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' …
Saying "the focus of the investigation suddenly shifted" makes it sound so conspiratorial. You could say that "the investigation brought to light inconsistencies on his application" etc but that doesn't sound so sexy does it? For a start the police don't decide on or investigate immigration issues, they would simply have handed over information to the immigration services, so the implication that peeved officers, deprived of a scalp, had our poor innocent victim deported on trumped up charges, is at best confused, at worst malicious.
The only people at fault are the people who reported the matter to the police in the first place - they should have known the material was on a reading list and should have exercised some discretion. Once reported though the police had a duty to investigate it thoroughly.
To use an analogy, it's like the police pulling someone over for a breathaliser (which they pass) but then finding a body in the trunk. Would you complain you were living in a police state because people found innocent of drunk driving were being banged up? (Probably).
... Though far be it from me to rain on the big brother parade. To say that the uk is police state is insulting to everyone who has had to live in a police state. It's sixth form politics at it's worst. It's Rik in the Young Ones calling everyone fascists. It's, as Neil Stephensen says, "the presumption that all authority figures--teachers, generals, cops, ministers, politicians--are hypocritical buffoons, and that hip jaded coolness is the only way to be."
Before it reached the ears of the Ministry of Love and everything spiralled downwards into a Kafka story..... By Spleen Posted Friday 30th May 2008 11:51 GMT
And there's the problem, Love is Deaf, Dumb and Blind, and you have to be able to feel IT, to see IT, to hear IT, to taste IT, to Enjoy IT. And given their Dismal Performances, it is Pretty Damned Obvious that Love is Alien to them All and a Spell Servering the Harem would do them no Harm ...... well, not the Strong Willed and Shamefully Wanton Ones, Anyway.
"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." ... By Jerry Maguire Posted Friday 30th May 2008 12:03 GMT
Well said, fine Sir/vociferous Madame.
". 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"." .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 30th May 2008 12:12 GMT
Crikey, AC, that's blown that Op to the Surface but it is still Plausibly Deniable Quantum
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1. The university should have disqualified this matter without further notice.
2. When it was put to the police the investigators should have found out without intimidation why the material was downloaded. Once that was established they should have complained to the university for waisting their time with matters that the university had caused in the first place.
3. The University leadership should have been publicly apologetic about their incompetent handling of the issue.
But that did not happen. The reason for why this is how it should have been dealt with is very simply because of the following assumption:
Staff member helps student to download material which is on a public university student reading list. This should have been sufficient to know for all involved and no further action could possibly have been justified under these circumstances. What appear to have happened is not just Kafka like but pure Monthy Python... Unfortunately for us living in the UK.
<<I am so fucking glad that I don't live in Britain anymore.
Dave>>
Me too, Dave, me too. I still have my organic chemistry textbooks with detailed syntheses for TNT & Nitroglycerin, and some inorganic chemistry books in which the methods for "safe" production of Nitrogen Tri-iodide, Mercury Fulminate and black powder are not only written, but clearly indexed.
This would seem to be a quick rendition to some foreign clime in which the nuances of testicle/electrode science are fully understood and wholly legal.
Of course, I now live in America, land of Freedom (Fries), so it all balances out.
We are living in a Terry Gillingham film. The Director's Cut.
Everyone seems to be in either the shoot everyone swarthy looking or let 'em play with nitroglycerine, it could be innocent! camp.
What happenned to moderacy?
The police received a report about someone possessing training material for one of the major terrorist organisations. They investigated. They cleared him but in the course of the investigation found he was here illegally so they dealt with it.
Whats the big deal? Is it just me not getting something or is it really not even newsworthy?
He'd been 'less than truthful' - that could mean anything. Since you've been been through the immigration process, you know how intrusive it is - and also how ambigious some of the requests can be. And in this case, we don't know whether the police actually found anything significant, or whether they went through his application with a fine tooth comb looking for a reason to throw him out...
