How Britain has been kept safe for a decade | Hacker News Reader

How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

bbc.co.uk

38 pointssjclemmy66 comments

Touch a big fucking piece of wood with that title, BBC.

Guns are much rarer in the UK than on the continent. This obviously doesn't make attacks impossible but it does make life harder for terrorists. For example, the maniac who murdered Lee Rigby with a knife tried to get a gun first. All he could get was a modified starter pistol that jammed on the first shot. The right wing terrorist who murdered Jo Cox apparently had a home made single shot pistol. Imagine if they'd been able to get Glocks or Kalashnikovs.

I would like to see more restrictions on high strength peroxide as TATP seems to be the explosive of choice for terrorists.

Good point, but it doesn't explain the Nice or Bruxelles attacks where the weapons were a truck and bombs, items that are as common or uncommon on the continent as in the UK.

Of course, but shooting attacks have been a major component of terrorism in Europe (Paris, Charlie Hebdo, Brussels Jewish Museum, etc). I have to also point out that it's still not clear at this time whether Nice was a terrorist attack.

The UK may be better protected against "truck amuck" incidents as we had so many IRA car and truck bombs. Risers and bollards are very common around public spaces (and also, we don't have the luxury of miles of riviera beach front...). For example a ramming attack at Glasgow airport in 2007 was prevented by bollards.

As for bombs, I certainly hope someone buying the ingredients in the UK would immediately draw police attention.

Unless the driver was asleep at the wheel and it was all an accident, it's pretty clear Nice was a terrorist attack. The question you're looking for is whether it was an act of Muslim extremism.

As far as I know, we don't know the motivation of the Nice attack, so we can't yet say it was certainly terrorism. It was certainly a deliberate act of mass murder but that does not necessarily mean it was a terrorist attack, which implies a political or religious motivation to terrorize (as opposed to, say, mental illness or general hatefulness). For example most US mass shootings are not considered terrorism.

I realize this sounds a bit like hair splitting in the face of a horrible mass murder, but terrorism has different policy implications from other kinds of mass murder, so we should be careful about language.

You do not believe the reports that he was shouting "allahu akbar" then? Also, check the latest news on the "cryptic sms's" sent from his phone.

The information content of "Allah Ackbar" from an Arabic speaker is essentially nil - it's used the same way English speakers use "Oh my god" - but him asking another involved party for "more weapons" via SMS, if true, suggests it was a coordinated attack and most likely terrorism.

> it's pretty clear Nice was a terrorist attack.

What was the goal of the 'terrorist' then? In other words, what political aim did he have?

Hm ... yes, let's see, what possible goal might he have had? What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve? I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before. Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that. No pattern to see here, move along.

> What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve?

Yes, that's the question.

> I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before.

I'm aware of that.

> Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that.

I'm aware of that too.

Even so, none of that actually answers the question, it's just a bunch of handwaving and suggestion making it seem that you're a really smart person who has figured all this out.

So, humor me, what did this guy want? How do you know that's what he wanted?

I've been reading quite a bit about this particular incident and so far the only thing that is certain is that this was one very confused individual who had been under treatment for some time (years) and who happened to be very loosely affiliated with Islam, no more than someone who still celebrates Christmas is a Christian.

If you're aware of something rather stronger in the evidence department then please let's have it.

> and who happened to be very loosely affiliated with Islam

That's similar to lots of the terrorists who've been caught. They tend to be converts to Islam, or previously not particularly observant before being radicalised.

Yes, they also all consumed mothers milk.

Being radicalized is code for 'impressionable person ends up believing stories by some fraudster'.

Let's cut to the chase here, this is why we won't be solving this any time soon:

Religion pre-selects - in all its forms - the gullible, those, who would rather believe a story than the evidence before their eyes. Because of that and that alone we're stuck with this problem because our societies would have to outlaw all religion as some kind of disease if they're going to gather up the tools to do something about this problem on a scale where it will make a difference and within the framework of our legal systems, that is, without prejudice against one religion or another.

