Spanish Judge Cites Use of Secure Email As a Potential Terrorist Indicator 174
An anonymous reader writes Is it possible that using secure email services can be construed as an indicator of being a terrorist? Although it's a ridiculous notion that using secure email implies criminal activities, a judge cited that reason to partially justify arrests in Spain. In December, as part of "an anti-terrorist initiative" Operation Pandora, over 400 cops raided 14 houses and social centers in Spain. They seized computers, books, and leaflets and arrested 11 people. Four were released under surveillance, but seven were "accused of undefined terrorism" and held in a Madrid prison. This led to "tens of thousands" participating in protests. As terrorism is alleged "without specifying concrete criminal acts," the attorney for those seven "anarchists" denounced the lack of transparency.
What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score:1)
First Cameron, now this judge. What's going on? You used to be cool.
Re: What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score:2, Insightful)
Our economic colonisator pushes us continuously in directions our real leaders don't want to. Even my own government is a bunch of puppets nowadays, controlled by money and fear.
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Our economic colonisator pushes us continuously in directions our real leaders don't want to. Even my own government is a bunch of puppets nowadays, controlled by money and fear.
it's that, and that current spanish government is actually a bunch of far right (mostly ultracatholic) fanatics. the judicial system is pretty full with those anyway since franco times. not that there are no "reasonable" judges, there are, but rarely in influential positions and they get promptly bullied out of the system if they irritate the bosses.
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Cameron was never cool. He may be cold before he can do any serious harm if there is a merciful god, but cool he was never.
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Fascism is on the raise, again. The US is leading this charge towards doom though.
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Actually, most Nazis that had some useful skill were gobbled up by the US. SO in a sense, they finally are succeeding with the invasion.
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Europe is doing what Europe has always done. They believe that rights are something granted by the king so they can be revoked whenever the king wants them revoked. In modern Europe they replace "king" with "government" but the principle remains the same. Only libtards in the US have been unable to recognize that this was the case.
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Europe was never cool when it came to freedom of speech. First it was Holocaust denial laws, then it was generic hate speech laws, these days they have laws against "infringing upon human dignity of another" in some countries. And their constitutions, for those countries which have them, while usually containing an explicit clause protecting free speech, also contain numerous blanket exceptions to it that basically boil down to "speech is free so long as it's not inconvenient, and what's inconvenient can ch
Re:What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as a European taxpayer seeing how the US saves and protects countries all over the world, I can cheerfully say that no matter how bad it gets, we can always rely on the US to meddle and make it worse.
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This is why Europe is in permanent decline, and is basically turning into Latin America of the 80s.
The US didn't make this Judge say anything. It didn't lobby the Spanish government to actually do anything. It has absolutely nothing to do with the decision. Yet, instead of blaming the people you should blame (i.e.: the politicians the Spanish people chose to elect) you're blaming the US.
You aren't going to fix the problem by blaming it on a country thousands of miles away. That country is actually a) speci
Re:What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score:4, Informative)
"It didn't lobby the Spanish government to actually do anything"
Well, you are wrong. USA *do* lobby Spanish government: at the very least, the Monsanto, copyright, "free" commerce... cases are fully documented.
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Oh please, this would by no means be the first time the US tries to meddle with Spanish politics. From Mosanto to CIA flights to "suggestion" that examinations of Gitmo should be opposed... I'd be very surprised if the government there isn't the inofficial branch of the US government already.
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Let's look at this logically. You are either right or you are wrong.
Assume you are right: Blaming the US is incredibly dumb tactics because the only people who will care about this are Spaniards who can't vote in US elections. The person you should be blaming is the Prime Minister of Spain, who could fix it tomorrow. You could conceivably blame both, and get increased leverage from associating him with American meddling, but your original post did not even mention the PM's name or party. As is posts like th
Re: What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh you are one of those thinking that USA won the war alone? Without any help from these awful russian communists for example. I rather believe that the Russians won that one... But again. USA won clearly the battle of propaganda.
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And Stalin was trying so hard...
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that's very unfair. us of course won the propaganda war and pursued it's own interests, but the fact is they were decisive in saving our european asses from some very nasty shit had it prevailed, and it cost many americans their lives. show some respect.
