Man Who Downloaded Bomb Recipes Jailed For 2 Years 741
chrb writes "Asim Kauser, a 25-year-old British man, has been jailed for two years and three months for downloading recipes on how to make bombs and the toxin ricin. Police discovered the materials on a USB stick Asim's father gave to them following a burglary at the Kauser family home. Asim pled guilty and claimed that he only downloaded the materials because he was curious. A North West Counter-Terrorism Unit spokesman said, 'I also want to stress that this case is not about policing people's freedom to browse the Internet. The materials that were downloaded were not stumbled upon by chance — these had to be searched for and contained very dangerous information that could have led to an explosive device being built.'"
Maybe somebody set him up the bomb? (Score:3, Funny)
where do I turn myself in (Score:5, Funny)
So I got this copy of the "Anarchist Cookbook", is this terrorism?
Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF? (Score:2, Funny)
2 Years seems a bit drastic, when a month or two would have been better for preventing polarization. As an American, of course, I find this antithetical to my values.
I'm wondering if you're just being sarcastic about Guantanamo bay. Ironically, Americana don't really do irony.
Re:Sad day (Score:4, Funny)
Um.. They died centuries ago. Congrats on keeping up with the news.
You may also be interested to hear that Henry Tudor is no longer married to Anne Boleyn. And a "New World" has been discovered across the Atlantic Ocean. Stay tuned to hear whether that place turns out to be interesting.
Re:What about rocker scientists? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, anyone who can intentionally build a chair that is not meant to be stable is a terrorist in my book.
Re:Arrested for knowledge? WTF? (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm, I'll compromise a hair and say I don't mind needing a passport for visiting entirely different countries. After all, escaping to South America is the legendary trick used for 200 years by suspects, whereupon they invoke Nelson's HaHa. (At least Canada has one government, possibly saner than ours. You could tie up $100,000 in diplomatic costs in South America if you didn't need a passport and were on the run.
Going to Canada without papers was an easy thing, almost like going to another state - only briefly quizzed where and why you were going, at the crossing and usually that was good enough. Had my car searched a couple times, but that was the worst of it (and that's still a possibility, so no real change there.)
"Where are you going?" "Toronto." "What for?" "To throw money around and take advantage of the exchange rate, before the US dollar tanks against the Loonie." "How long will you be there?" "Until I run out of money." "Have a good trip and enjoy yourself!"
That was about the way of it.