Serious quedos to Alan Simpson: why don't we get that kind of thinking in ministerial level politicians?

Claiming it is an abuse of the Anti-Terrorism laws doesn't make sense... Yes, the Police may have made a 'dreadful cock-up' with the original arrest - but as stated they are no longer pursuing that matter. Would people rather the Police had ignored the report and not investigated it at all?

All that has happened here is a immigrant has been found to be 'less than truthful' in their application to stay and is being - and quite rightly so - deported. If only the Home Office acted this quickly with all failed immigration applications!

I am so fucking glad that I don't live in Britain anymore.

Dave

How did someone with a name like that rise through the ranks to get to be Supt?

Summed up most elequently in the final paragraph.

I don't believe that this bloke is really "New Labour"! That is the first and only anti-Stasi/Stalinist/Bi-Brother statement I've ever heard from New Labour - it is obvious that he'll never make the cabinet and that he'll brought back in line by the Whips.

It was nice while it lasted...

"This was all part of legitimate study: the document itself was on the Politics Faculty reading list."

So the author of the reading list itself should also be in for a session at the ministry of love?

In all seriousness, I hope this incident is exposed for the shambles that it is. And shurely, to promote some understanding in the hope of *ever* being able to resolve why we have this particular branch of terrorism in the first place: Perhaps academics should be able to study any documents and literature in order to learn. As we know too well in the IT world, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, particular to the opposition, whoever they might be.

An icon with a big question mark in it would be useful because I'm just left wondering 'why'?

I believe there is a similar penalty for 'possessing items likely to be of use to a terrorist'.

Such as maybe 'shoes', or maybe a bag?

The 'emergency' is no doubt the impending embarrassment of the Home Secretary if this guy gets to argue his case in court.

"Under s.58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they “possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”."

Seems a bit broad? A train timetable could conceivably count..

without riling them further with illicit downloading of their secret dox

This state of fear and oppression is going to become known as Blair's legacy.

Political expediency and political correctness over coming common sense. Again the police have shown us why they are losing (have lost?) the respect of "middle England". They have acted in a high handed, arrogant manner and are now trying to deflect attention away from their mistakes.

Not AC because we HAVE to stand up and be counted.

How wide is the interpretation of a document "likely to be useful"? If a terrorist wants to drive a van-bomb into a government building, will having the manual for the van be helpful? will the highway code book be helpful? will any "how to drive" books be helpful?

Seems to me they meant to aim this at "jolly roger" type books, used by radicals, but will apply it to anyone they see fit.

The Bush/Blair/Brown GWOT has been such a resounding success, hasn't it?

Eastern bloc secret police used to use this technique to suppress dissent not by force but by the fear of being reported by anyone in earshot or eyesight.

Mine's the one with the passport in it.

I think al-Qaeda can have a small party tonight, for another victory over the western world, the UK in particular.

Why would an intelligent man like Hicham Yezza not know how dangerous downloading / posessing a terrorist training manual could be, regardless of whose academic reading list it might be on?

Particulary so for someone currently seeking permanent UK residency.

How stupid can you get?

Section 58 of the Stalin's era USSR penal code was the infamous section under which people were sent to Gulag to rot and die. Treason, subversion and crime against the state.

Similarly, there were books on the so called prohibited list during Brezhnev's time which would have gotten you out of the university onto the all-time job blacklist and sometimes even into forced resettlement. At the same time these books were on the reading lists for some of the ideology and history majors. However, lending them to someone else would have resulted (and has resulted on many occasions) in the same story as in this case.

History indeed repeats itself. Up to the exact number

Welcome to the Union of British Soviet Republics and its most prominent educational institution, the Stalin's Nottingham University.

Me coat. The one with "My great granddad was shot by Stalin, I do not want to be shot by his brown incarnation" slogan on the back.

When the University installed a web cache and firewall that made everyone go via the cache, we all though it was just so the computer centre staff didn't have to find their own porn. Looks like we were wrong.

NuLabour's fascist police force in action! Common sense is now a truly foreign concept in UK law.

Only asking because with being an engineer (degree), computer tech (masters), martial arts (something to do) and interested in millitary history and training (family professions) I'm sure half the books I have will be on it...

I wonder when I'll be getting the knock...

AC as well, yeah...

PS. Yes, I agree this is sickening and that something should be done but now I have just shown intent to protest... whoops...

The Jolly Roger Cook Book Disk? I've not seen a copy for years but when I was at school pre email it was certainly passed around on 3.5" floppies, I had a copy, although all I ever did was read it and wonder how people had found out that baked banana skins had such an effect on people, or the frog backs, or the copper pipe or the telephone hacks etc etc, would this now be covered? should I make sure all my old floppy disks are destroyed?? Should I be posting anonymously?

...so we made her confess, then burned her at the stake. Feedback is that people accept that this is the sort of operation that is necessary and reasonable for the welfare of communities.

Let's see:

“possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

Hmm, the 7/7 bombers attacked central London and needed to plan where to hit. Best way to sort that would be with an A-Z... OMG!!

...phew! Just saved myself by burning my A-Z - wouldn't want to get caught with a document useful to a terrorist!

This police state is part of the EU, is it? I want my country out of that conspiracy. Now. Before this becomes something *we* have to do too...

how long before the act of reading anything 'not approved' gets you disappeared?

"Is that a manga comic I see hidden down the back of the sofa sir? come with me" or "why were you looking at [insert suitable subject line here - nooklear - muslim - whatever] on the interwebs? come with me..."

Soon they'll be deporting nth generation muslims to 'friendly' torture zones (conveniently revoking citizenship in the process).

Better get my copy of the sun and Mien Kampf (Nu Labour manifesto) in.

fire, 'cos it's book burning time.

He's not New Labour, he's Old Labour. A proper, old-school, hard-left socialist who campaigned against the removal of Clause IV before Blair won the '97 election.

As far as I'm concerned he's the Red Menace, however he's got principle, integrity and a big pair of brass balls (he's the only Labour MP to be reprimanded by the chief whip, for saying that New Labour's idea of democracy would have been familiar to General Franco.) Unfortunately he's had enough and will be stepping down at the next election. Parliament will be even worse without him.

At least you know where you stand with proper socialists like him; not like the intellectual featherweights, pampered ponces and cynical marketeers of the New Labour cabinet.

...but to think that things will get better under a Tory gov is like... Errr, like... Come on...

