The New Order: When reading is a crime

Is this what it is going to be like? When simple possession of a proscribed document will be enough to see you clapped in irons and whisked down to the local police station? About two weeks ago (May 16), Nottingham University campus was agog as police arrived to interview former student Hicham Yezza. After some ten years' …

[Nigel Wright]

The biggest threat to our liberty is HMUKgov

The university doesn't come out well - typical academia fudge where common sense and personal responsibility is ignored. The uni powers-that-be should never have passed this on in the first place. The Police have perhaps over-reacted initially, but took the right action insofar as not placing charges and the Home Office needs a good kicking for the rest of this stupidity.

Welcome to Britain - "home of democracy".

[Anonymous Coward]

Distinction

so to sum up:

applied for right to stay but lies.

downloaded something.

was arrested, under terrorism laws.

was searched were lies come to light.

was released, no case to answer.

refused right to stay, due to lies in application

is scheduled for deportation.

not really a story about the download but really a story about lies on application to stay.

[Bill Smith]

Best stop reading then

Under s.58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they “possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

Doesnt this mean that keeping a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica is now a crime?? (and with the word 'Britannica' in there surely theres a racist angle that could be exploited).

[Jeff Deacon]

The New Order: The End Has Started

If the "authorities" were serious, then the author of the reading list would by now have been rendered to Guantanamo, and all their former students have visits from the friendly gentlemen of MI5.

@ Legacy By Peter Fielden-Weston: Agreed, this fear and oppression is Blair's legacy. I go further, it is not accidental. It is happening worldwide. Try looking up Bilderberg, they are the script writers.

@ Web Cache By Geoff Johnson: The original intent of the internet cache and firewall may indeed have been innocent. If not to save the effort that you note, it may have been intended to cut University data traffic charges to their ISPs. HOWEVER, we have a very clear example of function creep. Remember, every ISP now has much the same set up, so that they can implement the IWFs Watch List. My ISP claims not to read the logs.

Like the forthcoming drinking ban (have you noticed how much effort is devoted to demonising drink? already got the ban on public transport), and the smoking ban before it, this is all part of the work necessary to provide our new rulers at Berlaymont with a docile population.

If they are following the Stalin script closely, the next target will be Heads of Department, or anyone else who is proven capable of thinking for themselves. They formed the basis of the show trials.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ amanfromMars

Actually, Custer's last words were more along the lines of, "All right men, over that hill we'll find an encampment of Indians. Let's ride over and kill them all before they can escape, and have some sport while we're at it".

In one of history's most satisfying outcomes, it turned out the Indians were ready and waiting, and Custer and his soldiers got exactly what they deserved.

[sally marshall]

Thought crime 2008

I guess my old chemistry textbooks will have me marked down as a terrorist then. And my manga comics and costume textbooks will have me on the lists of pedophiles and possessors of pornography.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm screwed, then ...

... in a fit of boredom, I decided to skim through my PhD thesis again. 250-odd pages of what amounts to instructions on how to blow things up, complete with a CD of source code allowing an Enemy Of The State[tm] to simulate things that go 'bang' in general.

My crime? The desire to study combustion physic over 10 years ago.

Coat ready, just waiting for the Knock ...

[Paul Delaney]

@ frymaster and Steve

UK Anti-Terrorism legislation is unfair, racist and based on paranoia. But we're stuck with it and it will probably take tens of years to get it changed.

But, in the mean time, regardless if your name is John or Achmed you would be the subject of some concentrated attention by the police if they thought you were in posession of literature detailing how to make home-made bombs.

Should you also fit the "racial profile" - not a British national, country of origin a muslim state, economical with the truth when applying for residency...

You're a prime candidate for deportation.

I know that's how it is, I'm sure that you know too, why on earth didn't he?

I wouldn't chance being in posession of a copy... would you?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Righteously Indignant, @Roger Barrett

"All that has happened here is a immigrant has been found to be 'less than truthful' in their application to stay and is being - and quite rightly so - deported."

Dude, what I make up of the article is that it was on the read-list of the University. What's that got to do with being less than truthful?

Immigration officer: "What's the nature of your stay in the UK? Bussiness, pleasure or reading Al-Qaeda training manuals".

Ugh, don't get me started.

@Roger Barrett: I think I've got a copy of that Jolly Rogers Cook Book somewhere. But I'll post anonymously, might want to visit the UK some day. But you can check my facebook... ha, wait a minute

[Shabble]

First they came for the...

Gordon's police force are the ones in the cloackroom looking for the brownshirts.