What if he went on a cruise and forgot the mention one of the places that he stopped at along the way? Even it it was somewhere perfectly innocent, that's 'less than truthful'. Or if he didn't have his financial records from 10 years prior and estimated his income at £5,000 for the year, when it was really £6,200? Normally that wouldn't matter, but in this case it would just what the police are looking for...
Assume that the police statement is phrased in such a way as to allow them to do what they want, with minimum protest from the public, and perhaps even anger towards the accused. Healthy skepticism is a good place to start from, and you can bet that the choice of words in the statement wasn't accidental...
"Unless we all start saying no to this we will end up with a totalitarian state."
Too fecking late, methinks.
I've used this one before but...
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. " Benjamin Franklin
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison
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For those who think that a "possibility that he had been less than truthful in his application to stay" is equivalent to "he said he was a quantum physicist and amateur boxer but in fact he just wanted to sell drugs/live on benefits/etc", try using your brains. Getting indefinite leave to remain requires a very large amount of personal information, much of it repetitious. Pretty much anyone is going to leave some sort of piddling inconsistency or mistake. Even if you don't make any mistakes, you can be pretty sure one of the government drones at the other end will. If he spent ten years at university it's a fair bet that he didn't have any need to lie about his abilities on immigration forms in order to go off and sell drugs the moment he set foot on English soil.
I could bet money that if 12:38 gave me all his wife's application forms - all of them - I'd find as many inconsistencies (or lies, if you will) than on Yezza's.
No, I'm a british citizen living happily in Spain for the last 15 years.
Sun (but not too much). Cheap (though not so cheap as a few years ago) beer and a govt which is so overloaded with functionaries that very little gets done.
Just the way I like it.
I don't understand why there is anybody left in the UK at all.
Dave.
there's no such thing, it's a word that you've just made up.
"They cleared him, but in the course of the investigation......"
I think that people are not so much upset about the investigation, more the nature of it. I've got nothing to hide but I would be really pissed off to have a dozen coppers turn my home upside down and intrude on everything that I hold personal. I'd be even more pissed off if I had to spend six days living in a police cell whilst they found out I was an innocent law abiding citizen.
"And if you buy a pound of heroin, you're correctly assumed to be a pusher; some products do define the situation."
I browsed the training manual, and I'm baffled how anyone could consider it to be dangerous. It's tame compared to most of the literature I've seen from the survivalist, isolationist, fringe groups here in Merka. Honestly, I've read business plans that were more subversive than this.
Watered down Mao and Che, IMO. I think should be required reading for anyone studying political science, criminal science, sociology, etc.
TR
Lest we allow ourselves to be slowly boiled, here's how it SHOULD have been:
1. it should not be illegal to possess the "wrong" book.
2. when the university alerted the police, they should have been investigated for invasion of privacy. They should not have been spying on him in the first place.
3. after their subsequent actions, the police should be prosecuted for wrongful arrest, and violation of basic human rights.
4. the politicians involved in attempting to have him ejected from the country should be prosecuted for abuse of power.
5. the politicians involved in creating these immoral laws should be prosecuted.
6. the victim should be compensated generously for his treatment by the police state that the UK has become.
I think a couple of things here are:
1) They were arrested and interrogated for 6 days. That can't be nice, and can leave a rather large stain on your reputation. And try getting into the Disneyland with an arrest under terrorism laws on your record....
2) Falling foul of immigration and being removed is fine, immigration laws are there for a reason, but being held in a detention center and then denied the right to argue you case because of an *emergency* sounds draconion, and (assumption here, but there you go) like punishing someone because they could not make the other charges stick.
To be fscked by "due process" in the first and then fscked again by being denied "due process" sounds like a situation I would not like to be in. And I would not like anyone else to be in either. And that makes me want some more public scrutiny applied to this case.
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . .
And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
Pastor Niemöller
Those are not the words of some political slogan, they are the words of a man speaking about how he ended up in a Nazi concentration camp.
What has happened to Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir is not only a flagrant breach of their human rights but also a frightening illustration of how so many of our laws are framed to allow arbitrary action by the police and officials against individuals who displease them.