Oh crap, I can't even think of a bad enough example!

And what of all those other souls with a research copy of an al-Qaeda Training Manual downloaded to their disks for inquisitive reading? I notice that its Counterpart/Opposite Mirror, the PNAC, has been "suspended" ....

Is suspended the same as hanged, as was there too much incriminating evidence naming names with Leading Roles in the Project for the New American Century ..... a sort of Fourth Reich Fantasy Dreamt up by Rodeo Clowns who aint No Cowboys, No Which Way.

"This was all part of legitimate study: the document itself was on the Politics Faculty reading list. Unfortunately, the document in question also happened to be an al-Qaeda Training Manual."

I have two questions about this.

1. What is this kind of document doing on the reading list in the first place.

2. Assuming that it is require/recommened reading for a politics faculty, why the hell were the police called in the first place?

Say i put the book 1984 on a reading list at my factulty, does this mean everytime sometime some reads it, I can ask the police to throw them in clinky? Is this the faculties way of keeping training costs down? Send em all to the pleasure of HRH Eliz! No student/teachers means lower operating costs... it's a stroke of genius!

As to what happened after that... well, this is the kinda shit we have to expect thanks to tony/gordon. I'm sure Tony used to get a hardon read anything by Orwell or Huxley.

Paris for PM.... no...srly!

That's all very tragic / interesting, but the best bit is when you try to download the manual yourself, which of course you now want to do.

Google 'al-Qaeda Training Manual' and the first result that comes up is www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf

Yes, that's a file on the website of the US Department of Justice. They're thoughtfully got hold of a copy, scanned it in, used OCR on it an put it on the website for the world to share. Thanks Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey!

The abuse is that the authorities tend to press ahead with at least charging / deporting someone after every failed anti-terrorism arrest or incident just to try to claim teh operation was a success and to show us how many terrorist attacks they have "saved" us from

Remember the Muslim guy "accidentally shot" in his own house because the police were raiding to find large amounts of chemical weaponry material?

Remember that there was absolutely no evidence of any terrorist activity / leanings / sympathy at all? Remember also that shortly afterwards they arrested the shot guy on suspicion of possession of child pornography? (as an aside, back in my youth the catch-all was assaulting a police officer now it is possession of child pornography).

Remember also that no-one has been charged over the child porn allegations? Anyone else think that was just an excuse for Inspector Knacker to claim a "moral" victory and tell us that not only are the anti-terrorism squad saving us from terrorists and Brazilian plumbers but also from evil child pornographers too.

That is the abuse. No real fault of the authorities for investigating an alleged crime (actually it is their duty) but serious bad karma for deporting someone who has been here 10+ years and appears to be at least as upstanding and valuable member of society as you or I just in order to massage the figures.

Bad government, Bad.

>Why would an intelligent man like Hicham Yezza not know how dangerous >downloading / posessing a terrorist training manual could be, regardless of >whose academic reading list it might be on?

>Particulary so for someone currently seeking permanent UK residency.

>How stupid can you get?

Yes, how stupid can you get for downloading university-approved reading material on a university network as a university staff member in order to help a university student? For the university to turn around and say this was a Wrong Thing is the stupid part (I doubt the people investigating him knew about the poli-sci connection at the time, mind)

Perhaps he thought he was in some kind of free country, where people aren't judged by paranoia?

"Why would an intelligent man like Hicham Yezza not know how dangerous downloading / posessing a terrorist training manual could be, regardless of whose academic reading list it might be on?"

Shouldn't you be asking why he should feel it dangerous for a university employee to aid a student in obtaining a book that was required for his course? You're basically saying, "If he's that smart, why didn't he realise that we live in a racist police state?"

"How stupid can you get?"

Stupid enough to think that this is acceptable, apparently.

If he had been named John Smith, this never would have been reported to the police.

Would you not find it a more than a little annoying to be subjected to 6 days of questioning, all your personal belongings rifled through by complete strangers and all your friends and family questioned. This sort of treatment traumatises people and can in the worse case only serve to radicalise them.

As for the 'Less than Truthful' this could be anything from spelling his name wrong on one page to neglecting to say he worked for Bin Laden as an IED manufacturer.

No the arrest in itself prompted the "not entirely thruthful" to actually be appended after the fact...

Anyway stop this planet and let me off... I'm fed up with power being with those who are politicians or those who have power...

Politicians should be answerable to the one true unifier... the people that vote them in and to which they SERVE... yes... politicians serve the common man/woman/alien... NOT as they seem to belive themselves...

Reading a document can do no harm, it is almost certain that the lawyers, police and Jacqui Smith, the soon to be ex home office minister, herself have read it. If reading the document was a crime then why are they not in prison?

Again, they've created a crime, like the scheming lawyers they are, to bypass the 'beyond reasonable doubt' test.

Did he commit a terrorist act beyond reasonable doubt? No.

Was he preparing to commit a terrorist act beyond reasonable doubt? Again nope, and as proof the police did not try to prosecute for that.

Was he even suspected of thinking about planning to prepare to commit a terrorist act beyond reasonable doubt? Nope, he was deported on the immigration act.

"we become the architects of our own totalitarianism"

We? Blair and 'Blair Babes' like Jacqui Smith created this situation, we need to unseat the last of the Blair sh*ts and then reverse his work.

I should be able to hold a sign saying "Scientology is a cult" I should be able to read any information whether it's about bomb making, or evolution, I should not have to protest under cover of 'Anonymous Cowards'.

There is something dreadfully wrong with this country, and we seem to have gotten so far off course that it is no longer safe to voice your oppinion about correcting it.

Regardless of the issues regarding the chap's migration status, there seems to be a more sinister issue buried here.. There are a number of laws that seem to be designed not to deal with dangerous situations, but rather to deal with undesireable individuals. Regardless if you have done anything 'wrong' (in the moral/destructive sense) there seems to be laws designed to allow the powers that be to 'get' you on one thing or another.

Anonymous, for the same reason that we should now probably only buy books using cash.

The education section in yesterday's Independent had a lovely letter from Nottingham's great and good saying how friendly and crime-free it was...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/education-letters-happy-in-nottingham-835579.html

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.

Nobody seems to have picked up where the manual was downloaded from - a US Military server where it is made available free to all. If even our super-paranoid allies in TWAT think it's safe for download then what's the fuss?

