UK Woman Charged As Terrorist For Computer Files

Terror Alert Brown writes "Reuters is reporting that a UK woman has been charged as a terrorist because of computer files on her hard drive. According to the article, these files included 'the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook.' She was picked up in connection with the plot stopped in August to detonate explosives in airplanes flying out of Heathrow airport. Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive."

Is worse for those of us that bought the book.

[nurb432]

Some of us bought the book ( and others like it ) many years ago, when it was still legal to read, and information was not restricted. Now we may pay for exercising our rights back then since the rules have changed since then.

Once knowledge becomes a crime, freedom is gone.

Re:She was linked to a group of terrorists...

[cold fjord]

A totally innocent combo:

...in possession of a night vision scope .... and a poisons handbook.

... especially in light of:

MI5 tracking '30 UK terror plots' [bbc.co.uk]

MI5 knows of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance, the security service's head has said.

Jumping to Conclusions

[Shihar]

I think people are jumping to conclusions. It sounds to me like she has more on her then simply having the material that she had. The police say that she was connected with the terrorist cell that was busted up earlier. If she is just an innocent bystander with some sketchy reading material she got out of curiosity (not malicious intent), then I imagine nothing is going to come of this. On the other hand, if she is connected to a terrorist cell and has more then just some questionable reading material, let her burn. I personally will reserve judgment about whether or not this is a violation of her rights until after the charges have been made clear. The little blurb in TFA really doesn't give enough information to judge if this is an over reaction or not.

Download your terrorism books here fokes

[Anonymous Coward]

ed2k://|file|Al%20Qaeda%20Terrorist%20Manual.pdf|8 946592|2822E92FF0658D2020B13703A8748A00|/
ed2k://|file|Mujahideen_Poisons_Handbook.pdf|17489 0|D4487A1A4CDC4BF73E8443CB94EEF74C|/
ed2k://|file|SVD%20Dragunov%20Sniper%20Rifle%20-%2 0Manaul.pdf|411648|B65D11D0C0955FA9D923B10F4B06301 8|/

Couldn't find 'The Firearms and RPG Handbook' and 'The Terrorists Handbook'.

Now those are all well and good but the day you wake up and the world is looking too much like your favourite dystopian novel, you will be looking for this one:
http://25thaviation.org/history/id541.htm [25thaviation.org]

Viva revolution

Re:She was linked to a group of terrorists...

[Durrok]

Well let me give you an example:

I was walking home from my sister's apartment and a cop stopped me. FREEZE, hands on the gun, whole deal. I was handcuffed, pockets emptied, and sat on the curb. I was then told they were looking for people that were breaking into cars. Since I had two cell phones (one for work and one for personal use) they were pretty convinced I was one of them, even though I listed off the names in the address book but couldn't tell them the number for my work phone (hell I never call it).

Point is just because you have a copy of the anarchists cookbook and are suspected as a terrorist does not mean you are one. Same as having two cell phones and being suspected as a thief. It's a dangerous mindset to let cops enter into, especially when they usually just want to get this case wrapped up and go back to whatever the hell they were doing before.

A small experiment

[surfcow]

Try this: google for "cia manual"

You find things like:
KUBARK Coercive Questioning - Counterintelligence Interrogation (Torture)
A Study of Assassination (Assassination)
Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (Terrorism)
and so on.

Now, I wonder how much material on her hard-drive came originally from the US?

I am not sticking up for her or for terrorists or for barnyard sodomists, but I do have to wonder about karma.

For fun, you can google for "School of the Americas"
For extra points: go to Wikipaedia and look up "Mujahideen". Look under "Afghan Mujahideen". See who organized, financed, armed and trained them.

Shake your head and marvel at how stupid OUR governments can be.

Linky?

[Kadin2048]

So ... who's going to provide a link to where we can all download said handbooks?

Allegedly, the Mujahadeen Poisons Handbook is somewhere on Hamas' "official web page" but damned if I know what that is. Probably in Arabic anyway.

According to the very entertaining [blogspot.com] "Allies Against Online Terrorism" blog, it was at one point mirrored on a Yahoo site, but was removed.

So who's going to step up and mirror them, if we should all have a copy, eh?

Re:It's a strange time

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

They aren't moving toward searching through everyone's hard drive indiscriminately.