[Doug Glass]

Assumptions

And if you buy a pound of heroin, you're correctly assumed to be a pusher; some products do define the situation. Sometimes you actually have to think about what you're doing. And sometimes what you do is not always a good idea.

I feel sorry for the dude, but if you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.

[mike brockington]

Exemptions

A while back, I was a Royal Engineer. It was part of my training to blow things up. With explosives. And how to make alternatives if the normal plastic explosive wasn't available.

I was given various written material to support that training...

I seriously hope I have accidentally retained any of it. Does the copy that is in my brain count?

[Richard]

This is not a political left or right thing

Ok everyone who has replied to this story is now being investigated by MI5, I take issue with the idea this is wholly a new labour idea, the conservatives are probably more hyper about foreigners.

Of course you aren't going to hear dissention from cabinet level politicians, this is a conspiracy of the civil servants who run the puppets we call politicians and the security services.

Unless we all start saying no to this we will end up with a totalitarian state.

[Wize]

Downloading a document?

Just watch those links you click on. Its not accidental extreme porn you have to watch out for.

[Luther Blissett]

What is that institution for, Mummy?

Detachment in the context of universities used to mean being able to study ideas without the pressures that would prevail if such research was conducted in concrete social contexts.

Detachment now appears to mean that university authorities are not going to back you if any such pressures find their way into the Groves of Academe and oppose your research. See the recent Kollerstrom case.

Welcome to the hyperreal university, where research is simulated, and the end-product (knowledge; not graded brains) is a simulacrum.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Distinction

Got something to do with Houdini and Elephants I would imagine - odd that such a travesty isn't covered in more detail - what exactly did he lie about ?

[Ted Treen]

@ Several of you

"...likely to be of use to..."

Of course it was deliberately left vague and unspecific.

That way both Plod & the gorgeous pouting Jacqui can decide that whatever you have with you or to which you have access when you're picked up can be deemed to fall into that category.

By Plod, I don't mean the majority of traditional thief-takers (PC up to Sergeant) but the high rankers (I think that's how it's spelt) who are fast-tracked University Graduates - generally in social studies ore something equally leftie & nebulous.

If it weren't so painful for us, it would be a very funny irony that all these lefties & liberals, when given a taste of power become super-chekists who make the Gestapo look like amateurs.

"It's a free country, innit?" is no doubt a phrase which will be deemed to be seditious if NuLab aren't removed (one way or another) soon.

Paris, 'cos like her, this country is well & truly fcuked...

[Phil Arundell]

Document Source

If the document was downloaded from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/ then it appears to be an edited version: the site states "The Department is only providing the following selected text from the manual because it does not want to aid in educating terrorists or encourage further acts of terrorism"

I have downloaded the document from this link, and I'm not posting this anonymously because I shouldn't be afraid to read publicly available information. Of course, if that is the location of the document that led to the arrests, then I've just admitted to committing the same "offence" so I'll probably be led away to the gulag...

I am completely pissed off with this country and the constant erosion our our civil liberties in the name of "security" - it gets more like 1984 every week and it's about time people made a stand and said "enough is enough"

[Spleen]

reading list

"Someone noticed. They informed their superiors, who in turn referred the matter on upward. Eventually, the issue reached the very top. The Vice-Chancellor, Registrar and senior management of the University decided it was beyond them. [...] So they handed the matter over to the local Police."

I started reading Atlas Shrugged yesterday. (Yeah, yeah, I know.) After ploughing through the first four chapters, my initial impression was "all these weak-willed bureaucrats who refuse to make a decision and pass the buck around are a bit caricatured and over-the-top, I'm finding it hard to take this book seriously."

Hahahahaha. How naive I was. Turns out that people are exactly like that. Stuff the propaganda, stuff stupid laws, stuff "we can't be too careful". Someone on that chain should have said "We have known this man for ten years, I have no reason to suspect he's a terrorist any more than I suspect Professor Harker in the office next door, the document was on the reading list. This goes no further and if he blows someone up then on my head be it." Before it reached the ears of the Ministry of Love and everything spiralled downwards into a Kafka story.

If this is what we're like then we deserve to be strangled by government.

[Jamie]

What scares me most

I don't know what scares me most. The fact that the gov't has policies and act the way they do or that there are people in this country that believe this crap. This is quite visible by some of the statements on this page.

[Mark]

In loco parentis

The University had a definite duty of care over their students. They should have, if they did not want to question the possible terrorist actions and passed it on to the police, then to some extent, fair enough. Your parents should shop you when told you committed an offense.