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/

I haven't downloaded it, of course I don't want a free holiday in Guantanamo. I'm also deleting my Simpsons videos, after all when Homer strangles Bart it's a cartoon image of child abuse.

If there's a case to deport him, go ahead. Deport him.

That's the question.

If they have genuinely found that he's lied on his application, then I suppose it's right that he be deported. But what exactly have they found?

The university of course appears to be run by a complete bunch of morons, but once they'd reported it the police were at least obliged to investigate.

The US DOJ website *is* where the student downloaded his copy from. IIRC it was the given location for the manual in the reading list.

Just makes it scarier IMHO. And I'm trying hard not to think that this is for the purposes of entrapment.

our public were armed, they couldn't get away with this bu11sh1t. governments and even the police should be afraid of the public, not the other way around. your rights arn't worth the paper they are written on unless you can fight for them.

cuz pirates carry weapons................always

What concerns me here is that this guy is being deported without any regard to due process. Why is it not necessary for him to be tried in open court? This is frighteningly close to him being "disappeared".

Richard "the Shoe-Bomber" Reid aside, that's the point. A John Smith is far less likely to be a fundamentalist islamic terrorist. If for the sake of political correctness one should discount these inconvenient truths we'd have Special Branch and the Security Services running around tracking everybody. Unfair? Undoubtably, realistic approach to policing? Certainly.

........is one of those words that has been hijacked by the Nickless's of this world to justify anything and everything whilst hinting that there is some form of analytical process going on in the background. A bit like "public consultation" where they keep changing the question till they get an answer they want.

Premier Inn rooms became totally non smoking recently due to customer "feedback". When I asked, as a 50 night a year smoking punter, for details of this "feedback" I was completely ignored. Now I stay in independent hotels as all the big chains have gone the same route, probably inspired by insurance armtwisting.

Isn't it great?

...any faith remaining in the integrity of the Immigration services. I could say that the investigation into Yezza's immigration status was righteuous, though the circumstances in which they began were deeply *un*righteous: sometimes mistaken action by the police leads to fortuitous discovery of wrongdoing, like stopping someone on suspicion of driving uninsured (when they have personal insurance for the car that doesn't show up on databases) and discovering contraband.

But that trust has been so deeply eroded that the base assumption has to be that the technicality normally wouldn't result in deportation and in this case has been manufactured to attempt a rescue in the PR around the cases.

Gordon Brown can rename the police to become 'firemen' and they can meet me in the carpark where I have collected a nice pile of books. Better throw the PC on there as well, cos I could use it to access reading material. See you all in our blooming utopian society.

In the U.S., when we're talking about terrorists, the expression "they hate us for our freedom" is often brought up.

Then why do they hate the U.K.?

The university doesn't come out well - typical academia fudge where common sense and personal responsibility is ignored. The uni powers-that-be should never have passed this on in the first place. The Police have perhaps over-reacted initially, but took the right action insofar as not placing charges and the Home Office needs a good kicking for the rest of this stupidity.

Welcome to Britain - "home of democracy".

so to sum up:

applied for right to stay but lies.

downloaded something.

was arrested, under terrorism laws.

was searched were lies come to light.

was released, no case to answer.

refused right to stay, due to lies in application

is scheduled for deportation.

not really a story about the download but really a story about lies on application to stay.

If the "authorities" were serious, then the author of the reading list would by now have been rendered to Guantanamo, and all their former students have visits from the friendly gentlemen of MI5.

@ Legacy By Peter Fielden-Weston: Agreed, this fear and oppression is Blair's legacy. I go further, it is not accidental. It is happening worldwide. Try looking up Bilderberg, they are the script writers.

@ Web Cache By Geoff Johnson: The original intent of the internet cache and firewall may indeed have been innocent. If not to save the effort that you note, it may have been intended to cut University data traffic charges to their ISPs. HOWEVER, we have a very clear example of function creep. Remember, every ISP now has much the same set up, so that they can implement the IWFs Watch List. My ISP claims not to read the logs.

Like the forthcoming drinking ban (have you noticed how much effort is devoted to demonising drink? already got the ban on public transport), and the smoking ban before it, this is all part of the work necessary to provide our new rulers at Berlaymont with a docile population.

If they are following the Stalin script closely, the next target will be Heads of Department, or anyone else who is proven capable of thinking for themselves. They formed the basis of the show trials.

Actually, Custer's last words were more along the lines of, "All right men, over that hill we'll find an encampment of Indians. Let's ride over and kill them all before they can escape, and have some sport while we're at it".

In one of history's most satisfying outcomes, it turned out the Indians were ready and waiting, and Custer and his soldiers got exactly what they deserved.

I guess my old chemistry textbooks will have me marked down as a terrorist then. And my manga comics and costume textbooks will have me on the lists of pedophiles and possessors of pornography.

Under s.58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they “possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

Doesnt this mean that keeping a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica is now a crime?? (and with the word 'Britannica' in there surely theres a racist angle that could be exploited).

UK Anti-Terrorism legislation is unfair, racist and based on paranoia. But we're stuck with it and it will probably take tens of years to get it changed.

But, in the mean time, regardless if your name is John or Achmed you would be the subject of some concentrated attention by the police if they thought you were in posession of literature detailing how to make home-made bombs.

Should you also fit the "racial profile" - not a British national, country of origin a muslim state, economical with the truth when applying for residency...

You're a prime candidate for deportation.

I know that's how it is, I'm sure that you know too, why on earth didn't he?

I wouldn't chance being in posession of a copy... would you?

As a form of protest against this Orwellian nightmare ?

Would they immediately arrest and interrogate several hundred thousand Reg readers ?

I'm up for it !

... in a fit of boredom, I decided to skim through my PhD thesis again. 250-odd pages of what amounts to instructions on how to blow things up, complete with a CD of source code allowing an Enemy Of The State[tm] to simulate things that go 'bang' in general.

My crime? The desire to study combustion physic over 10 years ago.

Coat ready, just waiting for the Knock ...

"All that has happened here is a immigrant has been found to be 'less than truthful' in their application to stay and is being - and quite rightly so - deported."

Dude, what I make up of the article is that it was on the read-list of the University. What's that got to do with being less than truthful?

Immigration officer: "What's the nature of your stay in the UK? Bussiness, pleasure or reading Al-Qaeda training manuals".

Ugh, don't get me started.

