6 ms·

If the UK had been able to read the rants of Omar Bakri Muhammad beforehand, we could have avoided him immigrating from Syria. Once here, he fostered the notor

by cbeach 10y ago

If the UK had been able to read the rants of Omar Bakri Muhammad beforehand, we could have avoided him immigrating from Syria. Once here, he fostered the notorious Hizb Ut-Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun movements. Both these movements have made this country a less safe place to be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Bakri_Muhammad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Bakri_Muhammad Sadly in these times, and from a handful of nations - we do need to consider who we're letting in, and what their real attitude is toward the West. In the countries that Trump wants to vet, there were spontaneous street parties to celebrate 9/11. Let's not be naive here.

pabloski 10y ago
As if under Obama there was no TSA. I am starting to really despise this "fake news" machines called mass media. They are trying to show that Trump is the Antichrist while they choose to forget how Obama has destroyed half of Middle East and setted up a police State through NSA, secret laws, secret courts, indiscriminate droning of innocent people. Hypocrites at its best, this is what the mass media have become. Oh right, Trump hasn't received the Nobel prize for peace!
- throwayawnotime 10y ago
  you write: "how Obama has destroyed half of Middle East and setted up a police State through NSA" Do you emember the 90's, 2000's?
- vixen99 10y ago
  Fake news? Watching CNN and BBC World you'd guess that most people are against Trump's ban. That's not quite what this survey shows for Europeans. https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/what-do-europeans-think-about-muslim-immigration https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/what-do-european... "Our results are striking and sobering ..."
  - w0utert 10y ago
    I've seen Trump tweet that survey as well, goes to show how short-sighted and selective people are when it comes to judging information at its face value. The survey asked about limiting immigration from Islamic countries, not about a general travel ban for people from an arbitrary list of countries. Big difference. If the survey had asked about immigration in general (not just from some islamic countries), I expect the results would not have been much different. Yet by simply reframing the question slightly and the results could have been vastly different. It has been shown time and time again that by simply adding a subtext ('...except for people with a stable job, income and education', 'does that also apply to relatives of your friendly neighbor from Egypt who runs the islamic store at the corner') all of a sudden the majority isn't so certain what they think about immigration anymore. Last but not least this is after a slew of recent acts of terrorism and a general discontent of the population of many countries with their government, the EU, the economy, etc. It says more about the sentiment of angry/disappointed people, than about what they really think about immigration policy. I'm a little sad this is what people nowadays base their opinions on, and act on it when they vote. To me it seems the idea of democracy and asking people to choose their own government and policy is starting to fall apart by the stupidity and ignorance of people, and the ease by which they are played by feeding them half-truths and misinformation. It's scary to think about what this could lead to.
    - cancancan 10y ago
      The right wing sentiments have been on the rise long before the recent terrorist attacks. Anyone not living in an echo chamber could see it, you don't really need that survey. > To me it seems the idea of democracy and asking people to choose their own government and policy is starting to fall apart by the stupidity and ignorance of people... I would argue that this kind of reasoning is precisely why many people are turning to the right. Instead of allowing them to voice their concerns and trying to understand them even if you end up disagreeing with them, they are shunned and labeled as stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, etc. Just put anyone you disagree with in the basket of deplorables and call it a day. Job done, right? Well it isn't. And if Brexit and Trump are not strong enough signals, there will be more and stronger. This picture captures the sentiment quite well: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw2Bx5bUcAAV2Of.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw2Bx5bUcAAV2Of.jpg The longer the high-horsing continues the more the pendulum swings to the right and society becomes more divided and on a path to catastrophic collision. Unfortunately, no lessons have been learned so far. The arrogance continues, and so will the response to it.
- p49k 10y ago
  This is classic Whataboutism[1]. The startup community has been criticizing Obama on many of these issues for the past eight years as well. That Obama engaged in such activity doesn't suddenly mean that Trump's administration is justified, nor does it mean that things won't get much worse with Trump. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - fennecfoxen 10y ago
