black Pudding, bacon, eggs etc
Shepherds Pie
Steak & Ale pie
Cheese 7 onion Pie
Welsh/Buck Rarebit
Liver & Bacon
etc.
religion? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Quit sensationalizing everything (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm reminded of Robin Williams... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Like many things in life, it isn't that simple. Saying crime prevention will never work is far too glib. I lock my car doors to prevent the crime of grand theft auto, and so far my car hasn't been stolen.
Re:Quit sensationalizing everything (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the traditional food isn't bland. But because of the limitations on the food available during World War II, the food was bland then. A whole generation grew up expecting food to be like that, and they set the current stereotype of British food. That generation is passing, though, and British food has been getting better, fast, since the early 1980s. Sure, you can still get crap if you want it (although I think that some American fast-food chains are the worst for that -- I won't name names because at least one of them is litigious, but I bet you can guess). The important thing, though, is that there's a choice again.
What would traditional American food be, by the way? I don't know anything about Native American cuisine.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:terror is a tactic, and we use it too (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:terror is a tactic, and we use it too (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:He was making explosives (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that this means he had a pound of fertilizer, half a pound of ice-melter, and some gross but widely-distributed web videos? Oh, and he visited a country that is supposedly our closest ally in the "War On Terror."
Nice sensationalism there.
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lock all the doors you want there will still be theft.
Make any drug you want illegal there will still be some users.
Trade all the freedom you want there will still be terrorism.
Anyway, it's all smoke and mirrors cars kill far more people than terrorist's and most people don't seem to care that much. IMO the reason people care has more to due with movies than any real threat. IMO the fastest way to render them meaningless is to ignore them. (Aka remove them from political speeches, TV, video games, and movies.)
The goal should be to balance risks and the effort you expend reducing them. You should not assume any one solution is going to work all the time.
PS: The same thing happens in software. Most programmers assume RAM is going to work etc but sometimes that machine calculates 2+2 and gives you 18.
he's being tried for possession of materials ... (Score:3, Insightful)
>>> "The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year.
The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism. "
So basically the Police are charging him with "possession of materials" that are modified for, or clearly indicate, terrorist activity (they'd just observe him otherwise to wait for some real evidence and look for co-conspirators, etc.). The fact he had the anarchist cookbook just means that they can also accuse him of "possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism".
Now whether that second charge requires the information to be being used to prepare for an apparent act of terrorism or not I don't know. But the BBC article seems quite clear that the possession of information is secondary.
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments and police forces around the world are getting access to ever more effective methods for non violently controlling crowds and neutralising protests. These methods include simply more active policing - photography, stopping people before they reach the main area of protest and the more hi tech things in development - heat rays etc.
I think this will lead to a situation where one of the main pillars of the generally effective method of overthrowing regimes, mass public protest and rioting, will become less and less viable which will cause any sensible would be rioters to turn immediately to terrorism.
Re:Quit sensationalizing everything (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe in the Inquest it came out that the police were wearing chemical suits during the raid, including thick padded gloves. The officer who fired the shot doesn't remember pulling the trigger - he said he couldn't feel anything due to his heavy anti-terrorism outfit.
Free men... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He was making explosives (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing that you're either ignorant of the number of Islamic extremists that have been further indoctrinated and received terrorism training in Pakistan recently. Or is it that you just don't care?
Three of the four 7th July suicide bombers that killed 52 people had done so. This kid may well have done so as well. Should the security services wait until people have blown themselves up before lifting a finger? Or should they, hmmm, try to stop things before they get that far?
It's not as if police in Britain randomly pick muslim families to harass. This kid's name came up somewhere as a result of some security operation and it raised red flags. Upon investigation he was found to have had bomb-making gear under his bed, etc, etc, and a case was built from there.
He now has his day in court and the Crown Prosecution Service can make their case for his guilt and he can make his case for his innocence, and he'll be given ample opportunity to tell the court his story. It's not like he's been summarily found guilty of anything or indefinitely thrown in a hellhole without any legal recourse.
This is justice working as it should be working. What part of that do you really object to?
Oh, by the way, I know that you were joking with your "Pakistan = Axis of Evil" line but it's closer to the truth than you realise. It was the only country in the world to recognise and support the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, it's chief nuclear weapons scientists gave nuclear secrets to North Korea to help them develop their own nukes, and muslim extremist and other groups backed by Pakistan have committed several terrorist attacks in India (killing plenty in the process). And, of course, Pakistan been a dictatorship for some time now.
If Pakistan didn't already have nukes then it would have been on the US's shit list a long time ago. But, as it does, the US supports the illegitimate military dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf rather than risk the alternative, which would potentially be a radical muslim state armed with nukes.
In many ways Musharraf and Pakistan today are analogous to Saddam Hussein and Iraq pre-1990: Western-backed military dictatorships in heavily armed muslim countries where abuses of power are ignored because of a "hey, he's a mad dog but at least he's our mad dog" attitude.