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The reasons hardly matter when you consider that the US is the only reason that western European countries didn't spend fifty years as shithole Russian client states like your brothers and sisters in the Eastern Bloc had to. Never mind Japan, which would have become North Korea with weirder cartoons.
Somehow I'm guessing that if time travel is ever invented, you're not going to go go back to 1942 and tell us to get lost.
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Pearl Harbor (and the simultaneous attacks across the Western Pacific) is why we got into the war against Japan.
The US was effectively in a state of war against Germany starting in September 1941, when FDR gave the order that US ships were to attack German ships on contact. This was undeclared, but definitely war. The German Navy responded, and sank a few US warships.
At that point, US rearmament was not well enough advanced for US troop and aircraft deployment to be useful. When the US formally went
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And russia did all that absolutely no help from the US, right? Please read history again and don't skip all the good parts this time.
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Stupid Americans. They didn't realize that they too could have gotten rid of most of their "social problems" by throwing them into the meat-blender. And don't get me started on that whole democracy thing they have to waste so much time on...
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True, but it was certainly not out of the good of their heart because we're such lovely fellows. What the US tried (successfully) to prevent was to give Stalin an ice-free harbor. That's basically what the wars that followed were all about.
Russia lacks one thing a superpower needs if it wants to go to war: A harbor to resupply and repair at that can be used all year long and that cannot be easily rendered useless by its enemy. Russia, in all its size, does not have that. Up around Finland? Nope, frozen shut
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Wow, just wow.
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Fine next time the Germans get board and try to take over the world again we will be sure to keep that in mind.
But we Europeans will have to try to piss off the Japanese first to make you do something useful anyway.
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Well, we just followed the lead of the British and French politicians and remained out of it until we were directly attacked. I wasn't alive back then but I've never once read about the Brits and French jumping in to protect the Poles and Dutch.
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A few historical clarifications.
The US was in an undeclared war with Germany from September 1941, and not really doing all that well. The US Army and Army Air Force were not yet in shape to engage the Germans until some time later. This was before we were directly attacked.
Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to the German invasion of Poland, not actually waiting until they were attacked. They immediately started attacking Germany, rather ineffectually. Poland was conquered before
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Aren't you Europeans always laughing at Americans because they think 80 years is a long time?
we are not insensitive clods. the fact that the average american doesn't live up to 80 years despite living in the land of plenty is just sad. we would never laugh at that!
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Of course you are... You laugh at how we prize our freedoms and rights as you happily forget you even have any.
Kind of expected this logic from the goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Since governments tap and read everything; if they can't read it, according to them you must be hiding something.
If you are hiding something, you don't trust the government.
If you don't trust the government, you must be a terrorist.
Other people have nothing to hide in their eyes.
Re:Kind of expected this logic from the goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust is a two way street. Give me a reason to trust you, government. And bluntly, hiding all kinds of negotiations that will affect me, not only their details but also the fact THAT you negotiate with other states and even corporations, is not going to make me trust you.
What about TTIP? Got anything to hide or why the secrecy?
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Governments do not deserve trust. They are acting like pathological liars, thieves and psychopaths, all rolled into one. Why else would they insist on ever expanding their power and surveillance infrastructure. They are afraid of the population, because deep down all these government actors know where true evil can be found, namely in them. They have a deep existential fear that those governed could realize the true nature of those doing the governing.
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Governments do not deserve trust, but it has nothing to do with "evil". No institution should be trusted, it should be evaluated according to its purpose, actions and outcomes; whenever any of those is inappropriate, insufficient, or inefficient, the institution should either be altered to better serve people, or it should be eliminated and if necessary replaced.
This is true for governments, bureaucracies, businesses, trade unions, religions and religious organizations, even book clubs. The concept of trust
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Note that I assigned "evil" to people, not organizations.
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Really? The problem with government is that the people in it are "evil"? Are you twelve years old?
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And as soon as people really have a choice when they vote, we can talk about it.
Well, then again, why should the people get a choice, it's not like politicians had one.
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"The thing that you're forgetting is that you could run for office if you think you're so much better?"
Yes, someone could run for office. But would stand a chance without public visibility and media campaign funded by the powers-that-be?
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So by your reasoning... either you are an elected official anonymously trolling nerds on the internet, or you are perfectly happy with everything the government is doing and have no desire to see it changed. Which is it?
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Huh? It makes sense in Spain but not in France?
