Re: Goodbye Freedoms?
flying into Edinburgh Airport recently, waiting for my suitcase to be delivered, there were three or four information screens at baggage reclaim.
They showed a loop of happy travellers collecting bags, then a warning page from HMG Customs
"Do not pack any of these items in your suitcases when travelling to UK", "it is illegal to import these items above the limits stated"
showed a page of [something-like] arsenic, cyanide, plutonium etc with milligrams,
but the page went further, and listed a whole bunch of chemicals that I had never heard of, and their maximum quantities in your incoming baggage. [pedant: this was displayed on way IN, surely needs to be shown somewhere else on WAY out?]
This long list of chemicals, I immediately became suspicious that this broadcast would be USEFUL to terrorists, and that HMG Police might now need to arrest HMG Customs. I checked one item on the list,
using it as a 'naughty' shopping list - the item was, shall we call it "OxRhubarb-Acid" and you could only bring in 5 milligrams without being shot.
I browsed a major shopping website, using the free airport Wi-Fi and found that I could get 7 kilograms of that specific bloody acid delivered within 24 hous, prime, to my hotel in Edinburgh - for just £25!
which is "legal to view" - the long list of naughty chemicals, or searching shopping for "boat deck cleaner" in humongous quantities?
Hopefully, as someone above mentioned, the few remaining cops in UK would be able to sort out terrrrzm from industrial use; but I naively thought one of the main counters to terrrrzm that actually works, worldwide, was to actually INCREASE the size and capabilities of the local police forces.
Whilst we get the opposite. . . Methinks a bit of playing is going on somewhere!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