@Roger Barrett: I think I've got a copy of that Jolly Rogers Cook Book somewhere. But I'll post anonymously, might want to visit the UK some day. But you can check my facebook... ha, wait a minute

And if you buy a pound of heroin, you're correctly assumed to be a pusher; some products do define the situation. Sometimes you actually have to think about what you're doing. And sometimes what you do is not always a good idea.

I feel sorry for the dude, but if you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.

Gordon's police force are the ones in the cloackroom looking for the brownshirts.

A while back, I was a Royal Engineer. It was part of my training to blow things up. With explosives. And how to make alternatives if the normal plastic explosive wasn't available.

I was given various written material to support that training...

I seriously hope I have accidentally retained any of it. Does the copy that is in my brain count?

Ok everyone who has replied to this story is now being investigated by MI5, I take issue with the idea this is wholly a new labour idea, the conservatives are probably more hyper about foreigners.

Of course you aren't going to hear dissention from cabinet level politicians, this is a conspiracy of the civil servants who run the puppets we call politicians and the security services.

Unless we all start saying no to this we will end up with a totalitarian state.

Just watch those links you click on. Its not accidental extreme porn you have to watch out for.

Detachment in the context of universities used to mean being able to study ideas without the pressures that would prevail if such research was conducted in concrete social contexts.

Detachment now appears to mean that university authorities are not going to back you if any such pressures find their way into the Groves of Academe and oppose your research. See the recent Kollerstrom case.

Welcome to the hyperreal university, where research is simulated, and the end-product (knowledge; not graded brains) is a simulacrum.

Got something to do with Houdini and Elephants I would imagine - odd that such a travesty isn't covered in more detail - what exactly did he lie about ?

If the document was downloaded from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/ then it appears to be an edited version: the site states "The Department is only providing the following selected text from the manual because it does not want to aid in educating terrorists or encourage further acts of terrorism"

I have downloaded the document from this link, and I'm not posting this anonymously because I shouldn't be afraid to read publicly available information. Of course, if that is the location of the document that led to the arrests, then I've just admitted to committing the same "offence" so I'll probably be led away to the gulag...

I am completely pissed off with this country and the constant erosion our our civil liberties in the name of "security" - it gets more like 1984 every week and it's about time people made a stand and said "enough is enough"

"...likely to be of use to..."

Of course it was deliberately left vague and unspecific.

That way both Plod & the gorgeous pouting Jacqui can decide that whatever you have with you or to which you have access when you're picked up can be deemed to fall into that category.

By Plod, I don't mean the majority of traditional thief-takers (PC up to Sergeant) but the high rankers (I think that's how it's spelt) who are fast-tracked University Graduates - generally in social studies ore something equally leftie & nebulous.

If it weren't so painful for us, it would be a very funny irony that all these lefties & liberals, when given a taste of power become super-chekists who make the Gestapo look like amateurs.

"It's a free country, innit?" is no doubt a phrase which will be deemed to be seditious if NuLab aren't removed (one way or another) soon.

Paris, 'cos like her, this country is well & truly fcuked...

"Someone noticed. They informed their superiors, who in turn referred the matter on upward. Eventually, the issue reached the very top. The Vice-Chancellor, Registrar and senior management of the University decided it was beyond them. [...] So they handed the matter over to the local Police."

I started reading Atlas Shrugged yesterday. (Yeah, yeah, I know.) After ploughing through the first four chapters, my initial impression was "all these weak-willed bureaucrats who refuse to make a decision and pass the buck around are a bit caricatured and over-the-top, I'm finding it hard to take this book seriously."

Hahahahaha. How naive I was. Turns out that people are exactly like that. Stuff the propaganda, stuff stupid laws, stuff "we can't be too careful". Someone on that chain should have said "We have known this man for ten years, I have no reason to suspect he's a terrorist any more than I suspect Professor Harker in the office next door, the document was on the reading list. This goes no further and if he blows someone up then on my head be it." Before it reached the ears of the Ministry of Love and everything spiralled downwards into a Kafka story.

If this is what we're like then we deserve to be strangled by government.

I too remember the days of Jolly Roger, oh so many years ago. I also recall some students being arrested as well, one was busted for having a small pipe bomb and his friends were arrested for having the 'cookbook'. It was classed as a terrorist book, just wasn't very easy to trace compared to the use of the internet access logging mechanisms of today.

The irony is that security measures are often put in place for the masses, which puts them at a greater risk of being subject to a "false positive", where a true terrorist is probably using much more discrete tactics for their activities.

Shame on everyone, yet another nail in the coffin of personal freedoms.

I don't know what scares me most. The fact that the gov't has policies and act the way they do or that there are people in this country that believe this crap. This is quite visible by some of the statements on this page.

The University had a definite duty of care over their students. They should have, if they did not want to question the possible terrorist actions and passed it on to the police, then to some extent, fair enough. Your parents should shop you when told you committed an offense.

However, your parents would then defend any actions on your behalf, not leave you to the dogs.

And that's what this university has done.

I wouldn't be suprised to find in the next year's requests, this university will find itself as the top spot for NOBODY and a much lower request at all for student places.

Lucky sod being kicked out of the UK away from these braindead reactionary paranoid racist shitheads. Never could understand why these arsehole fatcats are convinced that the Devil and his gran are dead set on worming their way into our septic isle. Unless of course they're also convinced that our septic imperialist thugs have turned half the nations of the world into starving cesspits...

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.

I have to say, as an American, I am very glad nothing like this could ever happen here! USA! USA!

There may, in the end, be a legitimate reason for deportation however the issue here is the original investigation based on downloading a book on an approved/required reading list - and the fact that the investigation was requested by the university that approved/required the book.

What kind of stupidity is that?

Investigating someone for daring to learn in a learning environment (from a book approved as part of the course)???

Your country is in very serious trouble.

Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South said it best:

"If we allow this to be done in our name, in our silent collusion, we become the architects of our own totalitarianism. We live in fear of speaking openly. We live in fear of enquiring and researching openly... We live in fear of the quiet unannounced knock on the door and we live in fear of our own shallowness, in terms of the willingness to stand side-by-side with each other in order to defend the very basis of an open democracy that we claim that terrorism is a threat to."

An MP spoke up - signs of change or the last faint gasp of reason and freedom?

Wouldn't have expected to say this about a politician but - honour that man.

Who thinks the outcome would have been the same if the names of the two gentlemen involved had been John Brown and Dave Smith?

