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Originally Posted by andyl
But the question is so loaded and misses the point.
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I agree, and even if the question was considered valid, the answer would probably have to be 'all 4'.
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Originally Posted by andyl
In promoting stop and search, and explicitly accepting that more innocent muslims will be subject to it, the Police risk losing the support of the 1.6m muslims who live in Britain and who are already feeling alienated because of growing Islamophobia in which people increasingly equate 'muslim' with 'terrorist' Indeed in an earlier post you talked of targeting Muslims.
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What this would mean is that 'targetting terrorists' cannot include stop & search, because it might lead to more Muslims being stopped than anyone else?
Admittedly, it's a blunt tool, because it relies on 'luck' in catching a terrorist. If, however, a police officer has suspicion of any individual, he should not have to worry himself about their cultural ethnicity before making a decision to stop & search.
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Originally Posted by me283
... it is vital that communication be kept open and that the police presence is very evident.
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Wonder who would be safest?
Lots of people around Britain would welcome a visible police presence to deter crime and anti-social behaviour.
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Originally Posted by Graham
What about all those British ex-Pats out in the Middle East etc who want to drink alcohol against Islamic law? Somehow the Muslim communities seem to have come to an accommodation with them, why can't we do the same with the Muslims here?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/1160846.stm
Seems that maybe they're not as accomodating as we're expected to be.
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Originally Posted by Graham
I do. It's called "Intelligence based Policing" ie using intelligence (in both senses of the word!) so you don't end up harassing innocent people based solely on what they look like or how they dress or where they pray.
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But where is the intelligence going to come from? It is quite clear that to some Muslims the fact that we're talking about
Islamic terrorists means that they've got problems informing on them.
Can't see a lot of intelligence turning up from that quarter.
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Originally Posted by Graham
And once again I have little doubt that Osama Bin Laden and friends are sitting in their caves, watching satellite TV and laughing as we throw away the liberties that make our society *FREE* and which they hate so much.
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Someone said something about Snarks and how repetition proves nothing?
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Originally Posted by Graham
I'm sure you would, but once again I point out, *YOU* are unlikely to be stopped or harassed, so again it seems a case of "I'm alright, Jack, it's ok to hassle people who aren't *me* so long as *I* feel safe".
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I don't believe support for this is driven by selfishness - simply if it doesn't directly affect someone, then they're hardly going to have a strong opinion against it.
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Originally Posted by Graham
Yes, because what happened was sheer, cold blooded murder, nothing else.
If these people were *known* IRA terrorists (which they were, as you admit) and they were on UK soil (which, again, you admit they were) they could have been *arrested* for being members of an illegal organisation.
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Maybe, maybe not. Like in most of these situations we don't have enough facts to determine why it happened the way it did.
If the government had intended to arrest these people, it would have sent the police after them, not the SAS.
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Originally Posted by Graham
Let's say that a certain person who uses the alias timewarrior2001 was arrested for being a suspected terrorist. Then the Police discover that he messages on Cable Forum. Since he's swapped messages with all those people the Police decide to bring in all the members of Cable Forum for questioning "just to be on the safe side".
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Maybe not, but they'd certainly start looking at everyone he'd communicated with to see what had passed between them. And then if anything didn't look right, they might start looking at others more closely, even bring them in, just to be on the safe side.
This is suspicion by association, and I'd consider it rather incompetent if the police did not examine closely the activities of associates of suspected terrorists.