That's exactly what they're moving towards. It is a succession of British Home Secretaries' wet dream. They already routinely intercept all Internet communication (go on, tell me you believe otherwise). They already have a law that makes it a criminal offence not to provide the necessary keys to decrypt any encrypted data they believe you have on your system (even if they have no proof either that such data is really there or that you have such decryption keys, if memory serves).

The next logical step, using government logic and assuming you don't buy the conspiracy theories about certain mainstream OSes already doing it, is to mandate the installation of government-sanctioned security software on all computers connected to the Internet. In a highly-connected world, that would get you pretty close to arbitrary scanning of everyone's hard drive. Of course, any terrorist is unlikely to voluntarily install such software or connect a computer with detailed planning of their proposed atrocities to the Internet, but since when has whether a law will actually help to prevent terrorist attacks had any connection with government legislative policy in the UK?

Re:Since when is linking a crime?

[Zemran]

Do you remember the paedophile riots a few years back when a paediatrician in Portsmouth was beaten up because the mob were too stupid to know the difference?

Same mentality, new cause...

"linking" should be considered very carefully

[snarkth]

So... do you know, for certain, that everyone you know, or have exchanged files with or phone messages or mail or time with, is *not* or *will not in the future* be considered a criminal or a terrorist?

  Years ago I dated a woman for several months who was arrested (and eventually convicted) as being a courier for a methamphetmine distribution ring a few months after we ceased seeing each other. I had no idea what she was into, but I was visited many times by police officers who grilled me at length as to our relationship - because my phone# was in her cellphone and there were "handwritten documents" - letters, notes, journal entries - in her domicile that had my name on them - and threatened with prison for being "non-cooperative"; my apartment was searched twice, and details of the investigation leaked to local reporters.

  I was "associated" with a drug ring, although I had no knowledge nor involvement in it. Fortunately I was cleared without being indicted or subpeoned, but only after several months of random interrogation and very annoying, obvious and aggravating surveillance which cost me reputation and money. Many months later there were still people spreading damaging rumors about me; I eventually moved more than a thousand miles from there, partially for personal reasons, but also because my business dried up to an extent as a result of the attention. One of the things the police threw at me was our intense exchange of phone calls over that short period. They just didn't seem to believe that maybe I was interested in her because she was an attractive woman. I spoke to a local lawyer about it who told me there was no recourse - iow, I couldn't sue the local police department for the damage caused.

  I'd like to note that no public statement was ever made by the local PD regarding my innocence, despite repeated demands on the part of me and my lawyer to do so. That, to me, was criminal negligence on the part of the local PD. How many times does one see public apologies for ruining someone's life in that sort of circumstance? IF this woman turns out to have been innocently duped, will she ever recover her life? What recourse might *she* have?

  In the US, we have this oft-repeated yet apparently little understood concept called "innnocent until proven guilty". Or at least we used to.

  I'm not defending the woman in the article (insufficient data), but I am trying to point out just how damaging baseless allegations can be, especially when made by "authorities" and spread by the media - and if you think that you are immune to it, you might want to reconsider that. It can happen to anyone; don't think you're immune to it simply because you are innocent. People in a society are interconnected, that's why we call it a society. What are you going to do, avoid all connections with other people? There was another sort of damage there - I'm even more paranoid than I used to be when it comes to relationships. Can I sue them for it? Should I? I've been advised against it, as the burden of "proof of damages" would be too difficult. But the damage is very real.

  So tell me, friend, where should the line be drawn?

snarked

 

The burden of proof is on you

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know enough details about her case, but consider this extract from the UK Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000

      58. - (1) A person commits an offence if-
                            (a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
                        (b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.
                (2) In this section "record" includes a photographic or electronic record.
                  (3) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.

So if you have some of this stuff (could be almost anything), be prepared to PROVE you have a reasonable excuse for holding it! The burden of proof is on you.

And they call(ed) it a free country..

Bwahahahaha!!!

[Master of Transhuman]

They should look at MY hard drive - got nuclear weapons plans there from Cryptome just last week! Not to mention every military weapons and improvised weapons and explosives manual and hacker book there is.

Bwahahahaha!!

And with MY background, they REALLY would be concerned.

Of course, I'm white and not Muslim...

When I got arrested for armed bank robbery back in 1993, the judge was provided copies of papers from my room. He didn't know whether to poop or go blind. All he could say was that he didn't think some of the stuff there was possible.

He was wrong. Someday somebody somewhere (other than me) will prove him wrong.