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War on Terrorism (Politics)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
More sophisticated tagging is obviously the sort of thing they will do to 'reassure the public' but it's still futile. People forget that monitoring at this level of intensity is itself far too manpower-expensive to be practical.


No it's not, the tag does the monitoring, it alerts the offender manager when any licence conditions are breached. It is not manpower intensive at all. It's already done to prevent released sex offenders approaching schools.

He shouldn't have been near any city centre.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Wiley, why are you not thinking this through? I doubt very much if what you describe is actually true in any real sense. Not only are there tens (hundreds?) of thousands on the at-risk register, it's not just schools they have to be kept away from but anywhere children gather. How do you keep five hundred yards away from a park when moving around any big city? This is just propaganda to allow the general public to believe that living among sex offenders at large is not something to worry about. Which we manage to do. Of course it is salutary for sex offenders to know their movements may be being monitored in real time, so I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing.

But you still haven't explained how freed terrorists are to be kept away from anywhere anyone gathers. And don't forget, unlike sex offenders, they don't even care whether they're caught or not. Do you think a computer screen reading "Usman proceeding up Old Kent Road, three minutes from site of previous terrorist incident" is actually going to save anybody?
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The question is why ex terrorists have more rights than paedophiles.

The answer is that they shouldn't, but whereas Gareth Pierce and co are feted for their contribution towards Human Rights, there is no-one willing to be the go to legal representation for kiddie fiddlers.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
. Do you think a computer screen reading "Usman proceeding up Old Kent Road, three minutes from site of previous terrorist incident" is actually going to save anybody?

Usman should have been banned from all city centres. As soon as he was monitored entering a city he should have been intercepted and stuck back inside for breaching his licence conditions.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The question is why ex terrorists have more rights than paedophiles.

Now you're unhinged. They all have exactly the same rights as one another, and exactly the same rights as the rest of us. One of which is the right to be punished in any way the state has deemed necessary. What are these rights anyway? Have we been given a constitution or something while I was out carousing?

The answer is that they shouldn't, but whereas Gareth Pierce and co are feted for their contribution towards Human Rights, there is no-one willing to be the go to legal representation for kiddie fiddlers.

Gareth Pierce and co are feted by lefty liberals like themselves. Few others give them the time of day. Ms Pierce, whom I used to know slightly in the long ago, is not a particular success professionally or socially. No paedophile has ever lacked for legal representation though some lawyers -- of the Pierce type but not necessarily herself herself -- refuse to represent rapists on principle (in defiance of the cab rank principle).

Usman should have be banned from all city centres.

I'm all for that. Let those buggers in the suburbs get it for a change.

As soon as he was monitored entering a city he should have been intercepted and stuck back inside for breaching his licence conditions.

Wherever that is. Hampstead, yes, Notting Hill no, would be my recommendation A congestion zone for terrorists maybe. Price the bastards out. You may have your own ideas but it may be along the lines of a tag that buzzes as soon as they step outside Belmarsh prison. Although house arrest is technically possible, it was disallowed by lefty liberal judges. How they found one beats me. And whether it was for terrorists or paedophiles I can't now recall. It may have been asylum overstayers. Recidivist burglars... no, that's a curfew during certain hours, isn't it? And people that have been sectioned ... now that is a minefield, depending whether they are a danger to themselves or others. And then there's the elderly and confused... sorry, what were we talking about?.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I just want to know why it is OK for GPS tracking tags to be put on paedophiles, and if so, which it looks like it is, why we can't put them on terrorists.

It is bog standard practice to put exclusion zones on offenders out on licence to protect victims and hinder reoffending, so why are we letting terrorists then reoffend in a way that is giving them the opportunity to gain maximum publicity, which is what the terrorist craves.

Usman was a MAPPA (under Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) there is no point having the sodding meetings if they don't protect the public. Yet they contrived to allow him into the centre of London. It now turns out he was banned from London, but the MAPPA gave him permission to be there on just that day. He took that opportunity.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The problem for liberals is that they don't want to throw away the key. Fair enough, but then they don't want do what it takes to monitor in the community. GPS tracking is cheap and obvious. But no they still think it curtails the ex-terrorist's rights. Usman wants to attend a course in London, well why not, err...he hasn't offended so far. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.....Oh dear.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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You keep on missing the point. It is not Usman killing people that's important, it's the hundred other Usmans that aren't. It's not him stabbing a few people on London Bridge that's important, it's him not taking a pantechnicon full of fertiliser into the Blackwall Tunnel that's important. It is true you can do all sorts of things to make Usman's life hell, you can even prevent him doing what he did, but only at the cost of creating other Usmans. It's called The Tsar Shouldn't Have Executed Lenin's Brother Dilemma. Also, and please remember this, too much pressure and Usman might decide to take off his tracker and head for the hills. Is that better or worse?

