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Tory terror changes promise moon on stick

Doctors to predict future-bombers, blacklist for UK internet

The Home Secretary's revamped anti-terrorism strategy, Prevent, may include moves to blacklist some internet pages and websites.

The policy is due for release this afternoon but copies of the Prevent strategy have already been seen by the Times, which said more will be spent on countering extremism online.

AOL is already advertising Scotland Yard's anti-terror hotline when certain terms and keywords are searched for. Which should help us all rest easy in our beds.

Doctors will also be trained to spot patients likely to become future terrorists. The BMA has objected that this is a breach of patient confidentiality and more importantly that "doctors cannot look into the future and say how someone might behave".

Apart from paying AOL for some search adverts, it is not clear how serious the mooted internet controls are.

A specialist police unit has removed 156 pieces of material in the last 15 months, the Times reports.

The Home Office press office was unable to respond ahead of the announcement in Parliament and was not hopeful of the availability of a spokesperson to explain technically how the censorship would work.

The Internet Watch Foundation is usually rolled out as an example of how a blacklist can work successfully. It told us that its success depends on its very tight remit of child sexual abuse images and that this was unlikely to change in the immediate future.

The Beeb has a free report on the Times article if you're not a subscriber.

The review should be on the Home Office site later this afternoon. ®

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