If we don't speak up against the way that they came for Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, then one day they will come for you and me — and there will be nobody left to speak up for us.
Please don't be an AC. Give your real name to show our defiance of stealth fascism in our government.
BTW, I'm not some kind of radical. I'm middle-aged, middle-class, right-of-centre, father of two grown-up children and a management consultant.
..the same gorgeous, pouting Ms.Smith who recently deported a man whose wife was accidentally killed when our NHS put spinal anaesthetic in her arm (thus removing his need to be here).
What is it about the Home Office that turns reasonable (ish) politicians into complete bastards, every time?
The question is not whether he was a nice guy or a drug dealer, the question was did he have a right to live in the UK. We can only speculate as to the reasons why he didn't. You can speculate that it was a piddling inconsistency, others can speculate that it was outright lies, but the fact is none of us know.
But hey, no need to let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
"Of course, I now live in America, land of Freedom (Fries), so it all balances out."
Oh, I don't know. I can still read what I want, arm and defend myself, and our fascist nutbags are about to retire, there is even a slight chance it will improve. So I think we are still ahead. But the new UK laws make the US look like Pepperland.
And unless you live in the deep deep red states, NOBODY says freedom fries anymore. Bush bashing is the national passtime, and talking about terrorists is old hat, its barely news anymore. One thing I love about my silly, fat and overindulged people is how quickly they get bored with one form of nonsense and move to the "new thing".
Too fucking right sir. Too fucking right. What the fuck is wrong with the UK? When the hell did the UK begin remaking itself in the shape of an Orwellian 1984 society where books and ideas, even thoughts can be cause for arrest? Fahrenheit 451 is here, apparently.
As Dave said, I am soooooooo glad I don't live in the UK any longer. Once I thought I might return, but with every passing day some new abuse of power by the government or police comes to light. And the worst part is that anyone who gives a damn enough to complain might be arrested is their protest is considered offensive or threatening.
The US isn't far behind. Thanks to Bush the climate here is such that you can't criticise the president or his policies without some asshole accusing you of a lack of patriotism at a time of war. Trust me, once that happens it's like a Usenet thread derailed by a Godwin event.
The sooner that Brown and the Balirite regime is kicked out of office the better. I know that most people consider Thatcher to be the worst PM in contemporary history, and she did do some things that curtailed freedoms in the UK, mostly at the cost of the Unions. However from my vantage point, Blair and now Brown, have collectively done more to damage the UK than any previous PM or government. Right now, everything i hear about the UK reminds me of the totalitarian goevernemtns of Eastern Europe in the 80's. I say reminds, because it's not the same. However the very fact that it reminds me of those regimes, leaves me in no doubt that there is a slippery slope which the UK is teetering at the top of. I don't like where that slope leads.
Great Britain has become the Orwellian state envisioned in the novel "1984". I will NEVER return there as long as these policies (illegal to own a book?!) remain in place, even though I lived in London for a year in my youth and truly loved the place.
It is time the people of England showed the politicians responsible for these abuses the door to the unemployment line...
All the people defending the police and immigration services' behaviour are missing the point. Yes, the police had a right, or even duty, to hand stuff over to the immigration services, if they thought there was something relevant - but this isn't what happened.
Here's a thing: ALL arrests of non-British Nationals under terrorist legislation are automatically red flagged to the immigration services with a view to deportation. And they would indeed investigate "the possibility that he had been less than truthful in his application to stay." And then, the home office decides to use an emergency deportation so as to circumvent the necessity of having a hearing, which kinda implies that they didn't find anything in their investigation that would stand up at one.
What this shows is the extent to which you can be tarred by accusation in this country, for both terrorism and immigration. The fact that they tried to rush him out of the country without a hearing should obviously show that he hasn't done anything. But mention scare words like "terrorism" and "immigration" or both together and everyone stops thinking.