Nobody has the least objection to putting GPS trackers on terrorists, there was certainly no legal objection to putting them on Usman, he was on licence. Nobody is wittering on about his rights, it's just MI5 decided against such a policy for technical reasons. Take your complaints up with them, not liberals.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:

It is true you can do all sorts of things to make Usman's life hell, you can even prevent him doing what he did, but only at the cost of creating other Usmans.

This is the typical refrain. But let us consider how hellish would Usman's life actually be? This restriction on his liberty is going to create other terrorists? Really?

Mick Harper wrote:

Also, and please remember this, too much pressure and Usman might decide to take off his tracker and head for the hills. Is that better or worse?

We then know he is a danger and do something about it. That is the point about licence conditions, you actually test the offender. If he passes he is rehabilitated, if he fails you lock him up.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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These are fair points. Because technical. And you have switched into good grammar and spelling mode. I am prepared to withdraw my Lenin's brother argument. I accept a more rigorous monitoring regime is neither going to produce mini-Usman's nor drive him into the hills. They are at best makeweights, though they weigh something. This is the bit that you -- and all other policy wonks, liberal and conservative -- get wrong

That is the point about licence conditions you actually test the offender. If he passes he is rehabilitated, if he fails you lock him up.

This is a tried-and-tested option for ordinary criminals. We have been operating it for a hundred years and it works within acceptable limits. Not overly well but certainly better than not doing it. Terrorists aren't like that at all. They behave themselves in prison, they obey every licence condition, they pass every test. Either this is because they have seen the error of their ways -- in which case it was all unnecessary -- or they were doing it preparatory to pulling the cord.

As I have said, you can take steps to minimise the effects of pulling the cord but do not kid yourself there is any way of avoiding it short of throwing away the key. But this is not the worst of it. We, as a society, have demonstrated that we have no bottom line when it comes to terrorist incidents. Doesn't matter how small the effects, doesn't matter how long the intervals between them, we just go into panic mode every single time.

Panic mode is defined as "we must change things because it isn't working". All I am saying is if you can't stop panicking at least stop changing things. You can't make it better but you can make it worse. I accept that 'doing something' is in itself a sometimes necessary bromide to be thrown as a sop to everybody else, I do not accept Applied Epistemologists should be doing it. They should simply be asking the question that nobody is asking: does London Bridge show the present policy is working or not working? I accuse you of assuming the latter along with everybody else.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Still don't agree. It makes "sense" to let out the terrorist early on licence conditions, providing he/she appears rehabilitated, precisely so you can restrict their freedom with control measures and find out if they have actually been rehabilitated. If you had kept, or Usman had opted to be kept in, then when eventually released, you would have no control over him at all.

The mystery to London Bridge-What went wrong? is that if the MAPPA allowed Usman out, they the MAPPA should have been convinced beyond reasonable doubt that he was rehabilitated. If they didn't, or if they had reason to believe he was unsafe, they could have had Usman recalled to prison. So they were clearly not sending Usman to London to help with his rehabilitation. So the question is why relax his condition (banned from London) just for this one day?

That is the mystery.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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It is surely common ground that Usman would have spent eight years appearing to be rehabilitated. You have a good point here in that the regulations have been changed from 'automatic release' after half the sentence has been served, to being turned over to a panel to review whether a terrorist should be released when half the sentence has been served. As I understand it, Usman was convicted under one set of regulations, let out under those same regulations, even though the new regulations were in force when he was. That, I agree, is ridiculous (leaving aside whether either set of regulations are good in themselves). Though I have no doubt the panel would have agreed to his release.

As for the rest, I cannot quite tell whether you are posing some kind of internal Machiavellianism going on or just bureaucratic cock-up. I would myself argue that this is all quite acceptable given the initial assumption that Usman was rehabilitated. It was mentioned there were 179 (or whatever) individuals in his position, none of whom have proved to be a problem. Yet. And I'm prepared to accept, say, one more relatively minor outrage as a price worth paying for not keeping those 180 locked up for ever.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Just wondering if there is anything noteworthy in the fact that the perpetrator was taken down by a reformed ex-con, a Muslim kitchen porter and a Polish chef (with a narwhal tusk)?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The victims got more attention. Apparently two of them being Cambridge graduates entitled them to being the lead feature on Channel 4's National News on Sunday, two days on. Illustrating my point that, to the terrorists' great benefit, we insist on treating it all as a Circus of Horrors.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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On planet Wiley, folks think the English press has done its job. Despite the normal pundits having either called for keys to be thrown into the river, or virtue signalling by wringing their hands in distress.

Meanwhile reporters have found out the key points, namely, Usman was a MAPPA, his licence conditions were relaxed so he could attend a course in London. The purpose was for students to learn from meeting high level offenders, who presumably were thought to have been successfully rehabilitated. The outcome was three connected deaths.

Now the conditions on all MAPPAs who have previously been convicted for terrorism will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on enforcing "exclusion zones". It is all very proportionate and sensible.
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