@Matt Bryant
I could not disagree with you more.
"If the Police find you carrying a gun or an explosive device ... it is simply illegal"
Possession of the Al Qaeda training manual is manifestly not the same as possession of a firearm or explosives. It is simply preposterous to link the two. But our government got there long before you did. Take a look at the Terrorism Act (2006) Section 2, subsection 3, from which I quote:
"A publication is a terrorist publication ... if matter contained in it is likely—
"(a) to be understood, by some or all of the persons to whom it is or may become available ... as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism"
This is so ludicrously wooly that you could quite easily contend that the Quran is such a publication.
If anyone is charged with dissemination of terrorist material, by any of dozens of different mechanisms, including "transmit[ting] the contents of such a publication electronically", he has but two valid defences:
"(a) That the statement [i.e. the document] neither expressed his views nor had his endorsement ... and
"(b) that it was clear, in all the circumstances of the statement’s publication, that it did not express his views and ... did not have his endorsement."
This does not mean that the defendant has to have a "valid reason" for possessing the document. It means that he has to prove that it does not express his views or have his endorsement.
If our legal system were still worth the name, it would be incumbent on the prosecution to show that it did express the defendant's views AND have his endorsement.
You go on to say:
"It is a simple reality that danger does not only come in the physical form of weapons, but that the written (or typed) word can be even more dangerous when the idiotic/dupeable are exposed to them."
Then I suggest you bring an action against the US DOJ for exposing the "idiotic" and "dupeable" to such horrifying material. Or perhaps they would point out that if "you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."
You have fun on Airstrip One, Matt. Me? I'll live free or die.