Several people have made the comparison, that finding the immigration document errors on the terrorist investigation is akin to finding a dead body in the trunk on a drunk driving check (Or similar). Less the truthful in this case is probably something relatively minor or that had changed since the paperwork was filed. Finding an error, even a HUGE one like claiming to have degrees he did not, is NOT like finding a dead body. This started as a TERRORIST investigation, no matter how flimsy the evidence. This is the equivalent of pulling someone over for DUI, finding nothing wrong, and then impounding the car because the officer discovered the rear-view mirror is 2mm smaller then the size specified as minimum in a law in 1936.
A number of comments assume that the apparent irregularities in Hicham's visa are valid. But what if the Home office decided to fast-track Hicham out of the country because of his ethnicity/religion/suspected involvement with terrorism? And then invented the irregularities? Consider this: Hicham has been resident in the UK for 13 years, was an undergraduate at Nottingham and remained there to complete a PhD, and has been employed in the university since 2007 as PA to the head of the school of modern languages. As a student, he would have had no difficulty obtaining a student visa, which entitles him to work up to 20 hours a week. So the biggest crime may have been to work for longer than that.
In any case the University is obliged to check his entitlement to work before offering him employment. (Apparently they didn't: shamefully they have announced they are urgently trying to seek clarification of Hicham's status from his lawyers, in an attempt to cover their own a**e). What's more, Hicham is in the process of applying for British citizenship, which suggests he has maintained perfectly valid visas to stay in the UK throughout.
His worst "lie" therefore may be not to have revealed his employment. Maybe not even that - we will now have a chance to find out. Bit harsh to chuck him out without due process?
Most of the western world focuses a LOT of energy accusing, middle eastern, eastern Euro, Asian, African countries of trampling human rights, especially that of free expression.
Recent examples of horrible rights crimes, are the stories of the student on death row in Afghanistan for downloading and printing out feminist material; The man in Morocco put in Jail for making a fake Facebook profile of the crown prince; or the young Iranian man fearing for his life in Iran after his boyfriend and others where hung to death for their sexual orientation.
The funny thing is that there is nothing different with this situation and other similar rights abuses in England than those occurring in the "un-free" lands of the east.
(After all, in its silence -or at least focus on Amy- the society condones hooligans beating and killing young Goth couples or gay/lesbian people, etc)
There might be contextual distinctions, but their similarity is striking.
How dare they call themselves the enlightened west?
Then again in this "new" England its also acceptable that:
- There are security camera's watching your every move.
- You can be arrested for something appearing in youtube.
-There is an office which regulates acceptable speech, in advertising, and elsewhere.
-you can somehow be "un-citizened" by a court.
(How is this even possible? Didn't you renounce your past national allegiance to become english?)
Its pretty amazing how close this "new" England is to the one portrayed in "V for Vendetta" or "1984"; but its even more amazing how close it is from the very modern States it criticize for being authoritarian.
Well at least England does have Amy and Naomi... oh and Beck.
Maybe someone should suggest the document is added to the reading list of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. It could be titled, "Nice one Tony!"
The whole affair is another example of the terrible legacy he has left to this country. It is an appalling mess -the University should be bloody ashamed of themselves as well. For goodness sakes, they are supposed to be an institution committed to pushing the frontiers of knowledge and debate. Instead they have become unquestioning, non thinking lap dogs for the government.
I just want New Labour gone. The problem is, who would replace them?
Old Labour, hopefully.
Now I am dreaming.
What I have learned about what (a high proportion of) people think:
* we're OK with the idea of books being banned
* people with non-English names should know not to download certain things
* everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist
* Algeria is in the Middle East
* if your employer hands you over to the state for doing your job, it's YOUR fault
* we think people who've lived here 13 years are foreigners
* we'll let the government do whatever it likes as long as they say that there's an immigration issue.
I don't know whether I'm more sickened by the Government or by the reaction of some of my fellow citizens.
OK - so Mr Yezza thinks:
- I am waiting for an Indefinite Stay stamp and I may have been a bit economical with the truth in my application to stay.
- There's an al-Qaeda Training Manual on the faculty reading list - I think I'll get a copy. In a country that has been targetted by al-Qaeda several times and some of the people involved being from my home country (Algeria), that isn't going to attract attention, is it?
