More love of censorship from Britain: UK anti-terror laws threaten anyone who possesses the works of the IRA or al-Qaeda – even for the purposes of study.
"The Politics of Terror is an International Relations course unlike any other. Before the first lecture, we all received an email from the tutor entitled ‘compulsory reading’, which outlined the legal implications of studying terrorism. All students become familiar with warnings of plagiarism, but this is something different. Since 2006, under new counterterrorism legislation, you can be investigated for possessing materials that are likely to be of use to a terrorist. And possessing materials for academic reasons is not an automatic defence.
More frightening still, this is not just theory. In May 2008, a student at Nottingham University, Rizwaan Sabir, was imprisoned for six days while he was investigated, after downloading an edited version of the al-Qaeda handbook from a US government website.
Our course handbooks summarise the situation very well. It states that ‘students are encouraged to search for literature beyond the reading lists…and engage critically with it’. And then underneath, in bold capitals, it says: ‘ALL STUDENTS HOWEVER SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH THE CURRENT LEGAL SITUATION REGARDING POSSESSION OF MATERIALS “LIKELY TO BE OF USE TO A TERRORIST”.’
None of us had ever begun a course by considering what could or could not be studied, researched or downloaded for the purposes of studying....
The idea that restrictions on academic freedom are going to protect us from terrorism is based on the exaggeration of the threat, and a patronising mistrust of students. Students who want to access information on how to make bombs and carry out terrorist attacks will continue to be able to do so. The document that Sabir downloaded is readily available online. Waterstones sells the collected speeches, interviews and statements of Osama bin Laden. This counter-terrorism legislation doesn’t make us safer, but only constrains the ability of students to conduct research, and to acquire the comprehensive understanding of terrorism which is clearly lacking in the Houses of Parliament.
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14 comments:
As a wise mans once said:
“perhaps you should try READING books instead of burning them!”
Was this man named after the family dog? ;-)
Wise words indeed, regardless of the source.
“perhaps you should try READING books instead of burning them!”
Except of course for religious inspired book burnings.
What is there to study? If you're paying attention, and you're honest, you already know who the enemy is, (radical Islam) what that enemy truly wants, (world domination) and how he plans to go about it. (via acts of terrorism and intimidation) If you haven't figured that out yet, reading books isn't going to help you.
What is there to study?
If you study the things Al Qaeda actually says, you discover three rather interesting things.
1) There's a distinct difference between what they say in English and what they say in Arabic.
2) The Arabic statements give justification for Jihad based on the teachings of the Koran and Hadith; and seem to accurately reflect Mohammad's teachings and actions.
3) What they say in English routinely parallels what the Left in this country says.
Understood Luke, but one can learn those same things by watching their actions, not their words, no matter the language.
"What they say in English routinely parallels what the Left in this country says."
Examples please.
"Bin Laden and Zawahiri take much of their critique of the West from the West itself. To conclude that is not to imply McCarthyism about dissent at home, but again simply to be empirical and to read the terrorists firsthand. For all their bragging about interviews with Time and CNN, bin Laden and Zawahiri remain parochial men of the seventh century, without much experience outside the Middle East, and now in hiding in the desolate badlands along the Pakistani border. Yet, despite their isolation, and thanks to global communications, they offer precise advice about American books we should read—William Blum’s Rogue State about the evils of American imperialism is a favorite. Their description of George W. Bush reading “a little girl’s story about a goat” to children while the World Trade Center falls is lifted directly from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11—as are frequent references to “the lies of George Bush” and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton.
Even advocates of American campaign reform will find their echoes here (“rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts,” and who “swell the bank accounts of the White House gang”). Often, al-Qaeda’s complaints against the United States read like those leveled by atheistic and socialist Europeans: the United States “refused to sign the Kyoto agreement” and excused itself from the International criminal court. Furthermore, America pollutes the world’s skies and seas. That we ended World War II with an atomic bomb is likewise a constant source of complaint."
—The Al Qaeda Reader
I wonder how liberaltards would react to burning a copy of THE ORIGION OF SPECIES by CHARLES DARWIN this book has cuased plenty of harm and damage
"I wonder how liberaltards would react to burning a copy of THE ORIGION OF SPECIES"
If someone owns a book, they can do whatever they want with it. If you come to take MY books (i.e. property), there will be blood (metaphorically, of course).
"The Origin of Species" was a book about biology - what harm could that do? If some nutter uses it to hit someone over the head with it or start a world war, is that the fault of the biologist who wrote it, when he was only writing about biological processes.
So you blame Darwin for Hitler - Wow and how many other people to you blame as well?
Btw. Who do you blame for you wierd spelling?
DONT GO MAKING ME ANGRY I PECK OUT EYES WHEN IM ANGRY SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK
FAREINHEIGHT 451 ENGLANDS heading in that direction just wait for their firemen with their flame throwers
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