Finally, I'll point out that we don't execute people in Britain, not even convicted terrorists. And we certainly don't execute convicted children. Ironically, abolishing the death penalty for children is one good thing that Pakistan has done recently.
Now, if only Musharraf would get on the phone and convince his good buddy Dubya that it's time for the US to stop executing children as well...
Re:Trying to figure out your reading algorithm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you Reduce, you've Prevented some. Maybe that's not as good as Preventing all, but just becuase Preventing all isn't a reachable goal doesn't mean that Preventing some is worthless.
Chris Mattern
We were taken to the cleaners..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly. No one in the world cared much about Afghanistan. But Iraq, that was a different matter.
Iraq and Iran had been fighting each otherfor the last ten years. America supported Iraq in an attempt to knock the stuffing out of Iran. So Iran wanted Iraq overthrown.
Do you remember all those stories about Iraq looking for Uranium, and planning 'weapons of mass destruction'? Where do you think they came from? Yup, planted by SAVAK and MOIS. We knew so little about the area, we walked into a classic patsy feed.
Iran knew that, once the Ba'ath party had been ousted, Shiites were the most numerous group in Iraq and, properly led, would take the country over. That's what's happening. And soon Iraq will merge with Iran, and Iran will be the biggest power in the region.
The Kurds in the north are due to be slaughtered by the Turks. That's beginning right now.
Our problem is that we can't elect anyone intelligent. You heard it here first!
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the single most effective methodology for countering Anarchism and Terrorism would be good governance. But it seems nearly impossible for people who acquire political power to govern wisely and effectively. The quickly become drunk on their power. They tax one group to line the pockets of another. They persecute one group to curry favor with another. They make Anarchists and Libertarians look good by comparison, more so everyday.
UK = police state (Score:3, Insightful)
However, there is a healthy population of outlaws. Dope smoking, movie downloading, blowing things up and dancing all night are alive and well
Britain is basically two countries in one. The mainstream media, with its split personality (turning ordinary people into mindless, celebrity-obsessed chavs and simultaneously castigating them for being that way) created the whole mess (and look at this from 2001 [tvtropes.org] for an example of mainstream-media hypocrisy
Re:UK = police state (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can definitely 100% guarantee this ship is unsinkable in most circumstances. GP is correct - REDUCE != PREVENT. You're using them in a different context and trying to equate the meanings.
You can reduce the incidence of *all* GTA but you can not prevent *all* GTA.
You can prevent a *portion* of GTA by locking your car doors.
And finally, do you think that locking your car doors really prevents you car from being stolen? Locks, keys, alarms, etc. serve to prevent CASUAL or PETTY crime (swiping the change from your ash tray or the leather jacket in your back seat). Any serious criminal that wants to steal your new mercedes is going to. The key, engine kill, alarm, remote starter, and on-star will prevent a joyride. But a professional simply pops the hood and cuts out the battery and then flat-beds the car to a chop shop.
Same thing with terrorism. You're going to spend trillions of dollars and hurt millions of people preventing negligable crimes (compared to say, homicide) while the "real" terrorists will still likely accomplish whatever they set out to.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Queue the outraged moderates.. (Score:4, Insightful)
- The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response from the victim in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
- Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.
- A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.
I draw your attention to (3). TBH, I can barely remember the time or place to hit Europe, but I can clearly see the response every day. Extra police at every turn, increasing armed (dunno what you guys in the States think of this, but it freaks me out). When I was a kid, there was a lot of talk about the IRA [wikipedia.org], and I remember town centers being closed because of bomb scares, but the IRA did not dominate national policy the way "Al Qaeda" does now. Shame really, I used to readCould be anything (Score:3, Insightful)
The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.
That could be anything. A road map, rail pass, bus ticket, blueprints...just about anything on paper could be useful in preparing an act of terrorism.
This whole war on terror is getting loony. The real terrorists are probably laughing their ass off watching us twist ourselves in knots.
Re:Terrorism or Suicide? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UK = democratic police state (Score:4, Insightful)
While it is true that they do occasionally have elections in the UK, calling the country a democracy is stretching the point:
The upper house is completely unelected, and composed of a mixture of aristocrats (albeit very few now), bishops, and political appointees. But since i t has an oversight function, let's ignore that and focus on the main issue.
The House of Commons is elected by a first past the post system which inherently ignores 50% of votes. Thanks to - deliberate or not - gerrymandering, it actually ignores a majority of voters, leading to the absurd, not to mention profoundly anti-democratic situation that the country is ruled by a party that had only 35.2% of the popular vote [wikipedia.org]!
> The UK is in many ways what I fear the US becoming -- a country governed by fear of insecurity and a more orderly form of mob rule.
Sadly I don't see the US as less paranoia driven than the UK. By the time you add the extra dash of ignorance that dominates US public life, your odds don't look much better than ours IMHO.