UK Group Fights Arrest Over Refusing To Surrender Passwords At The Border (theguardian.com) 284
An anonymous reader quotes The Guardian:
The human rights group Cage is preparing to mount a legal challenge to UK anti-terrorism legislation over a refusal to hand over mobile and laptop passwords to border control officials at air terminals, ports and international rail stations... The move comes after its international director, Muhammad Rabbani, a UK citizen, was arrested at Heathrow airport in November for refusing to hand over passwords. Rabbani, 35, has been detained at least 20 times over the past decade when entering the UK, under schedule 7 of terrorism legislation that provides broad search powers, but this was the first time he had been arrested... On previous occasions, when asked for his passwords, he said he had refused and eventually his devices were returned to him and he was allowed to go. But there was a new twist this time: when he refused to reveal his passwords, he was arrested under schedule 7 provisions of the terrorism act and held overnight at Heathrow Polar Park police station before being released on bail. He expects to be charged on Wednesday.
Rabbani "argues that the real objective...is not stopping terrorists entering the UK, but as a tool to build up a huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens." And his position drew support from Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group. "Investigations should take place when there is actual suspicion, and the police should be able to justify their actions on that basis, rather than using wide-ranging powers designed for border searches."
Rabbani "argues that the real objective...is not stopping terrorists entering the UK, but as a tool to build up a huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens." And his position drew support from Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group. "Investigations should take place when there is actual suspicion, and the police should be able to justify their actions on that basis, rather than using wide-ranging powers designed for border searches."
Useless Policy (Score:5, Insightful)
This type of policy won't do anything to impede terrorists. At best you'll get the low-hanging fruit of a few guilty-minded people looking for an excuse to be stopped, but I have a feeling that rarely happens. The dumbest terrorists will simply wipe anything incriminating off their phone before traveling (or not keep anything incriminating on their phone in the first place), or keep everything locked behind an app that customs is unlikely to ask for the password to. Smarter terrorists will stash a SIM on them, or carry no phone and buy a burner when they reach their destination, or have a phone shipped to them. The smartest terrorists will use no phones at all, and then SIGINT is of no help; you need old-fashioned boots on the ground to catch those.
I'm skeptical that searching these people's phones (who already seem to be on some kind of list) is an attempt to create a 'huge data bank on thousands of UK citizens.' First, a database with info on thousands of people isn't 'huge', this isn't 1980 anymore. Second, the UK govt. presumably ALREADY has data on these thousands of people... leading to them being put on the 'search their phone' list. I find it more likely that one of the main purposes is 'intimidation', sending a message of 'we have our all-seeing eye on you', along with a not-so-subtle message of "you're not welcome here." It seems the UK is giving in to Islamophobia recently, I hear.
He's managing director of anti-torture charity (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hardly random, to catch some sort of low hanging fruit.
"Rabbani, who studied economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, joined Cage five years ago as managing director. In August last year, he became international director, a role that includes helping investigations of torture victims."
If you keep arresting an anti-torture charity managing director and keep demanding his passwords, obviously you want information related to his work. This hardly looks random or even terrorist related. More he's investigated some company with political or police connections back in the UK.
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The UK has a history of outsourcing its torture work to other countries. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some connection, even if it's just that someone was tortured for some other reason and MI6 fed the torturer a few extra questions.
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Hey, give him credit, he managed to find sources aside of Breitbart.
Re: He's managing director of anti-torture charit (Score:2)
Ad hominem much? I guess that means you can't rebut the actual claim.
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In case you've missed, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
In which universe? Not in this one, buddy. Those are just nice words for the masses.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the UK, it's not hard to get a working pre-pay phone and SIM without ever giving name or address or credit card or ID. You can often pick them up in supermarkets, and buy top-up-cards in cash.
To be honest, even having to provide ID is hardly a blocker. I'm sure a potential terrorist either a) doesn't care (i.e. by the time you know he was arranging something, it's too late), b) using other means (e.g. buy phone, install Whatsapp or any of a million-and-one OTR message apps), c) isn't hindered (e.g. fak
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I agree with you but the policy does have at least one good use - it keeps me from considering the UK for my vacation plans!
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Re: Useless Policy (Score:2)
When doing illegal shit online always use protection. Remember, its important turn off the protection and portray yourself as an outstanding citizen when you aren't communicating with other terrorists.