However, your parents would then defend any actions on your behalf, not leave you to the dogs.

And that's what this university has done.

I wouldn't be suprised to find in the next year's requests, this university will find itself as the top spot for NOBODY and a much lower request at all for student places.

[Bob H]

@ Russell Barrett

I too remember the days of Jolly Roger, oh so many years ago. I also recall some students being arrested as well, one was busted for having a small pipe bomb and his friends were arrested for having the 'cookbook'. It was classed as a terrorist book, just wasn't very easy to trace compared to the use of the internet access logging mechanisms of today.

The irony is that security measures are often put in place for the masses, which puts them at a greater risk of being subject to a "false positive", where a true terrorist is probably using much more discrete tactics for their activities.

Shame on everyone, yet another nail in the coffin of personal freedoms.

[xjy]

Jammy bastard...

Lucky sod being kicked out of the UK away from these braindead reactionary paranoid racist shitheads. Never could understand why these arsehole fatcats are convinced that the Devil and his gran are dead set on worming their way into our septic isle. Unless of course they're also convinced that our septic imperialist thugs have turned half the nations of the world into starving cesspits...

[Jerry Maguire]

V

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

[ImaGnuber]

@Distinction

There may, in the end, be a legitimate reason for deportation however the issue here is the original investigation based on downloading a book on an approved/required reading list - and the fact that the investigation was requested by the university that approved/required the book.

What kind of stupidity is that?

Investigating someone for daring to learn in a learning environment (from a book approved as part of the course)???

Your country is in very serious trouble.

Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South said it best:

"If we allow this to be done in our name, in our silent collusion, we become the architects of our own totalitarianism. We live in fear of speaking openly. We live in fear of enquiring and researching openly... We live in fear of the quiet unannounced knock on the door and we live in fear of our own shallowness, in terms of the willingness to stand side-by-side with each other in order to defend the very basis of an open democracy that we claim that terrorism is a threat to."

An MP spoke up - signs of change or the last faint gasp of reason and freedom?

Wouldn't have expected to say this about a politician but - honour that man.

[M]

Thank God

I have to say, as an American, I am very glad nothing like this could ever happen here! USA! USA!

[Mark]

"not entirely thruthful"

What about the 45-minute WMD scare was "entirely truthful"? What about the july bombers "entirely truthful". How about the brazillian? MP expenses? ID Cards?

WHEN has this government (or, fer fecks sake, the POLICE?!?!?) been "entirely truthful"???

Weasel frigging words.

[Keepy]

Live in Fear!?

you only live in fear if you are doing something suspect! you dont live in fear if you are living a transparant life!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, *reading* the book is the last stage..

.. I'm sure work is underway by QinetiQ and CESG to come up with a method to determine that you are THINKING about downloading such a book and then, in a perfect example of pre-crime, arrest you as "preventative measure".

Key indicators are, for instance, being critical of police and governments and their talent to botch handling even the most uncomplicated situation.

Don't say I didn't warn you..

[John Styles]

... and ...

Who thinks the outcome would have been the same if the names of the two gentlemen involved had been John Brown and Dave Smith?

[Anonymous Coward]

@David

Did you get deported?

[Dominic Large]

A lesson to the wise

In future find yourself a gullible middle class white chick to download your contraband docco and don't retain your own copy.

[Anonymous Coward]

To be Deported 1st June, Magistrates hearing 16th July

They brought forward the deportation from end of July to 1st June, the hearing at the magistrates court for the claimed immigration lie is 16th July.

i.e. they will stop him attending the hearing to clear his name

We should never see such things happen in Britain.

[Anonymous Coward]

living in fear

We already live in fear of the quiet unannounced knock on the door

but it is the council demanding their horrendous rates bill

God I wish i didn't live in Britain.

[Peter Antoine]

What happen at HOHQ

Ok, we have dropped a b******k, downloading the training manual is not really a crime...Erm...Immigration...Erm..he has the training manual...Erm...Obviously planning an attack. Did not put that on the form. DEPORT! We saved the world again. **huge slaps on backs all round**

[N1AK]

@Please Deport Me

Thanks to the few intellectually deficient posters who somehow see no issue in ruining a guys life when he's done nothing wrong, but being glad that some 'dodgy brown Forren' got deported. It's a perfect reminder that enough people in this country are getting the fascist xenophobic leadership they want, and anyone who wants no part of it should probably find somewhere to go that has some hope.