    Writing it off as "whataboutism" is a way to avoid uncomfortable lines of questioning, so I will make these questions explicit here: Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? Are they really here to help the fight for $CAUSE, or are they exploiting the cause for petty power games? Can you really trust their judgement in the Fight Against Tyranny? Can you trust them to push for durable reform against tyranny, or are they merely interested in install their own tyrant?
    - mugsie 10y ago
      > Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? maybe because in the very first press conference, the press secretary lied, blatantly, and acted like it was no big deal. > Can you really trust their judgement in the Fight Against Tyranny? "Fight Against Tyranny" just out of interest - what tyranny is that?
    - p49k 10y ago
      Writing it off as "whataboutism" is a way to avoid uncomfortable lines of questioning No it's not, it's to point out a clear logical fallacy in OP's post. Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? They didn't; this is false. The same people who are angry at specific abuses after Jan 20 were also angry before. See the thousands of articles posted on HN about these issues over the past eight years. This is also true from major news sources - even the liberal ones haven't failed to criticize Obama over these issues. That having been said, it should be expected that a president who is more severe in abusing his power would provoke more anger. It's not black and white. Are they really here to help the fight for $CAUSE, or are they exploiting the cause for petty power games? For the rest of your post, can you explain what you mean by "they", by "the fight for $CAUSE" and the "Fight Against Tyranny"? Also, can you give specific examples? This is too ambiguous to respond to.
onion2k 10y ago
Let's not be naive here. These measures won't work. Any moderately intelligent person will just buy a new phone before they come here, and claim not to have a social media profile. Terrorists are evil; they aren't stupid. Only a very naive person would think this is an effective way of keeping extremists out.
- burgerdev 10y ago
  Which in turn makes people without social media profiles more suspicious. Thinking that I was kind of satisfied after deleting my facebook account :( Will they eventually realize that "Give us your laptop's password!" is even more efficient?
  - tn13 10y ago
    I already have fake profiles on FB linked-in and Twiter!
- mattcoles 10y ago
  Not to mention the gross violation of privacy here...
rimantas 10y ago
But the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, which is "curiously" (nothing curious about that) not on the list.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > But the attackers were from Saudi Arabia 15 were from KSA, two from Egypt, one from Morocco and one from Yemen. The DHS and State Department determined that all but one of those countries (1) did not threaten the USA on a national-policy basis and (2) shared sufficient pre-travel information on their subjects attempting to enter the USA. The made that determination prior to February 2016. So indeed nothing curious.
barrkel 10y ago
This is the easiest thing in the world to game, so only innocent people would have their privacy violated. Criminals and other people with bad intent would maintain a facade of normalcy. Social media vetting has structurally the same argument as banning guns, BTW. If you ban guns, then only non-criminals will be without guns; if you require people's social media passwords, only non-criminals will be without privacy.
isoprophlex 10y ago
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_1_1.pdf https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_... “From 1975 through 2015, the chance that an American would be killed in a terrorist attack committed by a refugee was 1 in 3.64 billion a year" Before commenting on the large temporal window, please refer to figure 1 in the PDF. Table 1 is nice to read too. You'll see how, in the light of actual data, your comment can be interpreted as fear-driven preposterousness.
- cancancan 10y ago
  And a chance of getting killed by an atomic bomb before 1945 is zero :)
gambiting 10y ago
>>In the countries that Trump wants to vet, there were spontaneous street parties to celebrate 9/11 source? >>If the UK had been able to read the rants of Omar Bakri Muhammad beforehand, we could have avoided him immigrating from Syria. On the other hand, recent terrorists in France, Germany, US, were all known to the police, and yet they weren't stopped. If you think that surrendering your privacy when crossing borders is worth it, then I think you are deeply mistaken.
- polotics 10y ago
  amazing that this 2001 street party meme, already debunked to death, is still being trotted out
- cbeach 10y ago
  >> Source Well documented all over YouTube. Here's one summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TwEaF5Jh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TwEaF5Jh0
  - gambiting 10y ago
    summary of parties....in US. Let me quote the original statement: "In the countries that Trump wants to vet, there were spontaneous street parties to celebrate 9/11" so.....again, source?