What about the 45-minute WMD scare was "entirely truthful"? What about the july bombers "entirely truthful". How about the brazillian? MP expenses? ID Cards?

WHEN has this government (or, fer fecks sake, the POLICE?!?!?) been "entirely truthful"???

Weasel frigging words.

.. 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".

Key indicators are, for instance, being critical of police and governments and their talent to botch handling even the most uncomplicated situation.

Don't say I didn't warn you..

you only live in fear if you are doing something suspect! you dont live in fear if you are living a transparant life!

Did you get deported?

In future find yourself a gullible middle class white chick to download your contraband docco and don't retain your own copy.

We already live in fear of the quiet unannounced knock on the door

but it is the council demanding their horrendous rates bill

God I wish i didn't live in Britain.

They brought forward the deportation from end of July to 1st June, the hearing at the magistrates court for the claimed immigration lie is 16th July.

i.e. they will stop him attending the hearing to clear his name

We should never see such things happen in Britain.

Ok, we have dropped a b******k, downloading the training manual is not really a crime...Erm...Immigration...Erm..he has the training manual...Erm...Obviously planning an attack. Did not put that on the form. DEPORT! We saved the world again. **huge slaps on backs all round**

Thanks to the few intellectually deficient posters who somehow see no issue in ruining a guys life when he's done nothing wrong, but being glad that some 'dodgy brown Forren' got deported. It's a perfect reminder that enough people in this country are getting the fascist xenophobic leadership they want, and anyone who wants no part of it should probably find somewhere to go that has some hope.

Are prime ministers imune from proscution once they leave office, or can one attempt to take them to court during office?

Don't see a problem with the Police action on this one really.

I've been through the immigration process with my wife, it's long, its intrusive and it costs money. We did it legally. Why shouldn't the lying b*stard be sent back if he's been cheating at it, and got no grounds to remain here?

Unlucky for him he was shopped wrongly for being a terrorist, by the Uni involving the police. But once the other issues were uncovered, what's the response supposed to be?

Another facist police action, another media spun hype feeding the nervous masses into letting it happen.

We try to protect our democracy by stopping terrorists who want to harm it. However in stopping terrorist we harm our democracy.

So the terrorists have won the war on terror

The phrase used was "The focus of the inquiry shifted to the possibility that he had been less than truthful in his application to stay"

As there is no other information to go on, it reads more like he's being deported because some-one thinks he possibly might have lied on his application, not because he actually did lie.

Which is as scary in it's own right as being arrested for downloading an apparently publicly available document which is on the university reading list to help a student of that university.

Wonder if anyone's interested in setting up a wiki where sane and sensible people could write and clarify e.g. a new version of an "Terrorism Act" that was more of a hook than a dragnet... (and all the other Laws drafted in such a way as to allow the lazier plod an easy collar, you know, such as "looking at me in a funny way whilst [sic] writing his immigration application")

The problem with such wording as "likely to be of use" is that it avoids all consideration of intent (or wilful negligence), and silly me, I thought mens rea etc. was rather important. It's not whether it could be used, it's whether you intend to use it or permit it to be used...

Bugger - bet I'm giving support or encouragement to the bad guys by criticising the good guys...

Mines the one with the little arrows all over it...

Browsing my local library other day I found a history of the post 1945 Nazi Werewolf movement. In it there were numerous extracts from Werewolf training manuals - how to make things go bang on the cheap etc

This stuff would be useful to terrists. Should I shop these evil librarians to the authorities?

So , best summed up by a quote from Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on,

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'

Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me: this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear."

I think the NuLabour police have been turned into a Cult...Whoops think you can't use that term as it might upset them and i'll get arrested....

Not quite, a student downloaded a book on his (university provided)reading list, sent it to a staff member to print it out, both student & staff member get picked up by the police, questioned/interrogated for a week or so, student is released, staff member is than deported for "not being entirely truthful" (who is entirely truthful BTW? Pity we can't use this reasoning to deport some politicians). I would have thought that *what* he wasn't being truthful about should be fairly central on the matter of getting him deported.

"I wouldn't chance being in posession of a copy... would you?"

Too fucking right I would. This isn't a fascist police state and I'm innocent until proven guilty. I refuse to self-censor, and I refuse to be required to keep track of what's "good" reading material and what's "ungood".

For *anyone* to be downloading the bloody Al-Queda training manual over a university LAN would be utterly idiotic.....

For a middle-eastern type to be doing it, and spreading it around to further middle eastern friends, is beyond stupid.

No sympathy from me, none at all.

...that they're going to ban the Quran??

I think we should all congratulate UK for replicating in details the behaviour of the UFSA.

Would rather travel to China or Iran than step on UK soil now.

An accidental fart at Oxford street proly qualifies as a bio terror act by now.

@Righteously Indignant

Recently, a Dutch cartoonist was arrested. There was a complaint of discrimination against him. Anonymously, he writes ironic, sarcastic cartoons about the islam and muslims (with which I have no problem at all - I'm a buddhist and have no problem if people wipe their butts the tipitaka, actually it happens too little, people need to clean their butts - just don't flush it down the toilet, it while clog it, instant karma), you might like it.

Anyway, the police arrested him, held him for over a day, let him go and said sorry, sort off. But not after telling him that his anonimity was gone. Why does the police uses these afterburner threaths? Can't they do what they are supposed to do, instead of playing the judge and/or try to hand out implied threaths. I thought they were held to a higher standard than your average casa nostra. Apparently not. Believe me, I'm not anti-police, But they have extra powers and they have a duty to be that much more careful about what they do.

I think we should spam the world with the link to the manual that way the police would probable cause to arrest anyone they wish and then the world will be a much safer place.

Mine's the one with the leather bound copy

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

It's "war of terror", not "war on terror". Just a bit different…

The last thing I'd want is to have is a lungful of air that 'might be useful to a terrorist'......

"for a middle-eastern type.." The guy is from Algeria, you ignorant moron.

Why should anyone change their (legal) behaviour to appease the prejudice of a few people?

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.

Amen.

A book?

I was under the impression we weren't even allowed certain pictures!

I'm not sure if you're beibg extremely naive or facetious.

"gorgeous pouting Jacqui"

You Sir, owe me a keyboard.

Where's the "Pig" icon when you need it :-)

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...

Good job there isn't an Underground in Nottingham.

"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

and yet you hide behind the A.C. posting!

Says it all for me!