[fred]

Check out the site

Are prime ministers imune from proscution once they leave office, or can one attempt to take them to court during office?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem here?

Don't see a problem with the Police action on this one really.

I've been through the immigration process with my wife, it's long, its intrusive and it costs money. We did it legally. Why shouldn't the lying b*stard be sent back if he's been cheating at it, and got no grounds to remain here?

Unlucky for him he was shopped wrongly for being a terrorist, by the Uni involving the police. But once the other issues were uncovered, what's the response supposed to be?

[alistair millington]

The MP rocks.

Another facist police action, another media spun hype feeding the nervous masses into letting it happen.

We try to protect our democracy by stopping terrorists who want to harm it. However in stopping terrorist we harm our democracy.

So the terrorists have won the war on terror

[Amanda Appleton]

@ Righteously Indignant and AC Distinction

The phrase used was "The focus of the inquiry shifted to the possibility that he had been less than truthful in his application to stay"

As there is no other information to go on, it reads more like he's being deported because some-one thinks he possibly might have lied on his application, not because he actually did lie.

Which is as scary in it's own right as being arrested for downloading an apparently publicly available document which is on the university reading list to help a student of that university.

[Julian I-Do-Stuff]

Wikilaw?

Wonder if anyone's interested in setting up a wiki where sane and sensible people could write and clarify e.g. a new version of an "Terrorism Act" that was more of a hook than a dragnet... (and all the other Laws drafted in such a way as to allow the lazier plod an easy collar, you know, such as "looking at me in a funny way whilst [sic] writing his immigration application")

The problem with such wording as "likely to be of use" is that it avoids all consideration of intent (or wilful negligence), and silly me, I thought mens rea etc. was rather important. It's not whether it could be used, it's whether you intend to use it or permit it to be used...

Bugger - bet I'm giving support or encouragement to the bad guys by criticising the good guys...

Mines the one with the little arrows all over it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorist librarians active in Hertfordshire, I need advice

Browsing my local library other day I found a history of the post 1945 Nazi Werewolf movement. In it there were numerous extracts from Werewolf training manuals - how to make things go bang on the cheap etc

This stuff would be useful to terrists. Should I shop these evil librarians to the authorities?

[heystoopid]

So

So , best summed up by a quote from Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on,

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'

Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me: this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear."

[Scott]

Arresting details

I think the NuLabour police have been turned into a Cult...Whoops think you can't use that term as it might upset them and i'll get arrested....

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Distinction

Not quite, a student downloaded a book on his (university provided)reading list, sent it to a staff member to print it out, both student & staff member get picked up by the police, questioned/interrogated for a week or so, student is released, staff member is than deported for "not being entirely truthful" (who is entirely truthful BTW? Pity we can't use this reasoning to deport some politicians). I would have thought that *what* he wasn't being truthful about should be fairly central on the matter of getting him deported.

[Bob Gender]

@ Delaney

"I wouldn't chance being in posession of a copy... would you?"

Too fucking right I would. This isn't a fascist police state and I'm innocent until proven guilty. I refuse to self-censor, and I refuse to be required to keep track of what's "good" reading material and what's "ungood".

[Joe K]

Fucking morons

For *anyone* to be downloading the bloody Al-Queda training manual over a university LAN would be utterly idiotic.....

For a middle-eastern type to be doing it, and spreading it around to further middle eastern friends, is beyond stupid.

No sympathy from me, none at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean...

...that they're going to ban the Quran??

[Erwin Blonk]

Think again

@Righteously Indignant

Recently, a Dutch cartoonist was arrested. There was a complaint of discrimination against him. Anonymously, he writes ironic, sarcastic cartoons about the islam and muslims (with which I have no problem at all - I'm a buddhist and have no problem if people wipe their butts the tipitaka, actually it happens too little, people need to clean their butts - just don't flush it down the toilet, it while clog it, instant karma), you might like it.

Anyway, the police arrested him, held him for over a day, let him go and said sorry, sort off. But not after telling him that his anonimity was gone. Why does the police uses these afterburner threaths? Can't they do what they are supposed to do, instead of playing the judge and/or try to hand out implied threaths. I thought they were held to a higher standard than your average casa nostra. Apparently not. Believe me, I'm not anti-police, But they have extra powers and they have a duty to be that much more careful about what they do.

[Magnus Egilsson]

No worries

I think we should all congratulate UK for replicating in details the behaviour of the UFSA.

Would rather travel to China or Iran than step on UK soil now.

An accidental fart at Oxford street proly qualifies as a bio terror act by now.