On Saturday 24 May The Guardian reported that a UK uni student was held for six days, then released without charge, because he had downloaded information from a US Government site concerning the training practices of al Qaeda.
The post-graduate student was held under the Terrorism Act 2006 and could have been held for up to 28 days.
He was reported to authorities by a staff member at Nottingham University.
The student, his supervisors and tutor say that he was researching for legitimate study purposes in order to complete his masters degree and appears to have downloaded the edited version.
From the newspaper's description this downloaded information is very similar to information which has been freely available for years from a number of sites, including the US Dept.of Justice.
In fact a 28 page excerpt from the so-called al Qaeda training manual were released in 2001 for PR purposes and can still be found on the world wide web here.
In 2003 the blog Smoking Gun published around 160 gif images of the manual pages here.
The Federation of American Scientists has a 140 page version complete with cover gif here.
As this manual is almost always found on the Internet in alleged translation, the blogosphere is still unsure of its provenance and it may be that it is part of a government propaganda exercise.
An allegedly third edition of this document around 5,000 pages long is supposedly found at Yahoo Geocities here.
This is what Global Security says about the document.
The legend that ricin can be made from a recipe on the Internet using only household chemicals will probably never die. A big reason for this is its regular vetting by authority figures and government agencies.
The best example of this can be seen in how the "al Qaeda training manual" is regarded. Discovered in a search of an al Qaeda member's home in England and entered into the public record in the January 2001 trial of the embassy bombings in Africa, the manual includes a page devoted to explaining how to purify ricin from castor beans. With minor changes, it is the discredited formula that was common in "anarchy files" uploaded to private bulletin boards and the web over the past decade. In other words, it's the same useless lye and acetone procedure that has long been in residence on the Temple of the Screaming Electron web site. (See National Security Notes 02/20/2004.)
The al Qaeda training manual was translated in its entirety and made into an Adobe Acrobat file prior to September 11. With some searching copies can still be found on the Internet.
However, on September 11, America was seized by fear. The manual's section on poisoning and ricin concoction was expurgated by government authorities and subsequently republished on the Department of Justice's web site. The surgical removal of this section granted it gravity, effectively validating what was actually a procedure of no worth.
The validation was echoed in other places, notably the popular Smoking Gun web site, which displayed a fragment of the item.
"The manual ... instructs [al Qaeda] members on how to produce poisons from readily available materials," read an article in the National Journal on December 3, 2001. "For example, dimethyl sulfoxide, which is used as a topical analgesic by veterinarians, can be mixed with herbal poisons such as ricin, which is obtained from castor beans."
Even simple common sense broke down when considering the al Qaeda training manual and its supposed recipe for ricin. The expurgated portion also contains a passage which suggests that the consumption of three cigarettes could be used in assassinations. While this might be inspirational to those searching for a reason to give up smoking, normally it would raise doubts in even the most disinterested reader on the knowledgeability of the author of the section of the manual in question.
But the war on terror is not a normal time and often clear thinking and sophisticated analysis goes right out the window when evaluating potentials for mayhem.
Literally thousands of people world-wide have viewed one or all of these 'training' documents.
In fact this particular 10 minute search appears to indicate that a credit card will get me a complete copy of the manual.
Given that all this information is out there and freely available in hyperspace, why was this student detained under British anti-terrorism laws and why is the person who printed out the document for him to be deported?
One has to suspect that ethnicity and religion played a big part in the minds of Nottingham police.
In response to the wrongful detentions, academics from the University of Nottingham will be doing a public reading of the research material that led to arrests under the Terrorism Act on campus, outside the Hallward library, University Park Campus, at 2:00pm, on May 28. The reading will be followed by a silent protest where students and academics will symbolically gag themselves to object to the attack on academic freedom.
This establishment stupidity is a salutary lesson for us all. Reading material on the Internet, downloading and emailing it, is dangerous for your health and safety in our topsy-turvey world.
The Australian Federal Police also tend to lose their commonsense whenever the word 'terrorist' is mentioned.
I wouldn't be going anywhere near His Holiness when he visits in case either Sydney or Commonwealth police decide to look at me sideways.
After all I clicked the links to that manual - ooh aaah.
The Beeston Quakers on the subject of arbitrary arrest and censorship here.
Tuesday 27 May 2008
Little Brennie unleashes the values police, but gets nabbed himself for supporting snedgers
Everytime I switch on the radio or open a newspaper these days, it seems that the thought and values police are setting the dogs on someone.
Yesterday was Little Brennie Nelson's turn, as he suddenly decided that Labor's candidate for the Gippsland by-election (caused by a former Howard Government minister deciding that the money we pay isn't good enough for him to hang around and do the job for which he was elected) was a B-A-D man when he promoted a musical as director of a Gippsland cultural festival.
Fer gawd's sake Brendan, mate. Fancy saying stuff like; "(Mr McCubbin) has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values we would want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament.", when you personally support strange snedgers in your own party.
Need I remind you, that you went on the record less than a month ago.
"FEDERAL Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the chair-sniffing Western Australian Liberal Leader has his "full support and confidence".
Troy Buswell, WA's Opposition Leader, yesterday admitted to sniffing a female Liberal staffer's chair in 2005.
He broke down at a press conference yesterday as he confirmed the woman's account but said he would not be standing down.
Dr Nelson said Mr Buswell was apologetic and still had his backing."
Know whose character I would be backing here and it wouldn't be the snedger over the musical featuring a blowup doll.
And Glen Milne loses it because he thinks he IS the values police
Glen Milne in The Australian yesterday.
