Thursday, 8th May 2008

Terrorists planning magnetic death ray?

"Four men have been charged with conspiring to support the banned Tamil Tigers terrorist organisation, Scotland Yard has confirmed. The men - arrested in London, Wales and Swindon - are accused of possessing laptops, antennas and high-powered magnets for terrorist purposes."

So says the BBC story

WTF??

What have high powered magnets got to do with potential terrorism? Now, either the BBC haven't got the full facts of this story, or they're clutching at straws adding further to another 'alleged terrorism scare-mongering' story.

I'm more concerned about the sentence later in the story, "The equipment they are accused to possessing also included head torches, radios and navigation systems."

Sheesh! This could apply to anyone who's interested in rambling, pot-holing or outdoor pursuits in general. I've got a head torch myself - very handy for working on the car or in places where a hand held torch is inconvenient. I've also got a radio - very good for listening to the Archers on Radio 4. Oh hang on, do they mean walkie-talkie radios. I've got one of them too. Handy for talking to staff when setting up stands at exhibitions, or for communicating to people on nature walks etc.

Navigation systems?? Well, considering GPS and "TomTom" devices are one of the most popular 'gadgets' at the moment, this is hardly going to eliminate a vast percentage of the population from possible terrorism charges!!

What's with the high-powered magnets? Quite a lot of I.T. companies use these for bulk erasing of discs or videos, and are the police going to run around arresting quantum physicists? Their particle accelerators use some super-powerful magnets....

Perhaps the fact the suspects all have Muslim sounding names was enough to raise suspicions, or like I said earlier, maybe the BBC are not reporting all the facts? Either way it just goes to prove that the terrorism laws in this country need an overhaul, both to prevent the media from scare-mongering and also to prevent the police from misusing the law in order to arrest anyone for virtually any reason they want, then claiming it was "conspiring to terrorist related activities", which under current legislation, can encompass pretty much the entire population of the country.

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Entry created by Paul on 8th May 2008 at 12:38pm Filed under: Big Brother state