How are collected passwords stored/secured? (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy issues aside, I object to this whole idea for the simple reason that governments governments have proven themselves rather inept at safeguarding even some of their most valuable information. Some of the CIA and NSA's "crown jewels" are currently freely available on the internet (and gave rise to the Wana ransomware). The TSA in the US has a track record of being a bunch of bumbling fuck-ups with a bad IT security track record. Placing account info for millions of private citizens into the hands of people like this is just asking for it to be hacked. It's not a matter of it, it's when.
And I've seen it suggested here and other places that people can just setup fake accounts and use those. That's not going to make it past even a cursory screening. If an account is new it's going to be flagged. If a good percentage of your friend's accounts are new, it's going to be flagged. If you don't post or a good percentage of your friends don't post your going to be flagged. Setting up a proper "legacy" on social media would take years... it's not something that you can just churn out unless you have a means to fake post dates on Facebook, Twitter, etc timelines. This is not something the average person is going to have the time or the means to do and all these companies already have mechanisms in place to spot these types of accounts because they are basically "bots". What turns the logic of this wholesale data grab on it's head is it is something that an organized terrorist group would be able to do. The 9/11 attacks were several years in the making, plenty of time for an organized group of people to establish a legitimate looking social media presence. Intelligence agencies have to have already figured this out which means this is either security theater or they want the data for other reasons.
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^^^ This, exactly. I would add that the government agencies responsible for fighting terrorism don't want terrorism to stop, ever. Just like the "War on Drugs", the "War against Terrorism" is a huge part of the economy - careers and livelihoods and reputations and bragging rights depend on it. Not to mention that such power begets more power. For those addicted to that kind of power, the temptation is irresistible.
...this is either security theater or they want the data for other reasons.
I'd say it's both. The security theatre keeps people fearful, and gets them used to following
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Well, as soon as you get your phone back, anyway. Which will be after security services will have slurped as much data as they can from it.
Here's the real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's got to the point where backup->wipe->cross borders->restore is the only viable option. Anything else is too risky, even the best encryption is vulnerable to a rubber hose attack.
Well, you could give someone else the key so you don't have it, in which case the encryption works but you still get the beating.
Reminds me of Roger Taylor's 'The Unblinking Eye' (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Cage Group (Score:5, Interesting)
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The Telegraph is not a reliable source of information on this matter. Wikipedia has a much more balanced article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You may not like them, but they are not anything like the Telegraph describes.
"What's a databank?" (Score:2)
How else do you get bits across a border? (Score:5, Funny)
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If I wanted to smuffle 16GB of data into the UK, I'd buy one of the many VPN providers that offer services in just about every country in the world, then upload it anonymously and encrypted from a cybercafe computer to some local service (e.g. a local Google or whatever equivalent), via that encrypted channel.
And then only providing the password to decrypt it when I actually got to the other end myself.
- I'm carrying nothing, no data, no electronics.
- There's no record linking me to that file.
- Anyone who r
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This isn't about preventing terrorism, it's about harassing people that annoy the British government by looking into their overseas torture programmes.
Terrorists don't appear to be dumb enough to fall for this most of the time. There are a few low level idiots, radicalised on Facebook, who get caught, but we see time and time again that the successful ones use simple but effective tactics like single use burner phones and well WhatsApp.
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Wifi inna pub.
Sorted.
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How sure are you that the passcode on the phone can't be broken? I'm sure the iPhone-cracking firm that helped the FBI would rather you were using a device like that than just an encrypted file sitting on anything else.
Surely encryption with an algorithm of your choice is better than having to deal with a vendor-chosen encryption on a device they can control?
P.S. Nobody has yet demonstrated a break of any of the current supported encryption methods. If you can't rely on them for this, you also can't rely
Not surprising (Score:2)
As the mega-rich and powerful gather more wealth and power, by exploiting the common people, they are also significantly increasing the surveillance of the same common people.
They know that when you concentrate too much power at the top, uprisings will start from the bottom. So they're increasing surveillance, in the hopes of being able to curb these uprisings before they happen, by strategic arrests and by exploiting sensitive information about key persons associated with civil unrest.
PII, PHI, Trade secrets etc... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Entering a country outside your home country they are free to do whatever they want with you, regardless of your employee agreement. However, when returning home, if they ask for such things you might actually be able to refuse.
Really though the best solution is some form of remote desktop (or Vmware VDI, or Citrix, or whathaveyou) and make whatever you bring overseas is nothing more than a thin client like a chromebook.
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They lock you up until they can confirm with the company that your story is true and run some other background checks. Better hope you don't land Friday night.