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

As has been stated above, they have set him to be deported before they provide evidence that he should be deported. That is wrong.

Lets post copies of the manual to every MP, high ranking civil servant and police officer in the UK, then dial 999 and have them all arrested and 'rubber gloved'.

Anon, cos I'm allergic to latex

Awesome, I'm going to start posting links to the Al-Qaeda document on various forums/blogs but with unsuspecting link text.

It will be the new rickrolling internet fad, only this time with more police action.

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?

"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".

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.

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.

Even Rachael Ray and Dunking Donuts are in cahoots with the enemy! You think she got placed on a watchlist because of this?

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/05/29/ray-scarf.html

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.

I wonder if anyone actually read the manual to see if it contains information that really couldn't be obtained on any "legal" site.

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.

Well, at least they still try to make up reasons.

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

1984 and Brave New World were warnings - not manuals

Can I have my country back? - It seems to be missing.

... but I was not a student, so I did not speak up.

Mine is the indian costume. I'm joining that newly discovered undisturbed tribe in the Amazon jungle.

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 !

"...that they're going to ban the Quran??"

Of course not! The one thing that we have surely learned from this "War on [Nouns] Terror" is that one must do nothing to aid the winning of the war. It is essential that the war is extended indefinitely, thereby permitting the removal of even more of the rights of the citizen. Indeed winning the war will be seen as an act of treachery.

For this war is only a means to an end. The end is a New World Order government. The end justifies the means.

"Why would an intelligent man like Hicham Yezza not know how dangerous downloading / posessing a terrorist training manual could be, regardless of whose academic reading list it might be on?

Particulary so for someone currently seeking permanent UK residency.

How stupid can you get?"

The problem is not the police - the university - even the government.

The problem is people like Paul Delaney kow-towing to this frightful state of affairs. If we didn't have people like Paul, who advise following the state party line whatever it is, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today.

And i just know that, when this tyranny is overthrown, Paul will be sitting at the back saying "Yes, I always said it was wrong..". Well, why not STAND UP AND BE COUNTED NOW???

Does that mean you're tough then?

Try reading the details (though even skimming the article would have told you!!) instead of just rolling back over whenever you are told that something was done 'to stop terrorism.'

Why did you even bother to comment when you obviously did not process any part of the article?

This guy was not doing anything wrong, and he was not being dumb either.

No, you're not a radical. Well said.

And that shouldn't be a comment. It should be a whole article, or possibly an domain, or better yet a political manifesto, writ large.

They have got it the wrong way around.

Why are they trying to lock up and ruin downloaders and apple core-throwers lives when there are murderers and rapists running amok in here.

They are going completely schizo on the small crimes, and frankly NON crimes, and shrugging their shoulders at the real issues.

The document was - wait for it - ON THE READING LIST.

That is a list of documents you are *expected* to read in order to have sufficient knowledge to pass the course.

NOT reading the books puts you at a serious disadvantage.

The department and university chancellor's department have acted like total cowards. When the download was brought to their attention they should have investigated the department, found the book was on the list and taken it no further. They should hold their heads in shame.

As for the comments by the frighteningly sane Alan Simpson MP. I assume he's tolerated by the politburo to show that New Labour is not a totalitarian organisation.

"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?"

Nope. This is not what it's GOING to be like.

This is what it IS like, now, dude....

"My government has radicalised me to the point where actually I think that Al Quaeda or however you spell it have a point...."

John S*******

You and me both, John. Only difference I can see between us is that I don't have a Mensa card - I use VISA...

Looked at from the point of view of the 'horrible Iraq/nian and Afghan terrorists' (TM), what they would like is for us to get out of their country and stop killing them. As far as I can see, that's what the vast majority of the UK population would like as well. I'm pretty sure some kind of agreement along these lines could be brokered.

Of course, that would involve a loss of face for the intelligence services, the military, and all the politicians who voted for this scandalous and pointless war, so that's not going to happen.

The geek sign, because the above argument involves a bit of joined-up thinking, which appears to be beyond the current administration on both sides of teh Atlantic...

The Court of Appeal ruling of Feb 2008 was long overdue. Almost anything could be construed by the plod as be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. A street map or OS large scale map; rail, bus or air timetables; domestic and gardening chemicals; an unregistered mobile phone; he address of a member of the House of Commons. The catch-all potential left entirely within the discretion of the constabulary.

The vindictiveness of the threat of deportation (and the threat inherent in that clear to those who have the simplest of comprehensions of Algeria 2008) not only affirms the racism but exhibits a warning of what is in store for anyone if you frustrate the police in their ambitions. This is not new. I recall a time under a Thatcher government when, after giving evidence in Court which cleared an admittedly dodgy character, it required the intervention of my solicitor to bring the regular random stops, tests of my car and snide comments from the officers concerned to a halt on a rather more minor issue than is reported here.

The collective paranoia, whether of Institutional authorities or of the people who don't look at each other on the street or Tube any more, where we have forgotten that it is only by being together that we can be aware of our humanity, is what opens the door to the ignorant, abusive and self-serving policing so evident here. And the system rallies round to defend its own, such is the reluctance to admit error and insist on the primacy of that authority.

But there is no error. We are on notice that our lives are now scrutinised for offence whether that is through thought, through word or through action. Perhaps such thought, word and action should seek to establish an effective International Criminal Tribunal such as that of Nuremberg to bring to account those who conspired to launch an aggressive war and who have constantly sought to feed a zeitgeist of fear in order to justify themselves and divert attention from the true issues.

Me too, I still have the notes I took for my B1, as well as other material gathered in NI. I've downloaded the "documents" from the DOJ website and there similar in content to the IRA handbook issued in the 70s.

¿Is this the free University that loathed book burning in 1936?

Nex time some one tries to read mein kamph for a history class they should report to police first.

Don't trust your local dean to rise up and beligerantly defend free thought.

Shame on them, shame on their careers.

The notion that an Afghan training document wouldn't be of interest to somebody studying a wide range of subjects from geopolitical to historical to social and cultural is the height of arrogance and yet another prime example of just how sick and twisted this nation has become. How do you expect to deal with people when you have no understanding of how their world developed? How can you think that a critical piece of military campaign literature wouldn't provide some insight?

The fact that the police then decide to persue the case beyond their initial remit once again shows this sickness.

