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The gradual broadening of what 'terrorism' means is worrying. First 'terrorism' gets conflated with 'actions that help terrorism' Then 'actions which help ter

by brey 13y ago

The gradual broadening of what 'terrorism' means is worrying. First 'terrorism' gets conflated with 'actions that help terrorism' Then 'actions which help terrorism' gets conflated with 'actions which could hinder counter-terrorism' If possession of copies of Snowden's material counts as the latter, who's to say that campaigning for a change in the law to restrict this wouldn't count either? with this logic you could write a convincing argument that Lord Falconer's article was an 'action which could hinder counter-terrorism'. or, frankly, any other peaceful activity which is in any way contrary to the ideals of a state of total surveillance.

alan_cx 13y ago
As was pointed out at the time these laws were drafted, possession of an A to Z could aid terrorism, not to mention possession of the Anarchists Cookbook. Then we get the usual nonsense of people who like to smoke a joint are accused of funding terrorism. We are all terrorists now. Hence why we are all spied on. Get used to it, as no one seems to care. BTW, the solicitors dealing with this, they are same firm who embarrassed Teresa May over Abu Qatada, when she got her dates wrong and couldn't kick him out. If there is anything unlawful about this, (morality and decency well aside as they simply don't count,) they will find and prove it. For reasons I cannot go in to, I have experience of how good they are. It should also be remembered that the law in general is under attack from this government, and although it is strangely under reported, the legal profession is deeply unhappy, to say the least, with this government. For those who don't know, legal aid is being slaughtered and that will wipe out a lot of solicitors firms who defend and protect the poor from blatant abuse and injustice, who make up the vast majority of criminal cases. For some reason this government wants to sell contracts to people like haulage firms to provide legal aid to people who cant afford solicitors for a little money as possible. Legal aid is currently bad, this government want it worse. Legal defense will be based on price, conviction will end up being based on police say so, with out question. So, if you are poor you will never be able to get impartial advice, since the contracted solicitors will be working to the bare minimum clock. So, essentially, they are trying to deny justice to the majority of defendants, while relying on the lie that the majority of solicitors are rolling in unearned unjustified cash, which I assume you is a lie. So, any chance of exposing, even damaging, this government will be thoroughly pursued. In short, to me, this firm being involved is the best news so far.
- frenger 13y ago
  Why do they want to do all this? I don't get it. It's so plainly wrong, what's their MO behind the scenes? Surely it's not just all a thinly-veiled pulling up of the draw bridge between 'us' and 'them'? I mean, what do the politicians talk about between themselves when they decide to do this shit.
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    Why do they want to do all this? The cynical view is that they're all cowards, so deathly afraid of the next big one happening on their watch that they won't risk anything that might look like they were soft on national security. One of the difficulties of this issue politically is that it's all too easy to ignore someone whose civil liberties have been infringed as long as it's not someone you know personally, but no-one misses an event like 9/11 or 7/7. A more dispassionate view might be that right now the British public does collectively favour having intrusive measures available to fight the bad guys and trust that the authorities will use them acceptably. For example, see this recent YouGov poll: http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-miranda-detention/ http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-mira... It's worth reading the PDF linked from that page, which shows the actual questions they asked, so you can decide for yourself how neutrally phrased you think they were. The PDF also gives a more detailed breakdown of voting by demographic. Notice that in the breakdown, even Lib Dem supporters somewhat support having having Schedule 7 on the books (54/37), while Tory supporters overwhelmingly favour it (80/12). It's also striking how the picture changes with age, with 18-24s supporting moderately (49/30) but 60+s overwhelmingly (76/18). Of course, you can argue that the current public sentiment is/isn't based on a sound understanding of the issues, as you can with any political polling, but those are the real numbers they found over the past couple of days. What is perhaps more striking is that despite the general support for authoritarian laws being available, public sentiment was much more hostile to the specific application of the law in this case. Tories and UKIP were still in favour but by smaller margins (58/27 and 52/40 respectively) but Labour and Lib Dem supporters were quite strongly against (54/29 and 62/29), and the overall opinion was against (44/37). This suggests to me that much of the sentiment in favour of these laws is based on trust that they won't be abused in practice, and therefore that the degree to which public support for such measures continues will probably be based on the government being seen to be using them responsibly.
yaix 13y ago
It all started when terrorists were called "enemy fighters" and their human rights were removed. Nobody protested. At that moment, the government got permission from the people to ignore our most basic rules and just do whatever they wanted, as long as they label it "terrorism".
weland 13y ago
The terrorist is the class enemy -- классовый враг -- of the Western world. I sometimes wonder how it would be if politicians would try to use this rhetorical device in an ex-Communist country (I used to live in one, so I should know). They'd probably be laughed at the first couple of times, and then quickly labeled as crackpots. The catch is, most of them haven't actually experienced terrorism; to a population who hasn't seen a terrorist bombing for generations, "terrorist" is as empty a term as "enemy of the people". It's things like this that convince me history should be a compulsory, well-treated subject, everywhere. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes so well!
- malandrew 13y ago
  I'm guessing that the best way to solve this is to "take back the word" and use it in ways that demonstrate its banality and uselessness in debates. Using fear to sway political discourse is an excellent definition of terrorism because it effectively labels both those causing the physical damage and those selling the antidote as terrorists. Getting a nation to spend billions to trillions of dollars on over-the-top security solutions and leading a country to war based on lies is as much of a terrorist act as 9-11. Anti-terrorism would be getting every to calm down and avoiding overreactions and unhealthy obsessions, which is about as far from what has happened in the US and UK in the last ~12 years. I really want to see all journalists and bloggers calling any and people advocating solutions based on fear called terrorists. Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist, Dick Cheney is a terrorist. Al Zawahiri is a terrorist. Barack Obama is a terrorist. Mussolini was a terrorist. George W. Bush is a terrorist. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. David Cameron is a terrorist. Ashcroft is a terrorist. Hitler was a terrorist. Mao was a terrorist. Stalin was a terrorist. etc. If you're selling fear, you're terrorist. Not terrorists? Dalai Lama. Bradley Manning. Ghandi. Ladar Levison. Martin Luther King, Jr. Edward Snowden. Nelson Mandela. Julian Assange. etc.