Wrong Direction (Score:3)
If I was a terrorist entering a country with the intent of collecting information in support of an attack, I'd be coming in with a clean laptop, phone and camera. On my way out, I'd have plans and photographs of potential targets. But I've never been checked on my way out. I could be carrying the blueprints for the latest top secret radar and border protection would never know.
Searching people on their way in is for one of three purposes: Harassment, in support of economic barriers (can't have people sneaking cheap videos across borders) and economic espionage (your bidding strategy and cost data will be handed to your domestic competition).
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's how we catch the terrorists, keep detaining the same guy 20 times.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of CIA agent Colonel Flagg in M*A*S*H: "We'll make sure you remain loyal to the country that's going to hound your every step!"
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make a terrorist out of the disgruntled guy, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Probably better than the FBI strategy of using undercover people to talk morons into doing things they would never do nor are capable of doing without the FBI doing every single thing.
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Insufficient information.
Being a Muslim should not make a difference but on the other hand the UK has been harboring a number of very radical imams whose ties to extremists do need to be monitored.
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In our defence, we did manage to imprison Anjem Choudary. [wikipedia.org] (He's a slimy ISIS supporter who always tried to stay just within the law. He screwed up. I find this awfully satisfying.)
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I'll only cheer if you revoke that assholes asylum and send him back to his home country. Britain has provided homes to far to many of these jackoffs and they talk shit about the country the whole time they are there. They should be sent back to their home country straight away instead of living on the dole in the UK while supporting terrorism and policies that threaten the UK itself.
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It's Daesh.
It's in Arabic script (Score:2)
However he's trivial in the situation - kind of like going after Jane Fonda when you really want to stop the Vietcong. IMHO freezing the assets of the people sending vast amounts of money and weapons to Daesh is more effective than putting small
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Choudary isn't totally insignificant. His proselytising has sent people oversees to support the terrorist cause. Removing him is a victory, and it's not either-or.
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Only Shia Muslims (a minority of Muslims worldwide; most are Sunni, although a few countries like Iraq are mostly Shia) care what Imams have to say. They're like Catholic Bishops in that few non-Catholics give much weight to what they say, but are different in that anyone can declare themselves an Imam with no centralized authority/hierarchy. The ISIS (supposed) caliphate probably could effectively be that central authority... but its leader is Sunni so they wouldn't endorse Imams anyhow. Given ISIS' wholes
Re: His name gives it away (Score:3, Informative)
"Anyone can declare themselves an Imam"
1. Imam (leader) in Shi'a Islam refers to one of 12 people born over 1000 years ago. Most certainly no one can declare themselves an imam.
2. The "Imams" you refer to are either Sunni or Wahabbi not Shi'a.
3. 100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi. The leader (Imam) of Daesh (ISIS) for example.
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Whoops, mea culpa. Guess I got mixed up somewhere.
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Most certainly it's possible. Just watch:
I declare myself an Imam.
See? It's easy!
Wait, there's someone at my door, brb...
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"Anyone can declare themselves an Imam"
1. Imam (leader) in Shi'a Islam refers to one of 12 people born over 1000 years ago. Most certainly no one can declare themselves an imam.
2. The "Imams" you refer to are either Sunni or Wahabbi not Shi'a.
3. 100% of "Muslim" terrorists are Wahabbi. The leader (Imam) of Daesh (ISIS) for example.
Plus the Shia (at least in the modern world) have always seemed to me as tending to be more organised and have something that a christian would recognise as a form of centralised hierarchical clergy. It's the Sunni world where you have a bewildering flora of sometimes weird sects and any crackpot with a Quaran and a digital camera (or occasionally, a bunch of thugs) seems to be able to put on black robes, declare himself 'Caliph' and stands a real chance of being taken seriously. If I had to draw a comparis
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Isn't Iran considered a state sponsor of terrorism? They're not sponsoring Sunnis are they?
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The first suicide bombing was by Hezbollah (Shia) against the US army Barracks in Lebanon.
There are plenty of terrorists wearing the Shia claim to authority, they might currently be outnumbered by the Sunni Wahabbi variety but your statement that Shia don't participate is full on bullshit.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Interesting)
In response to your sig: "Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue"
If the two wolves eat the sheep, what are they going to eat next? They're going to starve because all they know is how to take from others, and the others no longer have anything to give. This is why it takes a large population of prey to support a small number of apex predators, or else the predators starve to death. Note that the prey outnumber the predators by a large number, the 'two wolves and a sheep' is the endgame. The sheep would've had plenty of time to vote the wolves off the island.
