Terrorist threat

[GTIR]

We are all acutely aware of the current threat that various factions and extremist offer to our great country, and all the coverage of arrests and foiled attempts.
The papers report about people being held under this law and that law etc etc all the time.

Apart from the recent bombings and attempted bombings I am amazed that there are not more of these every week.
I mean, how hard is it to make a bomb? (Google)
When the IRA were busy in The Troubles (as my dad calls it) there were regular bombs going off, in Belfast and the mainland.

Every day one goes off in Iraq and kills troops and civilians, why does it not happen more here? (Thank god it doesn't)

Is it because the police etc are just good at intelligence and stop these people, or is it just too bloody hard to make a bomb?
Or is it simply just not that bad?

I am confused?

[andy-xr]

Come on, everyone knows terrorists only come out when there's talk of an election

[sstein]

The chance of you dying in a terrorist attack must so small, in fact I would guess that it tends towards zero.

The media loves to play to it though, it sells papers. The government likes to keep you thinking about terrorism as well, it allows them to push through laws that ordinarily would cause uproar. However stick either child protection or terrorism in front of it and it's all ok.

-

Stuart

[gib6933]

A bomb maybe but i'm sure i could and most people could cause some sort of Terror quite easy, and given only a small amount of time.

Thank god (ours or theirs) they don't

[GTIR]

The chances are smaller if you have already been caught up in a terroist bomb (1983 Belfast train station )

Mind you, isn't there a guy who was in the London bus bomb that was also in another attack?

Edited by GTIR on Monday 23 February 18:45

[sstein]

bbc said:

Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon has said the government is prepared to go "quite a long way" with civil liberties to "stop terrorists killing people".

He was responding to criticism of plans for a database of mobile and web records, saying it was needed because terrorists used such communications.

By not monitoring this traffic, it would be "giving a licence to terrorists to kill people", he said.

So we should monitor and record all forms of communication that terrorists might use. So do we

1) Have a government official that reads all emails
2) Listens in on all phone chats
3) Reads all letters
4) Sits in our houses and listens to us talking to each other,
5) Listens to all radio communications.
6) Sits with every deaf person to listen in on all sign-language
7) Read all internet forums
8) Read all text messages
9) Listen in on all the talking that goes on in multiplayer computer games

After all, if not it would be "giving a licence to terrorists to kill people".

This is why the government needs to keep you thinking about terrorists..

It's why you have to take shoes and belts off in airports.
Why they have ridiculous rules about liquids on a flight.
It's why the government wants all your travel details recorded.
Why apparently we need to have CCTV everywhere.
Why they want us to have ID cards.
Why they want us to have DNA databases.
Why they thought we needed RIPA.
Why you can have your laptop inspected at the border (or even confiscated).
Why they want to be able to lock you up for weeks on end without charge
Why the government can seem to get away with condoning torture.

And on, and on, and on...

-

Stuart

[Nobody You Know]

andy-xr said:

Come on, everyone knows terrorists only come out when there's talk of an election

Coincidently though terrorist would never bother blowing up the government now anyway because they would be doing everyone in the country a favour.

[VxDuncan]

Yeah basically government needs a method of social control, hence the terrorist enemy. Since Witches, nuclear winter and Communism can't be relied on to scare people anymore, we now have global warming and terrorism to control the people and let the governemtn do as it likes and raise taxes.

[sstein]

I like this quote from Bruce Schneier (pity he doesn't get more press!!)

Bruce Schneier said:

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

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Stuart