by brey 13y ago

alan_cx 13y ago

As was pointed out at the time these laws were drafted, possession of an A to Z could aid terrorism, not to mention possession of the Anarchists Cookbook. Then we get the usual nonsense of people who like to smoke a joint are accused of funding terrorism. We are all terrorists now. Hence why we are all spied on. Get used to it, as no one seems to care. BTW, the solicitors dealing with this, they are same firm who embarrassed Teresa May over Abu Qatada, when she got her dates wrong and couldn't kick him out. If there is anything unlawful about this, (morality and decency well aside as they simply don't count,) they will find and prove it. For reasons I cannot go in to, I have experience of how good they are. It should also be remembered that the law in general is under attack from this government, and although it is strangely under reported, the legal profession is deeply unhappy, to say the least, with this government. For those who don't know, legal aid is being slaughtered and that will wipe out a lot of solicitors firms who defend and protect the poor from blatant abuse and injustice, who make up the vast majority of criminal cases. For some reason this government wants to sell contracts to people like haulage firms to provide legal aid to people who cant afford solicitors for a little money as possible. Legal aid is currently bad, this government want it worse. Legal defense will be based on price, conviction will end up being based on police say so, with out question. So, if you are poor you will never be able to get impartial advice, since the contracted solicitors will be working to the bare minimum clock. So, essentially, they are trying to deny justice to the majority of defendants, while relying on the lie that the majority of solicitors are rolling in unearned unjustified cash, which I assume you is a lie. So, any chance of exposing, even damaging, this government will be thoroughly pursued. In short, to me, this firm being involved is the best news so far.