Ok, time for less metaphor. The majority hate the minority, and want them to be miserable to their own benefit. Easy solution: slavery. In practice this usually just meant 'less-favorable terms for cost of labor, goods etc.' and law enforcement looks the other way to this. A better option than systematically taking people's stuff and killing them turns out to be to get them to make stuff for you. However, what'd be ideal is if you (as part of the elite) don't have to work at all, just have a stable of untouchables doing the drudgery. That means you need a large number of the minority (sheep) relative to the elite (wolves). In a representative democracy, they can vote you out of power, and vote themselves into power. But of course, they don't want the wrong lizard (wolf (elite)) to win, so they keep voting in lizards (wolves (elites)). In contrast, in a direct democracy, the minority can present a bill that prevents discrimination and requires equal pay for their minority, fines for businesses that exploit them etc. and the (power) majority can't outvote them because the (power) minority has a numerical majority. Assuming the voting isn't rigged.
However, there's a wrinkle: propaganda. The elite will spend LOTS of money to maintain their position, and aren't above using propaganda to control the sheeple. TV advertisements are the most obvious modern incarnation, as well as paying news media to run articles/columns that parrot your talking points or happen to only consult with sources friendly to your position. Factionalization, turning the masses against one another, agents provocateur, organization infiltrators, Uncle Toms, and straight-up soapboxing are less-obvious examples. Think about how many people are against minimum wage increases, saying it'll harm the people it's intended to help, if you want an example of all this (whether or not you think it's true). It's easy to invoke learned helplessness on people raised on the idea that they're inferior and can't do anything except keep their heads down.
Direct democracy is theoretically more liberating to the masses, but undermined by the vastly increased ability of the elites to push propaganda upon them. Wage slavery is pretty much guaranteed in all scenarios, at least for the underclass. Direct democracy has a similar problem with poor laws as representative democracy.
Alice: "You voted AGAINST the Terrorist Disemboweling Act 2018? You disgust me!"
Bob: "It had all the same language and provisions as the Terrorist Disemboweling Act 2017 so I saw no need for it."
Alice: "It's a matter of principle! Have to show we're still tough on terrorism!"
And of course the 2018 version had a rider snuck into the 900-page bill requiring disemboweling of those who hang toilet paper towards the wall, but almost noone noticed until the Great TP Pogrom started.
Almost forgot to address the 'armed sheep will contest the vote' idea. The general sentiment would be 'crazy loose cannons terrorizing normal folks' rather than 'freedom fighters'. Propaganda wins this fight, hands down. Now, a potential alternative way that can go is Hutu vs. Tutsis, and there's no telling which side of the genocide you'd be on.
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Democracy is a huge number of sheep banding together to stampede over a very small number wolves if necessary - to stretch the stupid analogy to near breaking point.
It's the sort of thing Stalin would have said so it's kind of ironic to see
Re: His name gives it away (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong. Right-wing white supremecists commit most acts of terrorism.
https://medium.com/p/trump-false-claim-foreign-born-domestic-attacks-54e99b0e11b6
Don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out.
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Original a/c's link:
"Trump : According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country...It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur,,”
The article: "Trump mentions Boston, San Bernardino, the Pentagon & the World Trade Center. None of those attackers were from countries in his travel ban...".
Yeh, so basic logi
Re: His name gives it away (Score:2)
Go read the NYT article before you decide whether I accurately characterized it and it's sources. I'll wait.
While you're doing that, consider where the basic logic fail is when Trump says "the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country", and your rebuttal is that the foreigners who committed the most notable attacks were not from countries named in Trump's Executive Order on travel restrictions.
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"Go read the NYT article before you decide whether I accurately characterized it and it's sources. I'll wait."
OK, quoting it:
"THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream
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What's needed is a reformation within Islam - but to think the Muslim Brotherhood has "hijacked" Islam is BS.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know that almost a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, don't you? It is the second largest religion and the fastest growing. There are many denominations.
Only a tiny portion of that would be considered radical fundamentalists. Otherwise there would be a constant war between countries with different religions, which there aren't - there are isolated incidents now and then.
The most well-known incidents in recent years have been caused by people living in the West who were driven more by dissatisfaction of their position in society and how they had been singled out as Muslims than by any religious fervour.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
Which portion belongs to a religion by their own free will and not forced into it when they were kids?
Which portion of the world population is not a victim of forced religion by their own parents or other childhood authorities?
If it was forced on you, it is not your religion. You are a victim and your belonging to the religion is the result of brainwashing.
