Nah

No, Sorry, the point, that you missed, went that way.....

Lewis has it spot on.

The remaining threat is vanishingly small. It is just not practically possible to eliminate the terrorist threat entirely. Just look at the number of people that died in the west from terrorism compared to other factors of sudden death: drunk driving, electrocution, heart attack, and many others. Terrorism just doesn't even appear on the radar.

If I decided tomorrow to go into a shopping centre with a big knife and hack a load of people to death, there is absolutely nothing anybody could do to stop me. The only thing that keeps our society together is a certain amount of trust and most people's abhorrence of such acts.

The issue comes down to a case of what it is reasonable to do to prevent possible attacks given their likelihood, the cost and the effect that those measures have on our daily life.

I for one think that full body searches and expensive scanning machines are a step too far.

What happened to the British wartime spirit? All the way through the Irish terror attacks and WWII, the message was "They will never change our way of life. We will continue living as we always have despite their best efforts."

The aim of these groups is not practical disruption, it is psychological disruption and fear.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the media are doing that quite nicely for them.

We're Not Afraid

"What happened to the British wartime spirit? All the way through the Irish terror attacks and WWII, the message was "They will never change our way of life. We will continue living as we always have despite their best efforts.""

That spirit is alive and well.

In the days following the London bombings of 7th July 2005, the spontaneous response from the people was, "We're Not Afraid". It wasn't politicians, police, etc, who led that response. It came straight from the people.

http://www.werenotafraid.com/

It's our so-called leaders, the government, etc, who are the cowards.

When terrorists see how we, the people, respond to terrorism, they see how futile their efforts are. Even when they kill 52 of us, and injure many more, we don't just say, "We're Not Afraid", we actually do Keep Calm and Carry On. It's a response that achieves far, far more than any amount of body scanners, no fly lists, Big Brother databases, etc, etc, can do.

But when the terrorists see our government react to terrorism by diverting excessive resources to fighting terrorism, they see that as an opportunity to do real economic harm. And likewise when it comes to our rights and freedom. This cowardly government is stupidly playing right into the hands of terrorists. And they're too stubborn, reactionary and cowardly to see that.

When we consider the billions being diverted from elsewhere in the name of fighting terrorism, it becomes clear that far from reducing the effects of terrorism, this government is actually vastly amplifying its effects. This government has successfully turned what was originally a failure - the so-called 7/7 bombings in which 52 people were murdered - into a great success for the terrorists.

By diverting such significant resources away from elsewhere into counter terror stuff, this government might actually be attracting more terrorism as a result.

Security theatre

"...keep people as safe as possible. And bringing in the new airport scanners isn't a bad way of doing that."

Bollocks! These checks and scans are just security theatre. They don't do anything useful. All they do is give the stupid the illusion that Something Is Being Done to make them feel safer. Oh and it gives the goons who operate these scanners the opportunity to steal your nail clippers and gran's perfume in the name of "security".

Tom 15 obviously didn't read the reports which quoted airport officials and security experts who said that these new scanners would be unlikely to have detected the pants bomber. IIRC one of those experts was from the company that makes the scanners.

Besides, has there ever been a recorded instances of these checks actually finding something really nasty like explosives or firearms?

Paris icon 'cos she knows a thing or two about getting probed.

Is Your Comment Lawful?

Is your comment lawful? Or are you committing a crime under the Terrorism Act 2006 by posting your comment?

http://opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060011_en_1

For example, in Section 1, "Encouragement of terrorism":-

"(2) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he publishes a statement to which this section applies or causes another to publish such a statement; and

(b) at the time he publishes it or causes it to be published, he—

(i) intends members of the public to be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate acts of terrorism or Convention offences; or

(ii) is reckless as to whether members of the public will be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate such acts or offences."

I haven't read most of that Act (or other terrorism-related Acts generally) so I don't know what else your comment might possibly fall foul of.

What do you mean 'Title required?'

You sir owe me a new keyboard!

Something to keep in mind

The whole motivation of an Islamic extremist committing a suicide attack is to die a Martyrs Death in a Jihad, that is to die protecting his/her religion. Thats the only way they will go directly to Paradise and get the 72 virgins (or become on if its a she).

In Christianity suicide is the an "unforgivable" sin. Do it and you go straight to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect 72 Virgins.

Murder is forbidden by the Quran, as it is by the Torah and Bible and just about every other religious text out there. In the case of the Torah, Bible and Quran its spelled out pretty clear by the 4th commandment, you know the one "Thou shalt not kill."

And yes, the Commandments are part of the Quran and Torah as well as the Bible. In fact Islam, Judaism and Christianity share >90% at their foundations, its the ->interpretation<- of the 90% that causes people to think the rest is worth killing/dying for.

Peacenik

I think you'l find that after the USS Cole was attacked the Clinton administration had a pretty full-on bombing campaign against training camps in Afganistan. That was only brought to a close when that famous peacenik George Walker Bush took power in 2001. That's when Bin Lauden was given the space to dream up his jolly 9/11 japes!

That had to be one

Matt,

congratulations for having the most thumbs down post here.

Your post can be summed up neatly: let's kill more dark skinned people and steal their land.

If they complain, we'll just blow them to pieces with a UAV missile strike operated by some jar-head in a control room in Qatar (or, perhaps Dallas).

Damn you AC

And I thought that reading El Reg with a coffee was safe now that the BOFH kinda retired. Damn you AC, damn you.

There is a simple reason

The answer is simple - Its significantly more profitable to over react... All of these new fangdangled full body scanners cost a lot of money (no doubt with significant kickbacks to all of the appropriate officials/MPs) and so everyone gets a little bit richer (at the taxpayers expense), so everyone making the decisions is happy.

Its just simple economics...

You're mistaken..

You forgot they're the ones with the rubber gloves..

Doormat icon for comic effect..

No thanks

With my luck I'd get the gay security guy...

Yes, but.

If you actually were a jihadi equipped with an explosive bottom, as there's another meaning to the term "arse bandit" that could be considered a result.....