frenger 13y ago
Why do they want to do all this? I don't get it. It's so plainly wrong, what's their MO behind the scenes? Surely it's not just all a thinly-veiled pulling up of the draw bridge between 'us' and 'them'? I mean, what do the politicians talk about between themselves when they decide to do this shit.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  Why do they want to do all this? The cynical view is that they're all cowards, so deathly afraid of the next big one happening on their watch that they won't risk anything that might look like they were soft on national security. One of the difficulties of this issue politically is that it's all too easy to ignore someone whose civil liberties have been infringed as long as it's not someone you know personally, but no-one misses an event like 9/11 or 7/7. A more dispassionate view might be that right now the British public does collectively favour having intrusive measures available to fight the bad guys and trust that the authorities will use them acceptably. For example, see this recent YouGov poll: http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-miranda-detention/ http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-mira... It's worth reading the PDF linked from that page, which shows the actual questions they asked, so you can decide for yourself how neutrally phrased you think they were. The PDF also gives a more detailed breakdown of voting by demographic. Notice that in the breakdown, even Lib Dem supporters somewhat support having having Schedule 7 on the books (54/37), while Tory supporters overwhelmingly favour it (80/12). It's also striking how the picture changes with age, with 18-24s supporting moderately (49/30) but 60+s overwhelmingly (76/18). Of course, you can argue that the current public sentiment is/isn't based on a sound understanding of the issues, as you can with any political polling, but those are the real numbers they found over the past couple of days. What is perhaps more striking is that despite the general support for authoritarian laws being available, public sentiment was much more hostile to the specific application of the law in this case. Tories and UKIP were still in favour but by smaller margins (58/27 and 52/40 respectively) but Labour and Lib Dem supporters were quite strongly against (54/29 and 62/29), and the overall opinion was against (44/37). This suggests to me that much of the sentiment in favour of these laws is based on trust that they won't be abused in practice, and therefore that the degree to which public support for such measures continues will probably be based on the government being seen to be using them responsibly.

yaix 13y ago

It all started when terrorists were called "enemy fighters" and their human rights were removed. Nobody protested. At that moment, the government got permission from the people to ignore our most basic rules and just do whatever they wanted, as long as they label it "terrorism".

weland 13y ago

The terrorist is the class enemy -- классовый враг -- of the Western world. I sometimes wonder how it would be if politicians would try to use this rhetorical device in an ex-Communist country (I used to live in one, so I should know). They'd probably be laughed at the first couple of times, and then quickly labeled as crackpots. The catch is, most of them haven't actually experienced terrorism; to a population who hasn't seen a terrorist bombing for generations, "terrorist" is as empty a term as "enemy of the people". It's things like this that convince me history should be a compulsory, well-treated subject, everywhere. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes so well!

malandrew 13y ago
I'm guessing that the best way to solve this is to "take back the word" and use it in ways that demonstrate its banality and uselessness in debates. Using fear to sway political discourse is an excellent definition of terrorism because it effectively labels both those causing the physical damage and those selling the antidote as terrorists. Getting a nation to spend billions to trillions of dollars on over-the-top security solutions and leading a country to war based on lies is as much of a terrorist act as 9-11. Anti-terrorism would be getting every to calm down and avoiding overreactions and unhealthy obsessions, which is about as far from what has happened in the US and UK in the last ~12 years. I really want to see all journalists and bloggers calling any and people advocating solutions based on fear called terrorists. Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist, Dick Cheney is a terrorist. Al Zawahiri is a terrorist. Barack Obama is a terrorist. Mussolini was a terrorist. George W. Bush is a terrorist. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. David Cameron is a terrorist. Ashcroft is a terrorist. Hitler was a terrorist. Mao was a terrorist. Stalin was a terrorist. etc. If you're selling fear, you're terrorist. Not terrorists? Dalai Lama. Bradley Manning. Ghandi. Ladar Levison. Martin Luther King, Jr. Edward Snowden. Nelson Mandela. Julian Assange. etc.