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You keep using that word [wiktionary.org]; I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Indeed. And incidentally, any halfway smart person does not trust their government these days, but sees what is really going on: greed, stupidity, megalomania, fear of a population that may have its own ideas, etc. Don't remember who said it first, but those in power have indeed banded together against those that they are supposedly accountable to.
The whole mind-set is paranoid and fascist. And it is getting stronger. The last time this happened, we had a global catastrophe, namely WWII, that nearly managed
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So that's why Slashdot has had broken formatting when opening subthreads in new tabs recently!
What agency is fighting this dastardly Betaist plot?
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My mother works in a library. She was telling me about some idiot who printed a letter taunting police, saying he would stab 10 people and they couldn't stop him. He then went and stabbed one person before being caught. At his trial he complained that library staff hadn't noticed what he was doing and reported it to the police, thus foiling his plan for infamy.
This generated a bullshit piece in the local newsrag about how library staff "let" him do it using public property. Of course, library staff are trai
Yet another click-bait story by Timothy (Score:5, Insightful)
Will all potentially dangerous terrorists use secure mail: Yes, thanks to Snowden, they know that unsecured electronic communication will get them identified.
Do other people use secure mail: Yes, some of us have our reasons.
Do most people use secure mail: No. Most people don't care enough.
Does using secure mail automatically make one a terrorist in the eyes of a spanish judge: No, but it does let him quickly winnow out those who might need another look.
Is this a bullshit story: Yup, click-bait right up there with Timothy's usual confusion of correlation & causation.
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The joke is that potentially dangerous terrorists have since found other ways of communications. They simply fly to their top nutters instead to get their orders, then form small local cells with personal contact. No need for anything that could possibly be tapped.
Ask the French how their total surveillance worked out as a terrorist early warning system.
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I'm french & don't have to ask. Nor do I think that any security is perfect. Flagging the use of a relatively little used communication method for further investigation is a practical and common sense decision, no matter what Timothy and his simplistic buddies think.
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If Sony Pictures had used secure email, the hack might not have leaked so much information.
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You think that use of an external email system that claims it's secure makes it so? That's cute...
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Where did I say any such thing? I said if they used a secure email system. Read it as "actually secure". You know, the sort of thing that the judge claims is a sign of terrorism.
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Ah, but you can make a blanket statement saying that "secure" email could have saved Sony from embarrassment. Why? Apparently because it's "secure". Why is it secure? Because. Again, that's cute, as is your contention that use of secure email is what makes a judge think that you are a terrorist instead of just meriting a closer look. Ahhh to have such a simplistic worldview...
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By definition, secure email would have solved much of their problem. Had it not, it would be insecure email. You seem desperate to find an insult for me in there even if you have to make it up.
So I'll pretend you said booger dukey and say you have the mentality of a 4 year old. Feel better now?
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Again with the simplistic overgeneralizing and again making blanket statements. Every email system is secure until it isn't and it isn't the assurances of the vendors (nor yours with it's infantile references) that changes this essential fact. Sony thought that their email was safe. You probably think that you use an impenetrable system given how childishly petulant you behave when I call it's security into question. Your confidence in your Impenetrable secure is as childish as your snot references.
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I guess no word means anything at all as far as you're concerned anyway. Since you can possibly imagine a scenario where the sun won't rise tomorrow, there is no such thing as sunrise.
Take your pedantry elsewhere.
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Why don't you explain exactly what it is in your "secure" email (besides faith that is) that would have preserved Sony from being compromised by a system level zero day or an insider attack, hmmm? Oh, sorry, that appears to be what you call pedantry. I should expect more snot comments & not reasoned debate I suppose.
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Yup, click-bait
Indeed. Those arrested had explosives and/or poison gas in their posession. Nice sensationalism. And predictable responses from a gang that would rather be outraged than look beneath the surface for something of substance.
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OTOH, police the world over have a bad tendency to interpret an exclusive test as inclusive.
For example, all DNA can say for certain WRT a crime is that you were never there (so you are excluded). Finding your DNA doesn't actually mean much (it doesn't even necessarily mean you were ever there) because there are far too many innocent ways it might get there yet it seems to be treated as incriminating by detectives and prosecutors.
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You need to watch less TV docudrama and talk to more people in the justice system.