Given the university faculty concerned should be aware of the Terrorism Act, putting such a document on the reading list isn't very bright of them.
So it's illegal to possess pictures that the Government doesn't like, even when they show legal activities.
It's going to be illegal to possess drawings that the Government doesn't like, even when they don't show anyone being harmed.
And now it's illegal to possess documents that the Government doesn't like, even when they are freely and legally available.
War is Peace!
Freedom is Slavery!
Ignorance is Strength!
Gordon Brown is Watching You!
"..................... This covers probably about 10% of the stuff in book shops. Surely the sensible approach now is to not take any chances and burn all the books. They only turn people into spectacle wearing dangerous intellectuals anyway."
Have you ever read the 1950's Science Fiction Book 'Fahrenheit 451' portaying a world where books were banned in a world of total surveillance and control, and it was the job of the Fire Service to burn books rather than put out fires. 451 degrees fahrenheit is the temperature at which the books burn.
It's beginning to look as though Ray Bradbury was clairvoyant. Perhaps this book should be on the prohibited list now!
So now we are only waiting for the 'interactive' televisions in every room in our homes querying what we're doing or, more likely, what we thinking.
I'm old enough not to be worried about this for myself, but I do worry for my children and grandchildren although they think I'm a dynasaur.
Margaret Thatcher is remembered for her enthusiasm for the excesses of capitalism. Tony Blair will be remembered for his enthusiasm for the excesses of state (and private) surveillance and control (opening up the horrors portrayed in certain Science Fiction books and films) - all quite contrary to the spirit in which our fathers fought for freedom in the Second World War.
I am a middle aged, middle class, white, atheist, mensa card carrying, father of two, business owning, slightly right of centre, traditionalist who believes that the Queen basically does a good job. Even if I can't quite get my head round thinking of her as anything special as a person.
I try and help people, I don't get road rage. Ever. I believe in paying my taxes (some anyway - less keen over the last 10 years). I try very hard to be honest, hard working, reasonable. I am strongly patriotic - whilst having absolutely no problem with widespread and unlimited immigration. I believe you shouldn't blame people for playing a system, you should change the system. I believe in rehabilitative justice, and serious retributive justice where rehabilitation fails. I am fiercely democratic - following Descartes' approach of disagreeing with you, but defending your right to think/feel that way
I now think that Guy Fawkes was a cool bloke who was simply 400 years early.
My government has radicalised me to the point where actually I think that Al Quaeda or however you spell it have a point. They might not have had when that pathetic mysogynist of a spoilt CIA trained monkey boy wos'name laden started, but they do now. Doesn't make them any better than my lot, probably worse, but I can understand them being angry, and hating me, and my country.
I accept responsibility for my country's crimes. I am an international criminal - it is a shame that the pathetic scum that lead us cannot do the same.
We sit on a slippery slope toward totalitarianism, and I genuinely consider that the charming 200 year experiment with real democracy in the western world is nearing it's end. We have become complacent because we have had democracy all our lives - but in historical terms dictatorship of some variety is the rule.
I am of the opinion that stating this in a public forum is likely to come back and bite me in years to come. For the record, when the last election is cancelled, I shall join the resistance.
you may call me paranoid, and I hope you are right, but I do not 'believe' in very much - preferring healthy skepticism other than when evidence presents. Sadly I see plenty of evidence for my theory. Every country that has descended into terror has followed the steps we are taking.
I am not anonymous. I am a (currently) free man.
Oh, and I don't need no stinking book, I can remember how to build bombs from chemistry in school. Although quite frankly if I really wanted to harm a developed economy I wouldn't fiddle around with bombs - it's a retail solution to a wholesale challenge.
Sorry, slightly off topic, but seeing some of the other gentle souls here being lambasted for spleen, I thought I'd let you have some of my bile.
/mines the one with diesel fuel soaked fertiliser leaking from the seams.
Icon - V
Your profile is almost me. I'm with you 100%. I suppose there really IS a "silent majority".