It does not matter if most of the world does it. It does not matter if it has been done for thousands of years. It is wrong and forced religions nor their followers won't get human rights protection in that regard. Their bullshit religions continue to exist because of human rights abuses. World religions would all but vanish unless they were forced on kids.
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You do know that almost a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, don't you? It is the second largest religion and the fastest growing. There are many denominations.
Only a tiny portion of that would be considered radical fundamentalists. Otherwise there would be a constant war between countries with different religions, which there aren't - there are isolated incidents now and then.
What fucking planet do you live on?
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years. Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created. Fighting has never stopped, and will never stop.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
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Remove religion and people will go to war over access to resources, their favourite king, economic system, or text editor.
While I agree that people will find other things to fight about, I think the degree of that fighting would change for the better if people had a much better grasp on the idea that dead = dead, not dead = magical paradise. It might follow that people would be far less likely to go to war unless their lives were already at risk.
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
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Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
Did the holocaust pass you by? No, the war wasn't just about that specific issue but it was a part of it. Don't look too hard now. Most don't openly state that but it's a reason none the less. Here's one active now for you, only one of many though. ISIS stopped by to stay hi too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Did the holocaust pass you by?
Nope, but that was not even a civil war. It could possibly count if conversion to Christianity would have helped. It couldn't.
LRA and ISIS are much better examples, but those are modern groups, not a 1000 year running theme.
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Read the fucking bible
You mean Kama Sutra? But seriously, this discussion has gone off topic. The point the AC made was:
Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created
This claim is either misguided or entirely true, depending on what speculations you are ready to believe. I am ready do entertain the possibility that religion is indeed responsible for the holocaust, red terror etc, if I believe that religion is the reason we can cooperate as a community thus build civilizations. And to commit wide scale atrocities you really need civilization.
However, if we only look at cause
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Have you slept during the history lessons at school?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Shall I go on?
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Neat list. I do have some issues with counting in civil wars, since often those are about loyalty to the throne. Hussites have a legit case., fair enough. Crimean war looks more like typical imperialism and land grab, but I might be wrong. I don't think I can count in Ustae, since they recognized Islam. Looks more like religion is just another tag of identity, not disagreement over tenants of faith or any other such issues.
Re:Radical atheism does it too! (Score:4, Informative)
Hitler was a Catholic, Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
Checkmate my arse.
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Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
So you agree that Stalin was an atheist? The whole communism was specifically an atheistic movement, not that the leaders just happened to be atheists.
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What part of "Georgian Orthodox" do you fail to understand? You don't know what that is?
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And Mao didn't have a favourite Pokemon, therefor we can safely assume not liking Pokemon will lead to millions of deaths.
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Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years.
The people who pull the strings and initiate the fighting don't give fuck about religion. They just (ab)use it to manipulate their people into agreeing with wars for geopolitical purposes and for financial gain of the elite (= people pulling the strings).
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Sorry, but no. The most prolific reason for bashing each other's skull in was the question who has the cooler imaginary friend.
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You are such a coward. Did they fix the troubles by naively imprisoning all Christians out of fear, or did the authorities look a bit deeper and actually figure out what was happening?
Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a muslim, I'd rather they are careful now rather than sorry later.
OK - can we all assume that if, one day, you were traveling to somewhere, where they felt they had reasons to suspect Christians, it would be OK to demand all your passwords, strip search you and worse, and arrest you, because "Your name is obviously Christian". There are after all Chistian terrorists, operating in the US, for example, attacking abortion clinics, am I right? Guilt on suspicion was a guiding principle once - after all, if the Spanish Inquisition, annointed by God's infallible representative, were to suspect you, how could you not be guilty? You are treading a dangerous path here, and you never know if you would end up on the wrong side of that particular legal practise.
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Re:His name gives it away (Score:5, Funny)
Summery:
First they came for the Muslims ...
Sounds more wintery to me.
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The country demanding such is well document and publicised. If I don't wish to suffer these trials and tribulations, nothing is requiring me to go to that country. That is a far cry from soldiers breaking into my home and killing me for my religion.
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The country demanding such is well document and publicised. If I don't wish to suffer these trials and tribulations, nothing is requiring me to go to that country. That is a far cry from soldiers breaking into my home and killing me for my religion.
I hear this apologist argument often, and it's bullshit. You know that families regularly span countries now? Or must we give up blood connections because of stupid laws? It's a normal part of life, especially in Europe, and we shouldn't excuse it just because it's possible to artificially limit yourself to avoid it.