Cops & Defense/District Attorneys are well aware of the limitations of DNA (even though many jurors aren't)? DNA, like fingerprints mean nothing to a case if the implicated people have reasonable reasons for them being found. Do you really think DA's try to surprise the defense by trumpeting "The accused's DNA was found on the crime scene" when they suspect a guy killed his wife in their home?!? No, it's when the proof is
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I'm getting this from the news and from actual court transcripts, not fiction. If anything, the fiction shows give forensics, prosecutors and police far too much credit for doing it right. They don't 'vote' on the results in CSI like the FBI lab does.
Based on what we now know about the reliability of witnesses, particularly in conjunction with standard questioning techniques, jurors SHOULD be demanding ironclad scientific evidence.
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Really? You've determined that in general, "police the world over have a bad tendency to interpret an exclusive test as inclusive" because you're "getting this from the news and from actual court transcripts" and you have done this over enough cases to be sure that this is a general conclusion you can make and not the sensational exceptions? Ok, then, just how many court transcripts is it that you claim to have read and the percentage of these in which police are performing as you claim?
Having talked to peo
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There sure seem to be a lot of specific exceptions. Especially given tyhat the standard is supposed to be beyond reasonable doubt.
I will happily share in-depth research with you when you start happily writing me paychecks.
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I doubt you have any in depth research. For whatever reason you care to justify, you're cherry picking and overgeneralizing from exceptions.
Nobody says it doesn't happen but your inability to see what is the norm and what isn't says much about your prejudices.
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It's not that big of a deal since they're going to use the same pathetically weak password on any site that they can still get into.
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shhhhh (Score:4, Funny)
While we're at it, whispering is also highly suspicious and should be illegal.
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Or even worse: Not saying anything at all! We really and urgently need the technology to mind-read!
This place (Score:2)
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From the governments' point of view, it most likely does.
Come and arrest our customers and us (Score:2)
How to make a profit? (Score:1)
1. Fund some hot headed people and wait for results.
2. Claim that secure email is bad and more surveillance is needed over countries.
3. ?
4. Profit
Fear (Score:2)
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Indeed. People that have not mastered their emotions have no business leading anything.
Yes, like thay say (Score:1)
when encryption is outlawed only outlaws will have encryption
Mail between exchanges (Score:2)
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Do end-to-end encryption with PGP/GnuPG.
Using a supposedly secure email provider is, in most cases, not secure. It may be secure for a while, but eventually the provider gets threatened in some way and the security goes away and the scum that cannot abide secrets (government, law enforcement) gets their dirty little grubby fingers on everything. Not many will have the personal integrity to do what Ladar Levison of Lavabit did, namely shutting the service down under great personal risk and at great cost. Mo
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"A bad deficiency we still are having is that the mail traffic between mail exchange servers is typically unencrypted."
No, it is not a deficiency but a feature as it highlights that anything but end-to-end encryption is pure rubish (and end-to-end encryption is not so perfect considering that at least one of the two ends can be already pwned).
No more envelopes for me (Score:1)
Yes, because if I start sending letters with envelopes it's more suspicious and worthy of scrutiny than if I send postcards.
In the meantime... (Score:1)
Terrorists are sending unencrypted emails which are specifically made to look like spam.
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Great, now they'll outlaw spam...
Well, he's right. (Score:2)
Among characteristics of captured terrorists, what are things that they had in common? Gosh, one of those is use of encryption. You think it's a coincidence that encryption is regarded as a weapon?
"it's a ridiculous notion that using secure email implies criminal activities"
Yes, true. However, criminal activities are frequently found using encryption. How can I explain this...hmm. OK, you know how Millenials consider you automatically suspicious unless they can look you up on facebook or linkedin? Ye
Thank God! I was beginning to think (Score:2)
the US had a near monopoly on stupid public officials.
Books and curtains do not a terrorist make (Score:3)
FTA:
According to the prosecutor, the evidence against them includes finding numerous copies of a book called “Against Democracy”...
By the Spanish judge's logic, closing the curtains in your house and owning a copy of Mein Kampf would also cause him to view you as a potential Nazi.
Perhaps those who control the police are the only ones who are allowed to be "against democracy"...
Decoy (Score:2)
I doubt if a judge is actually so clueless as to believe something like this. But if he only cared about fooling journalists, then I could see it being used as a pretext
Without knowing the context - who can tell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it possible that using secure email services can be construed as an indicator of being a terrorist?