But hey - in the New West one is only allowed to study approved documents. Only allowed to learn of approved history. Only allowed to believe in approved enemies. Only allowed to masturbate to approved porn. and why would any good citizen not want to suckle from the nipples of freedom? We don't need to understand other cultures, other nations, they should simply accept ours, conform, or die.

The only mistake this poor guy made was that he mistook Britain for a democratic and free nation... the poor guy

Ps. The "training" manual is such a dangerous a document thats its free for download at the US Goverment site...

As far as I can see, the course of events was

1) University overreacts and informs plod

2) Plod overreact and arrest him

3) Someone notices he's lied on his immigration forms and he gets shipped home

I can't find the part that says "OMG, the evil government were monitoring his emails/telephone conversation/browsing history/thoughts because he was a forrin"

Is it possible that the fact the document in question is hosted on a US.Gov website means it's actually a honey pot?

How did someone at the University notice that this document had been downloaded? Surely it's 'just another PDF' from the proxy side of things?

Is it possible that the US DoJ contacted the University to inform them of the download, sparking the whole thing off?

>> "Under s.58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they

>> “possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be

>> useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”."

>>

>> Seems a bit broad? A train timetable could conceivably count..

I don't see how having a list that shows the times at which trains will almost certainly not be at stations is of any use to a terrorist. The only useful information contained in most timetables is the probable order in which the train will be stopping at the stations.

He should be thankful that he (or someone with a similar complexion) wasn't shot in the head. Goodness knows what would have happened if he had been wearing a rucksack at the time of arrest.

@ AC above:

"...and Jacqui Smith, the soon to be ex home office minister, herself have read it. ..."

There is no evidence of the present Home Secretary having ever read anything to do with her present post other than pre-digested Home Office briefings and the da-glo tags in the red box that say "sign here >".

Blunkett may have been crude, a brute populist (with some excuse for being underinformed), but by comparison with this ultra loyalist business studies teacher, he sparkled as an example of considered personal opinion.

All the fun and partying and less fuss like this :)

To be fair though I don't think the uni have really done anything wrong in this case - they reported a suspicioin and there's probably something in the law someplace where they would be legally responsible if they didn't report 'reasonable suspicion'.

so the police make a ballsup of it and everyone gets their name dragged through the mud. If his visa was really that bad how come he stayed in Nottingham for 10 years and got that job?

Bloody immigrants, coming over here, contributing to society fairly and holding down a job... who do they think they are?

Paris - because she's been lawfully entered by a few good men, none of which overstayed their welcome

Let's face it, there's a guy of African/Middle Eastern descent with a strong Islamic interest here illegally somewhat under the radar looking at an Al Qaeda training manual.

If that's not something the police should be suspicious of what is?

The guy was found to be innocent and left alone on that charge so nothing was done wrong there by the police, it turned out however from that investigation that he was indeed here illegally and now quite rightly he's being deported.

What is the problem exactly? Everything has been done correctly and by the book by the police which is more than can be said for the supposed "victim" here who quite clearly wasn't in this country by the book.

...as I work at a university and just visited that certain U.S website....

maybe being white and middle class will help! there again, I went to Cuba and smoked a spliff once so I'd just better go and hand myself in and save the taxpayer some money.

...it says that there's only a defence if you can PROVE that you weren't in possession of said article for terrorist related activities.

Guilty until proven innocent?

Thast still doesn't explain why he was going to be deported, illegally and without a fair hearing, within 2 weeks of being first arrested, does it?

He wasn't found to be here illegally, the police mearly state that they have a suscpicion he lied on his application papers and then they're trying to kick him out before his appeal...

Long live freedom, peace and justice. Who needs enemys when you have a law enforcment community like we in the west now have... Well, as long as we have a law enforcment system like we have we'll never be short on enemies, abroad, at home and we're not just talking guys of middle eastern decent with bombs.

Remind me, where did that guy in Exeter come from?

Ian, you're a coward, but I will at least credit you with not being anonymous about your cowardice.

This gentleman was not here illegally, he may have had some kind of technical irregularity on his immigration papers for nearly a decade and a half ago. Since entering the country he's studied, and been granted qualifications by reputable institutions. He's trustworthy, so much so that he's been employed by the very same reputable institution. And yet because he does a favor for a student in the politics department to download and print off a book that is ON THE FRACKING READING LIST for students in that department (a task for which being an admin qualifies him for, by the way), he's treated like a criminal and then deported without access to any appeal or any other vestige of civil rights accorded to people in the United Kingdom.

And yet you're more than happy to conjecture all sorts of ill against him and accept that the authorities are acting perfectly correctly - simply because they say they are. What's wrong Ian, afraid that if you stand up and protest you'll be arrested and given an ASBO? Perhaps you're afraid that irregularities on your birth certificate will be found and you'll be reclassified as a man without a nation and thus subject to immediate deportation without appeal?

Maybe you're just a sheep and too shit scared to stand up and be counted in your own country? Must be something. Oh, wait, maybe you work for the City of London Police? I better put that sign calling the Government a cult away, huh? Wouldn't want to be arrested for exercising my rights of protest.

But they DID coin the term "Freedom Fries". And in the eatery for the seat of government to boot.

In point of fact I don't think anyone ever used the phrase outside of deperate-to-prove-themselves-relevant politicians. I never heard it used in real life other than to mock the idiots that thought it up.

And consider the consequences of this (as is usual with politicians) over-quick rush to "stick it" to the Cheese Scarfing Surrender Monkeys: The inhabitants of Gaul now officially speak "Freedom", formerly the prerogative of Americans.

While the term "Freedom Fries" has been quietly excised from the menu in question, the American national pastime of mocking the French for being invaded by Hitler's forces while America and the rest of the world sat back and watched is still alive and well and living in the American heartland.

Question : What's the sound of Freedom and democracy dying?

Answer : The sound of millions of apathetic voices saying "Oh, that's OK then."

Fast track deportation for little more than being inconvenient? It's not OK, it's never been OK, it's not OK now, and it never will be OK, ever. If you think otherwise, you'd be very at home in any of the Totalitarian regimes that western governments publicly decry.

"All that has happened here is a immigrant has been found to be 'less than truthful' in their application to stay and is being - and quite rightly so - deported."

Not remotely true. What has happened here is that the Home Office have merely *claimed* that an immigrant has been less than truthful, and then attempted to deport said immigrant in great haste in order to avoid the bother of actually going to court and involving themselves in troublesome things like abiding by the law or actually making their case.