"And just as Rudd's failings are beginning to make an impression nationally, along comes Darren McCubbin, the ALP candidate for Gippsland. McCubbin, you'll remember, was shoehorned into Gippsland by Labor's Melbourne head office over the local branch's preferred candidate, David Wilson, a veteran party member.
McCubbin, a local mayor, only joined up as a true believer on the day of his preselection. It was apparently enough to satisfy the moral conscience of a once great movement.
Labor's Victorian headquarters is in West Melbourne, spitting distance from the inner-city theatre district. Which might explain McCubbin's tastes. And his enthusiastic party endorsement. He is, you see, among other things, a director of the local Gippsland cultural festival, Water, Water, whatever that means.
In fact, we do know what it means, in part because McCubbin, as a director of the festival last year, chose to include and promote a lovely little act called the Beautiful Losers in his local show in the regional city of Sale, slap in the middle of the conservative rural electorate.
Listen up. According to a laudatory review in Melbourne's InPress magazine the Beautiful Losers consists "of three men, a piano and a guitar, not to mention some very wrong and rather amusing lyrics about all manner of depravity".
Yesterday was Little Brennie Nelson's turn, as he suddenly decided that Labor's candidate for the Gippsland by-election (caused by a former Howard Government minister deciding that the money we pay isn't good enough for him to hang around and do the job for which he was elected) was a B-A-D man when he promoted a musical as director of a Gippsland cultural festival.
Fer gawd's sake Brendan, mate. Fancy saying stuff like; "(Mr McCubbin) has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values we would want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament.", when you personally support strange snedgers in your own party.
Need I remind you, that you went on the record less than a month ago.
"FEDERAL Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the chair-sniffing Western Australian Liberal Leader has his "full support and confidence".
Troy Buswell, WA's Opposition Leader, yesterday admitted to sniffing a female Liberal staffer's chair in 2005.
He broke down at a press conference yesterday as he confirmed the woman's account but said he would not be standing down.
Dr Nelson said Mr Buswell was apologetic and still had his backing."
Know whose character I would be backing here and it wouldn't be the snedger over the musical featuring a blowup doll.
And Glen Milne loses it because he thinks he IS the values police
Glen Milne in The Australian yesterday.
"And just as Rudd's failings are beginning to make an impression nationally, along comes Darren McCubbin, the ALP candidate for Gippsland. McCubbin, you'll remember, was shoehorned into Gippsland by Labor's Melbourne head office over the local branch's preferred candidate, David Wilson, a veteran party member.
McCubbin, a local mayor, only joined up as a true believer on the day of his preselection. It was apparently enough to satisfy the moral conscience of a once great movement.
Labor's Victorian headquarters is in West Melbourne, spitting distance from the inner-city theatre district. Which might explain McCubbin's tastes. And his enthusiastic party endorsement. He is, you see, among other things, a director of the local Gippsland cultural festival, Water, Water, whatever that means.
In fact, we do know what it means, in part because McCubbin, as a director of the festival last year, chose to include and promote a lovely little act called the Beautiful Losers in his local show in the regional city of Sale, slap in the middle of the conservative rural electorate.
Listen up. According to a laudatory review in Melbourne's InPress magazine the Beautiful Losers consists "of three men, a piano and a guitar, not to mention some very wrong and rather amusing lyrics about all manner of depravity".
Monday 26 May 2008
American politics have always seemed strange, but Obama has just made the whole scene weirder
The Obama for America team, US Democratic candidate Barak Obama's official campaigner, has recently sent out an invitation for supporters to take part in a survey which supposedly will assist him in planning further strategy.
Quite an innocuous exercise, except.....
On the first of three pages is this little question.
How often do you attend religious services?:
More than once a week
Once a week
Less than once a week
On important holidays
Never
It seems in Obama-style politics, your churchgoing is just as important (or even more important) as which political or social issues concern you most.
Does Barak Obama think he is running for presidential nomination in a democracy or a theocracy?
Quite an innocuous exercise, except.....
On the first of three pages is this little question.
How often do you attend religious services?:
More than once a week
Once a week
Less than once a week
On important holidays
Never
It seems in Obama-style politics, your churchgoing is just as important (or even more important) as which political or social issues concern you most.
Does Barak Obama think he is running for presidential nomination in a democracy or a theocracy?
National Reconciliation Week 27 May - 3 June 2008
National Reconciliation Week (NRW) was initiated in 1996 to provide a special focus for nationwide reconciliation activities. It’s a time to reflect on achievements so far and on what is still to be done to achieve reconciliation.NRW coincides with two significant dates in Australia's history which provide strong symbols of our hopes and aims for reconciliation.May 27 marks the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum in which more than 90 per cent of Australians voted to remove clauses from the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Indigenous Australians. The referendum also gave the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws on behalf of Aboriginal people.June 3 marks the anniversary of the High Court of Australia's judgment in 1992 in the Mabo case. The decision recognised the Native Title rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the original inhabitants of the continent, and overturned the myth of terra nullius - that the continent was empty, unowned land before the arrival of Europeans in 1788.The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2008 is: Reconciliation: it’s all our story.
Online Events Calendar here.
In the Clarence Valley:
Free bus tour of Lower Clarence significant sites - May 28 10am pickup The Boulevard, Maclean
Clarence Valley Council free BBQ breakfast - May 29 7.30am-11.30am Market Square, Grafton
Official opening of ceramic art exhibition, Grafton Regional Gallery - May 30 5pm
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