by cbeach 10y ago

pabloski 10y ago

As if under Obama there was no TSA. I am starting to really despise this "fake news" machines called mass media. They are trying to show that Trump is the Antichrist while they choose to forget how Obama has destroyed half of Middle East and setted up a police State through NSA, secret laws, secret courts, indiscriminate droning of innocent people. Hypocrites at its best, this is what the mass media have become. Oh right, Trump hasn't received the Nobel prize for peace!

throwayawnotime 10y ago
you write: "how Obama has destroyed half of Middle East and setted up a police State through NSA" Do you emember the 90's, 2000's?
vixen99 10y ago
Fake news? Watching CNN and BBC World you'd guess that most people are against Trump's ban. That's not quite what this survey shows for Europeans. https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/what-do-europeans-think-about-muslim-immigration https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/what-do-european... "Our results are striking and sobering ..."
- w0utert 10y ago
  I've seen Trump tweet that survey as well, goes to show how short-sighted and selective people are when it comes to judging information at its face value. The survey asked about limiting immigration from Islamic countries, not about a general travel ban for people from an arbitrary list of countries. Big difference. If the survey had asked about immigration in general (not just from some islamic countries), I expect the results would not have been much different. Yet by simply reframing the question slightly and the results could have been vastly different. It has been shown time and time again that by simply adding a subtext ('...except for people with a stable job, income and education', 'does that also apply to relatives of your friendly neighbor from Egypt who runs the islamic store at the corner') all of a sudden the majority isn't so certain what they think about immigration anymore. Last but not least this is after a slew of recent acts of terrorism and a general discontent of the population of many countries with their government, the EU, the economy, etc. It says more about the sentiment of angry/disappointed people, than about what they really think about immigration policy. I'm a little sad this is what people nowadays base their opinions on, and act on it when they vote. To me it seems the idea of democracy and asking people to choose their own government and policy is starting to fall apart by the stupidity and ignorance of people, and the ease by which they are played by feeding them half-truths and misinformation. It's scary to think about what this could lead to.
  - cancancan 10y ago
    The right wing sentiments have been on the rise long before the recent terrorist attacks. Anyone not living in an echo chamber could see it, you don't really need that survey. > To me it seems the idea of democracy and asking people to choose their own government and policy is starting to fall apart by the stupidity and ignorance of people... I would argue that this kind of reasoning is precisely why many people are turning to the right. Instead of allowing them to voice their concerns and trying to understand them even if you end up disagreeing with them, they are shunned and labeled as stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, etc. Just put anyone you disagree with in the basket of deplorables and call it a day. Job done, right? Well it isn't. And if Brexit and Trump are not strong enough signals, there will be more and stronger. This picture captures the sentiment quite well: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw2Bx5bUcAAV2Of.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw2Bx5bUcAAV2Of.jpg The longer the high-horsing continues the more the pendulum swings to the right and society becomes more divided and on a path to catastrophic collision. Unfortunately, no lessons have been learned so far. The arrogance continues, and so will the response to it.
p49k 10y ago
This is classic Whataboutism[1]. The startup community has been criticizing Obama on many of these issues for the past eight years as well. That Obama engaged in such activity doesn't suddenly mean that Trump's administration is justified, nor does it mean that things won't get much worse with Trump. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- fennecfoxen 10y ago
  Writing it off as "whataboutism" is a way to avoid uncomfortable lines of questioning, so I will make these questions explicit here: Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? Are they really here to help the fight for $CAUSE, or are they exploiting the cause for petty power games? Can you really trust their judgement in the Fight Against Tyranny? Can you trust them to push for durable reform against tyranny, or are they merely interested in install their own tyrant?
  - mugsie 10y ago
    > Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? maybe because in the very first press conference, the press secretary lied, blatantly, and acted like it was no big deal. > Can you really trust their judgement in the Fight Against Tyranny? "Fight Against Tyranny" just out of interest - what tyranny is that?
  - p49k 10y ago
    Writing it off as "whataboutism" is a way to avoid uncomfortable lines of questioning No it's not, it's to point out a clear logical fallacy in OP's post. Why exactly did so many people magically become dead-set against all these government abuses on Jan 20, 2017, specifically? They didn't; this is false. The same people who are angry at specific abuses after Jan 20 were also angry before. See the thousands of articles posted on HN about these issues over the past eight years. This is also true from major news sources - even the liberal ones haven't failed to criticize Obama over these issues. That having been said, it should be expected that a president who is more severe in abusing his power would provoke more anger. It's not black and white. Are they really here to help the fight for $CAUSE, or are they exploiting the cause for petty power games? For the rest of your post, can you explain what you mean by "they", by "the fight for $CAUSE" and the "Fight Against Tyranny"? Also, can you give specific examples? This is too ambiguous to respond to.