However, I cannot understand the political apathy of such a large part of the UK electorate, who vote Labour :...because it's a working man's gummint, innit?"
No it's not - and never has been really. What originally started as a working-class movement rapidly became hijacked by self-proclaimed intellectuals of varying marxist hues - I believe Uncle Joe referred to them as "useful idiots",
They always become excessively authoritarian when in power - their smug, arrogant patronising mindset will brook no dissent:- since we're all naughty children, they know what's best for us and by God, they'll make sure we have it - willingly or otherwise, but have it, we will.
Their tenacious hold on authority is nothing more than an ego trip for those concerned.
A plague on their houses, and would that there were some real way to hold them to account for the damage they've done.
PS even in Oz under a previous government party of wowsers trying to implement their version of "white supremacy" then in power , if you were a foreign national working on a special issue by occupation visa and whose old telephone UK sim card was found in the London Flat of a second or third cousin who was involved in the so called super explosive LPG gas tank Jeep crash at Glasgow Airport(strange no one mentioned the laws of thermodynamics or physics for some unaccountable reason , but what can one say other then the wankers reporting the estimated potential for damage were some 1000% plus overly optimistic based on the existing Fire Control laws required to be in place in all public buildings for obvious reasons )
Suggest you google the name "Dr. Mohammed Haneef" back in July 2007 as he was very illegally unjustly sacked , visa revoked on the flimsiest imaginary grounds possible and then very illegally deported prior to a fair hearing by a bunch of incompetent racist very small L in your posterior wowsers of the of the soon to be evicted and rapidly forgotten always number two at everything bum buddy of the DC Chimp , Little Johnny the nameless victim of his own self inflicted stupidity of presuming to assume the general public were 100% behind his dysfunctional ways of being up the chimps rectum all the way ! It later turned out that maybe less then 32% after deducting the other bunch of losers still living in the nineteen forties as he lost all the swingers due to in part the unmitigated racism the so called Haneef Affair created , plus the public were getting very tired of the falling down wowser constantly tripping over his own two feet !
Tony B Liar was the first to be rolled and he still spews forth the very same useless mindless vitriol crap that got him outed in the first place even now in the latest round of semi public appearances to audiences that pay to hear him ! As the general public would not cease booing him from the moment he appeared on the podium until he is evicted by the same audience from the forum flying posterior first undoubtedly because he is and remains such an A*** for life and a bad footnote in history books for the next millenia or so !
Thankfully the Judge saw through all the fictitious verbal rubbish and unmitigated sewage as served up by both un Oz like "Fair Go For All" idiotic stupid wowsers then infesting the forgotten one Little Johnny Nobody and soon to be evicted crown ministry infested with absolute useless wowsers trying in vain to reverse the overwhelming tide of "Multiculturalism" and bring back for want of a better word "Oz variant of White Australia Rules of the 1900's except if you have $$$$$$$$" , thus totally exonerated the man sadly after the illegal deportation and some small notional amount compensation was paid to this poor unfortunate political football !
Shamefully , the mass media press should have demanded their absolute expulsion from the country of Oz , federal parliament and the party , but chose to ignore the wowsers absolute stupidity in this disgraceful affair. However thankfully less then six months later the public wisely did not fall for their verbal and written fiction and then voted them right out of their cushy up your posterior jobs and gave them a massive pay cut as well(it appears that the current opposition leaders on the wrong side of the bench created a failed motion to keep their old salaries and benefits for life for such was their greed of the $ , which was totally laughed out of the building for some reason and had almost every one rolling in the aisle falling out of their seats howling in derision !)
Ah , such is the evilness of this trial by fictitious propaganda hiding the real facts from the people to make a fair decision based on the fair amount of unbiased information , Josef G. is undoubtedly smiling from the ruins in Berlin in 1945 that his ideas are winning even now !
A pity we cannot lock all elected politicians in stocks in daily rotation with a handy supply of rotten fruit close by for anyone to toss at same , to give them the hint they have been elected to serve the public rather then the current 419er pig feeding frenzy they have turned the job into now !
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