RC Plane Attack 'Foiled,' Say German Authorities 233
garymortimer writes with this excerpt from Sky News as carried by Yahoo UK: "German authorities are holding two men of Tunisian origin who they say are facing possible charges for the 'preparation of a serious, state-threatening act of violence.' Prosecutors say the men are suspected of 'procuring information and objects to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,' prosecutors added. Police investigating the terror plot on Tuesday launched a series of raids in Stuttgart and Munich in southern Germany and Saxony in the east. They also carried out one raid in Belgium. No-one was arrested. The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected 'an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft,' according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency."
i always wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i always wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've come to the conclusion the authorities don't need any evidence to accuse you of terrorism.
Threat from r/c planes (Score:5, Insightful)
What's coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Say goodbye to RC as a hobby.
Re:Hyperbole, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he did not.
The most important thing you can learn in history is the difference between causation and occasion. Several of the european powers were already looking for war and would have taken any other excuse to start it. Against any other backdrop of politics, the assassination would've been headlines for two days and then forgotten.
Saying that Princip started WW1 is like saying that Caesar conquered Britain: A useful shortcut but as "Caesar" really only led the army that did the actual conquering so did Princip only provide the spark that ignited the fire others had been busy building up for many years.
And people wonder why Snowden is a hero? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoah there, fellas! So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?
I realize the FP doesn't involve the US, but I also thought Germany had gotten rid of the whole Stasi thing back when the wall came down.
Evidently not.
Re:As I sit here pondering.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if the German government stores a database of every one of their citizens phone?
They don't need to. If you have a court order, the ISPs (which do have such databases) will provide the details you need.
Why can the Germans catch Islamic extremists using remote control planes, but the American government cannot catch Islamic extremists using pressure cookers?
Because, if you read TFA, these guys had been under observation for a year already. Basically, one of two things happened:
Either, the police decided that they won't learn anything new by further observation, or discover any more parts of the network, so to wrap things up and close the case, they arrested the guys and called it a day.
Or, politicians in charge needed something to distract. You see, they always keep stuff in store for that purpose. Pispers says it very nicely (on a different topic):
http://youtu.be/qRWAyM26YV8?t=5m42s [youtu.be] (english subs)
Re:Threat from r/c planes (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorists only need to do enough to make people fear.
With news stories and government reactions like this, that's setting the bar pretty low.
Hell, the governments themselves are doing a bang up job of making people fear without any real terrorists.
Re:Hyperbole, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
These days, an RC plane can carry quite a bit of payload. And if you actually knew explosives and could construct a shaped charge then you could reasonably damage a fairly hard target with one. That is, after all, what a cruise missile is; an RC plane with autonomous capabilities.
Maybe if you could manufacture something like C4 and pack it into a large RC plane you could cause some minor infrastructure damage. But your average common-man's explosives (pipe bombs, pressure cookers, etc) would do little more than spray people with shrapnel and break windows. Yeah, you could hurt some people, even kill some, but this is hardly a threat to the state. An individual or small group could do far more damage with a little arson...starting a building or a forest on fire for example.
Stopping losers, not real terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?
Right. Most FBI-reported "terrorist plots" [motherjones.com] are like that, especially the ones that involve informers. They get a report of some loser mouthing off about blowing up something, and they investigate. They get some informer close to the jerk and encourage the wannabe to push their plan forward, often providing resources to help. Then they arrest the loser and announce they've foiled a "terrorist plot".
The most notable example of this kind of FBI activity was the "terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower" [nytimes.com] in 2006. Even the FBI Director said it was "more aspirational than operational".
When Al-Queda set up the 9/11 attacks, they had good operational security. Nobody talked in public about the plan, and many of the participants didn't know the details until hours before takeoff. What the FBI is doing wouldn't stop a real terrorist organization.