onion2k 10y ago

Let's not be naive here. These measures won't work. Any moderately intelligent person will just buy a new phone before they come here, and claim not to have a social media profile. Terrorists are evil; they aren't stupid. Only a very naive person would think this is an effective way of keeping extremists out.

burgerdev 10y ago
Which in turn makes people without social media profiles more suspicious. Thinking that I was kind of satisfied after deleting my facebook account :( Will they eventually realize that "Give us your laptop's password!" is even more efficient?
- tn13 10y ago
  I already have fake profiles on FB linked-in and Twiter!
mattcoles 10y ago
Not to mention the gross violation of privacy here...

rimantas 10y ago

But the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, which is "curiously" (nothing curious about that) not on the list.

dingaling 10y ago
> But the attackers were from Saudi Arabia 15 were from KSA, two from Egypt, one from Morocco and one from Yemen. The DHS and State Department determined that all but one of those countries (1) did not threaten the USA on a national-policy basis and (2) shared sufficient pre-travel information on their subjects attempting to enter the USA. The made that determination prior to February 2016. So indeed nothing curious.

barrkel 10y ago

This is the easiest thing in the world to game, so only innocent people would have their privacy violated. Criminals and other people with bad intent would maintain a facade of normalcy. Social media vetting has structurally the same argument as banning guns, BTW. If you ban guns, then only non-criminals will be without guns; if you require people's social media passwords, only non-criminals will be without privacy.

isoprophlex 10y ago

https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_1_1.pdf https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_... “From 1975 through 2015, the chance that an American would be killed in a terrorist attack committed by a refugee was 1 in 3.64 billion a year" Before commenting on the large temporal window, please refer to figure 1 in the PDF. Table 1 is nice to read too. You'll see how, in the light of actual data, your comment can be interpreted as fear-driven preposterousness.

cancancan 10y ago
And a chance of getting killed by an atomic bomb before 1945 is zero :)

gambiting 10y ago

>>In the countries that Trump wants to vet, there were spontaneous street parties to celebrate 9/11 source? >>If the UK had been able to read the rants of Omar Bakri Muhammad beforehand, we could have avoided him immigrating from Syria. On the other hand, recent terrorists in France, Germany, US, were all known to the police, and yet they weren't stopped. If you think that surrendering your privacy when crossing borders is worth it, then I think you are deeply mistaken.

polotics 10y ago
amazing that this 2001 street party meme, already debunked to death, is still being trotted out
cbeach 10y ago
>> Source Well documented all over YouTube. Here's one summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TwEaF5Jh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TwEaF5Jh0
- gambiting 10y ago
  summary of parties....in US. Let me quote the original statement: "In the countries that Trump wants to vet, there were spontaneous street parties to celebrate 9/11" so.....again, source?