Half Life 2

That my brother and I'd been saving up for the past couple of years for a holiday in England this year, where I was born and where I have not set foot for over three decades. But after reading hundreds of articles like this one El Reg, other news sources, and talking to people who live in the UK, we've decided to spend the money on a holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia instead. Seriously. A friend of ours just got back from there and says both countries are awesome, and treat tourists like kings for a few dollars a day!

What does that say of the UK when one would feel safer touring corrupt third-world autarchies like that than returning to the Mother Country? I'll never set foot in the land of my birth again. That country died right after Thatcher got in, and its putrid corpse just kept on rotting from there.

I download the book, let a few people know I have it and there's a good chance I'll have my plane ticket out of the country paid for by HMG?

What's that link again?

There was a time when academia was just that.....about academics, learning , teaching , debating , discovering , passing on knowledge - through the classroom and most importantly through the written word which transcends all time , barriers and boundaries known to man kind

sadly this will probably become an urban legend within the next decade...

I don't think a lot of people would find it debatable , from what I've read and gathered over the past few years the majority of people are all on the same side with this issue - clearly not the side the feds and suits would like us to be on .I think a lot of people would be questioning what Britain is coming to - totalitarian? Sounds a bit like old Russia in a sort of Brave New World/Orwellian type of way. Next there'll be book bans and scarier than that book burnings?

What's next? A fatwa for academics who dare research, analyse and propose anything contradictory to what our governments anti terror laws dictate OR worst yet the horror of producing literature on conciliatory methods , preventative measures for terrorism , peaceful resolutions , oh I could go on and on ...i won't.

Here's a bit of what the law entails:

"Under s.58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they “possesses a document or record containing information”… “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”."

Very broad and wouldn't a train timetable or bus route schedule fall under this heading? Seems under this law they would.

As one woman posted even a "shoe" or "bag" ( of any kind , carrier , sports, hand bag ) would count as intent to terrorise?

Im waiting for the day they start honing in on people (who fit the racial profile for terrorism of course ) who buy large quantities of Peanut butter ( it has more power than an atomic bomb apparently , Christ I said the B word! ) - after all I've noticed non-westerners love their bulk buys. Maybe that’s the downfall - buying everything in bulk , from peroxide to vinegar to fertilizer - shoes and handbags?!

I better stop before MI5 come and get me.....oh wait, let me grab my "hand bag" just incase so that I'm ready to be hauled off..

Another question to be asked is if faculty had clear research guidance for the use of sensitive materials when dealing with such a subject.

"I download the book, let a few people know I have it and there's a good chance I'll have my plane ticket out of the country paid for by HMG?" ... By milan Posted Tuesday 3rd June 2008 06:49 GMT

And I suppose they can even try not letting you back into the country, if you happen to leave for business/pleasure/whatever elsewhere, although that would lay them open to charges of Selfish Elitism/Fascist Dictatorship if the Supposed Offence were not Viably Prosecutable, and thus Creating a Political Refugee in an Asylum System for a Resident Alien .....Earthling.:-)

And that is nowhere near as crazy as it at first seems.

Probably that the person saying it is completely over-reacting.

" my brother and I'd been saving up for the past couple of years for a holiday in England this year, where I was born [...] we've decided to spend the money on a holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia instead. [...]"

"What does that say of the UK when one would feel safer touring corrupt third-world autarchies like that than returning to the Mother Country? I'll never set foot in the land of my birth again. "

Where exactly do you live? There are not many better places. Here (and in America, in fact I would say MORE so in America) we are being spied on and having psychological problems and dealing with restrictions, but in other countries the police just bust in and do what they want, shoot you, steal all your stuff and cover it up. So i'd say that it's not quite as bad as you're making it out to be in the UK. Don't be freaking ridiculous.

I hope you're not one of those people who moved to the USA and inherited their holier than thou, America is the best place in the world, oh I really feel sorry for everyone else attitude.

We have to make a change. Civil unrest isn't the answer, infiltration is the answer. Stand side by side with the enemy and lead them by example. Just don't go native on us, stick to your guns and keep your powder dry.

So join the police, get into politics, be a teacher, whatever you think you can manage and be the kind of authority figure that can be respected without fear.

Poor Timmy. So kind hearted and believing. I remember when I was like that too.

Just before they kicked in my door and took my Mom and Dad away in black hoods.

I'm sure they're OK though. The man who came to see me said they were in a nice place that provides lots of exercise and great shower facilities.

I am finding that the people who carry out the orders handed down agree that they are stupid. They are actually supportive when I decline to comply with their silly rules. It's like they don't have the corrage themselves but like someone who does. It's similar to when you ask people to sponsor your crazy charity stunt, they give you money and clap and are happy that it's you and not them.

Eventually they cannot avoid the action, they get a fine for putting the wrong thing in their dustbin and then they are prepared to join you.

If anyone here thinks this is a new development of Blair's sycophants currently in power perhaps they should take a good look at British political history. This kind of thing has been going on for years.

Just look at the political history in the UK for the last 30 - 40 years or so (that should cover the age range of most of us). It used to be that you were, "presumed innocent until proven Irish". (Birmingham 6 ring any bells?) Now in today's climate of government inspired fear and loathing it has changed to, "presumed innocent until proven Muslim".

Yes Britain has draconian terrorism laws but it always has done. Successive British Governments have played on people's fears to introduce these laws. Laws that will "only" be used on "really, really bad people" and "only" when we "really, really have to", so don't have to worry about a thing honest. "Would your Government lie to you?"

I hear there will be a Nation Wide book burning fenzy some time this summer, anything not meeting the current governments criteria will be burned in public places, bring your children for a lesson in democracy.

[...]

ARTHUR: A duck.

CROWD: Oooh.

BEDEMIR: Exactly! So, logically...,

VILLAGER #1: If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood.

BEDEMIR: And therefore--?

VILLAGER #1: A witch!

CROWD: A witch!

[...]

Reading this article made me think of Monty Python's Holy Grail... Worst part is that the logic behind both cinematic and real life events are dangerously similar

Well, from one anonymous coward to another, about another..

I just wanted to ask what makes you think that the Anonymous poster who mentioned the shoes was a woman? ;-)

There was zero mention or indication of gender. Or even the type of shoe. No stilleto was mentioned. They could have been talking about a big 'manly' boot with big metal buckles, battered and covered in mud for all you know.