Police 'terror' swoop on BBC man

Originally Posted by tactcom7

Fair point, but i'm sure all the families of those killed or injured on 7/7 would agree...

Precisely why you should ignore them. They have no objectivity at all.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Precisely why you should ignore them. They have no objectivity at all.

Mr Flamin_Squirrel - you are blunt, yet you have a point :P

Have to say I agree tho.

ID Cards, CCTV on every corner, restrictions on what I can do that DOES affect my everyday life, all because a few people died on one day.

Terrorists are less threat to the British way of life than the current Government in my opinon

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

Mr Flamin_Squirrel - you are blunt, yet you have a point :P

Have to say I agree tho.

ID Cards, CCTV on every corner, restrictions on what I can do that DOES affect my everyday life, all because a few people died on one day.

Terrorists are less threat to the British way of life than the current Government in my opinon

+1 to that. There will always be some jihadist nutters around no matter what we do, and every once in a while one of them will slip through and take out a statistically insignificant minute chunk of the population. It's horrific for those involved, but in context against the numbers that die falling out of bed, or as a result of some seemingly innocuous household apparatus it's statistically insignificant. The 99.999% of the rest of us will carry on our lives as normal.

To some extent the current "threat" is a self correcting problem. Incompetent bombers (the vast majority of a tiny number) either get caught or blow themselves up in their own kitchen trying to concoct silly chemicals that even a GCSE would teach are far more likely to either go phut rather than boom or will likely blow up and take out the jihadist bomber without collateral damage long before he's reached his targetted infidels. Competent bombers, well we've only seen one group - the 7/7 bombers, and they're all dead now. The last time we saw competent bombers who would actually live to make another bomb rather than kill themselves and lose all that expertise in the process was when the P-IRA were still around. They were a real terrorist threat, they were competent, determined, and unfortunately often "succesful"; however even then the threat they posed was insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Governments often spout the line "if the terrorists make us change our way of life, make us give up our beloved democratic freedoms then they've won - we'll never let them win!". Well, they have made us change, they have made us forsake our freedoms. The terrorists have won. And not even very good terrorists either but bumbling nutters who've watched a few too many Hollywood blockbusters.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. If you don't like the direction your government is taking, make sure they know about it. To those who dismissively say "they'll ignore us", then I'll say "it's better than doing nothing". You've two options at your disposal to get your cause noticed. Option one is to use the tools of democracy. Option two is to blow yourself and a few infidels up. Lets make sure option one changes things rather than option two eh?

[northwind]

Originally Posted by tactcom7

At the end of the day, if you see a policeman with a gun pointing at you, drop whatever it is your holding and get on the floor, not run away or do anything which could be considered threatening.

Yep, but that's not what happened in the case of either of the 2 that were shot, is it? One had the police shout out to him and was shot while turning around (the police claims that he acted threateningly being proven false), and the other (despite reports to the contrary) didn't run away, didn't jump barriers, actually stopped to get a Metro, and was being restrained when he was shot (and according to some eyewitnesses, there was no call from the police, though that's disputed).

Conlon of course was died in prison serving time for a crime he didn't commit, and for which there was no evidence other than a forced confession, and put in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and despite the fact that someone else confessed (and reliably) to the same crime 3 years earlier.

Well. It is silly. Like Berlin says where I am I dont expect too much trouble. If you want to live in london (I have no idea why you would) then thats a risk you accept. Though tbh you have a far bigger chance of being knocked down and killed by a cyclist.

Have the police actually shot anyone that was proven to be carrying something dodgy I wonder? If not then they arnt doing too much good. Maybe their kit should be sent to the middle east to the troups who need it?

[northwind]

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

Have the police actually shot anyone that was proven to be carrying something dodgy I wonder? If not then they arnt doing too much good.

Mmm. Well, not sure about that, there's also deterrant... And that's really very hard to measure, but I don't think it makes much sense to say "They never shoot anyone so what's the point", I suppose the ideal is for them to never have to use them.

I think Lord Hoffman summed it up very well:

"Of course the government has a duty to protect the lives and property of its citizens. But that is a duty it owes all the time and which it must discharge without destroying our constitutional freedoms. There may be nations too fragile or fissiparous to withstand a serious act of violence. But that is not the case in the United Kingdom.
This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. ? Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt we will survive Al Qaeda. ? Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community."

Right on!

In case you miseed it when it was on the beeb a year or two ago, this is well worth a watch:

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...-GB&sitesearch=