When the question is posed like that, no. But it has been taken out of a context, and it is similar to saying 'is carrying a crowbar really a sign that you are going to burgle a house?' - you may be on the way home from the shop, intending to break some timber apart. On the other hand, if it is about 2AM and you are in a residential area far from your home, friends or family, and you can't offer a plausible explanation - perhaps it is reasonable to suspect that you are a burglar.
Terrorists look just like everybody else, at least until they blow themselves up or start shooting at the defenceless, so we have to use a complex set of indicators to try to guess who is likely to be plotting attacks; unfortunately they don't all use emails on 'terror.org' or whatever. If a number of factors come together, then perhaps using strongly encrypted email is worrying - you may have something legitimate to hide, but most people don't bother with encryption if they are just writing to their mum.
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Exactly. By this logic, ANYTHING could be a "potential terrorist indicator", including terrorizing people who just happen to be using encrypted email by wrongfully arresting them.
You didn't actually read what I wrote carefully enough to understand the meaning, did you? What I'm saying, I hope, is simple, common sense: that we have to be intelligent about what we do and how we address this problem. We don't want to harrass people who have a legitimate wish to encrypt their communications - people who work from home over a VPN, people accessing their bank, and any number of other things. On the other hand, we do have to be alert to anything potential danger, because if we don't, bad t
didn't someone just point out that SPAM was used? (Score:2)
didn't we just see a report from the NSA that the people who bombed the World Trade Centre didn't use encryption but instead used obfuscation - sending their messages to each other with subjects that would *deliberately* trigger SPAM filters, such as "Buy Viagra Online"?
Smart Terrorists Avoid Email (Score:2)
That already came out of some investigations in the EU recently. Other terrorists may just send pictures of Skippy after using steganography.
I once had a government apologist ask me (Score:2)
I once had a government ask me what "I was hiding from", and why do we need all the heavy crypto, and secrecy, and why we don't post with our real names.
I smiled and asked him if transparency was so open, why does the government classify things, and why don't Federal Agents publish their names publicly on their websites?
Guess who's killed more random innocent people? I'm simply a man with an opinion, no army, and no weapons.
Or it could mean people trying to avoid fraud (Score:2)
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I have no idea who you are or what you said. Sorry.
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I fucking called it and you ridiculed me
Welcome to Slashdot. You must be new here. Please learn not to begin comments in subject lines, HTH, HAND.
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They are not. There is just this propaganda-induced fantasy, that "the law" and those enforcing it using violence are somehow better and are somehow on the side of "good". It is amply clear from history and current observation that this is not the case.
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And that condition is exacerbated when the evidence is withheld from scrutiny, as occurs when the prosecutor claims "state secrecy".
yep, it IS an indicator - they WERE anarchists (Score:2)
TFS asks "it possible that using secure email services can be construed as an indicator of being a terrorist? ", then proceeds to say the police found multiple copies of the anarchist group's books in their houses. So yes, the leads they used DID identify the people they were looking for.
The more interesting question is "how much evidence is sufficient to justify an arrest?"
In the US, standing on the corner of MLK Blvd at night is a VERY strong indicator that one is a crack dealer (if male) or prostitute (
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Cop Two: Maybe he is up to no good. Let's "watch them for a minute."
B O O M [body parts whiz by]
Cop One: Shit! Why didn't some three-letter-agency deal with that? Now I've got a lot of paper work to do...
you think only black people buy crack on MLK? (Score:2)
Racist? Do you think only black people go to MLK to buy crack? You're mistaken as to the facts. The white hookers are there too.
It's unfortunate that so many cities have chosen to rename Crack Blvd to MLK Blvd, but they have.
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how old? Parents European or French? (Score:2)
I noticed you said you are "European". I'm curious, if you don't mind my asking. How old are you? Did your parents call themselves European, or did they say French/German/Belgian etc.?
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I did think about saying 'British' rather than 'European'. (I only use "English" internally to the UK, to distinguish myself from, say, being Scottish or Welsh. It makes me cringe when people use "England" when they mean "Britain" or
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Every time there is some little incident of terrorism the public starts soiling their panties and begging politicians to do something. Frankly I find it disgusting.
Except that this raid occurred on 12/17/14, several weeks before the attack on Charlie Hebdo.