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When asked to provide the password. Change the password first and give them this new password. When you get the device back, change the password.
Of course it makes sense to change the passwords once you get your device back, but why change it before handing over?
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When asked to provide the password. Change the password first and give them this new password. When you get the device back, change the password.
Of course it makes sense to change the passwords once you get your device back, but why change it before handing over?
I guess so you don't have to give up your oh so memorable and clever password you use for everything? Or you want to make it 'fuckyoufed' as some kind of protest that's going to get you fucked even more?
Re:Freedom, Passports and Irish Grandfathers (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank God I had an Irish grandfather.
This allows me an Irish passport.
This means I can continue it live and work in the EU - and so not be forced back into the UK to live under this Government of whom I so profoundly disapprove.
It wasn't that long ago that the Irish were to social bogeyman and having an Irish accent or even ginger hair was enough to get you fucked. Same with the Russians. Now it's the Muslim's turn. Before too long there will be a new bogeyman and the Muslims will probably be right alongside everyone else jumping on whoever the poor group happens to be this time.
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...or even ginger hair was enough to get you fucked
I always thought the problem with being a ginger was that you didn't laid!
I put the reason to never having been done for speeding down to having an Irish driving license while living in the UK - I made sure never to interact with the police unless absolutely necessary, and I don't even sound Irish. When my uncle joined Sandhurst (British Army Officer Academy) in the early 70s he had friends in Ireland who were approached by members from the British embassy for character references. More recently, a Irish f
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As an Irish citizen, he can freely move into another EU country with saner laws.
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Concerning religion? Probably all with the noteworthy exception of the Vatican.
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Vatican, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Malta, Poland, Hungary. The nordic countries aren't particularly secular either.
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Re:It's his own fault... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope you're not referring to "Muhammad"? That's an insanely popular name in Muslim communities around the globe, the #1 most common first name on the planet iirc? Basically a religious variation on racial profiling, where you can't identify by skin color so you're going to go by name instead.
But putting that aside... this travel ban thing has gotten soooo silly. I live in a somewhat racially polarized city (black vs white) and am familiar with the idea of getting pulled over for "OWB" (Operating While Black, as opposed to OWI, Operating While Intoxicated) where driving a car (even a nice one) in "the wrong neighborhood" (and especially if you have a carload full) can easily get you pulled over for a tail light check or some other such nonsense. This looks so similar I'm amazed they don't have a nice short name for this excuse for detention/arrest by now. Maybe call it "TWM"? (Traveling While Muslim?) So many people with names like that which get continuously hit with (such massive air-quotes here...) "Excuse me, you have been selected for a random *enhanced security check(, please come with me".
I get why a country has a legal and logical right to have some sort of travel security and screening at their border for foreigners, but if you are either a citizen of the country or the country has already issued you a passport, that shouldn't be as much of an issue. Why are you issuing them a passport or granting them citizenship if you feel you need to search them at the border??
And this whole "we want to search everyone's mobile device" thing in general is rather disgusting. Eventually what you know and what you have stored electronically are going to have to be treated more equally, it's just a matter of whether our thoughts get more public or our gear gets more private, and I think we know which way that's going to go. The only reason they're trying to search your phone is because they can, because it's technologically possible. (though encryption is making them now require your password in many instances) You can bet your last dollar that if they had a way to search your head at the border, they'd already be doing it everywhere. Having to surrender your password at the border is just their finally coming right out and admitting they are demanding to search your thoughts.
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I suppose I should have used sarcasm tags. I thought it'd be obvious enough with the "best to make sure" bit, but I guess a scary number of people seem to think that way nowadays. Oh well...
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I mean, he shares his name with one of the main leaders of the Taliban movement. What else should he expect, even if the Afghan Rabbani has been dead for 16 years, it's still best to make sure.
In reality, the reason is probably because he was the managing director of CAGE [wikipedia.org], which ostensibly is a civil rights organisation, but has been accused of being apologists for terrorism. Which ever is true, it's not going to be popular with the UK security services.
Say an organisation (e.g. Amnesty International) works on behalf of a prisoner who is being tortured. Does it really matter whether he is an innocent not-even-political prisoner or a convicted hardline terrorist?
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As if he chose his own name?
And even if he did, how is it his fault when he could do nothing to prevent a terrorist from using HIS name?
Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!
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That's 100% true. The Bible also suggests that you kill people who work on Sunday or women who are not virgins on their wedding night.
All the monotheistic holy books command their adherents to do terrible things. They key, as I assume you agree, is to get people to not do everything their holy books say.