But of course that will never fly, it would create a huge immediate problem, much larger than the one posed by terrorism. It would require all those that are involved in some other religion besides Islam to come to terms with their own religion and this will - given the influence of all those other religions, particularly Christianity in all its forms - never ever happen. And if it did it would make the current crop of terrorists look like rank amateurs.

See also Richard Dawkins' 'crusade' against religion in all its forms, even atheists are not immune to telling others how they should live.

If you're going to find one common element between Crusaders, IRA/Unionist bombers and Islamists (and a whole raft of others besides) it is a categorical in-ability to keep their religions where they should be: in their houses and their places of worship.

As soon as people go out into the real world and start telling others how they should live it's game over. So, as far as I can see we're stuck with this problem for the foreseeable future, until enough blood has been shed that people will come to their senses again. It never was any different.

So, authorities shouldn't focus on preventing young/gullible people from being radicalised in the name of Islam, because they are just as likely to be radicalised in the name of [any other religion] and that poses an equal threat?

I seriously doubt that terrorist would have any issue smuggling an automatic weapon or crate of them into the UK. Like he stated, having that water between them and the mainland does help a lot.

France has another issue besides lack of communication among its various police and intelligence agencies. It tries to enforce a very secular environment which included not allowing head scarves which just gives one side another excuse to resort to violence.

Take a look at the homicide data alongside gun crime and none of the law changes that reduced gun ownership in the last 50 years has made any noticeable difference to the correlation.

As you go around the world and you look at the number of guns per populace the rates of homicide using them vastly differs, Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns. There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in, the only difference is only the bad guys can have them there is no sport use or recreational use at all.

> Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns

Er. Do you know what Anders Breivik did in 2011? You're also shifting straight from 'terrorism' to 'homicide', although they are not the same thing.

> none of the law changes that reduced gun ownership in the last 50 years has made any noticeable difference to the correlation.

How do you explain this then?

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/561817dbbd86ef195c8...

> There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in

Except that I've given several examples where extremely well motivated 'bad guys' were unable to get anything beyond rudimentary home made pistols and were consequently unable to kill large numbers of people. Long may it stay that way, despite gun nuts who wish otherwise.

> there is no sport use or recreational use at all.

This is also untrue. About 1% of the population are licensed gun owners, mostly for shotguns in rural areas. Hunting for sport is wide spread. Sports target shooters can use shotguns, rifles and long barrelled .22 pistols.

Banning guns from citizens doesn't make life harder for terrorists. There was a video last year of an ISIS person beheading someone using a large knife, on a city street in broad daylight as pedestrians walked by on the other side of the street, powerless to do anything to stop the atrocity taking place in front of them.

In many places in the United States, if someone tried to cut someone's head off in broad daylight on a city street, that terrorist would probably get shot dead, maybe before committing the act. That makes life harder for terrorists.

The problem with gun control debates and conversations about violence in the atmosphere of gun control debates is that 1/2 of the people talking have lost their f'ing minds.

Violence is a problem unrelated to the prevalence of weaponry and violent people will always find weapons to use. Guns are an equalizer that empower the weak to stand up against the strong.

Why do you think that terrorist (I assume you're talking about the London guy) would be trying to cut someone's head off if he were in the USA? As I pointed out, he bought a gun and tried to use it FIRST, which very thankfully didn't work. The knife was not his first choice. He'd certainly have preferred an AR15.

But don't listen to me. Listen to Al Qaeda.

> A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.

> "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," said Gadahn, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/11/politics/al-qaeda-video/in...

> violence is a problem unrelated to the prevalence of weaponry

Isn't this a bit like saying that soldering is unrelated to the prevalence of soldering irons?

"listen to al Qaeda" yeah that makes sense, murderers always tell the truth right?

You can't buy a fully automatic firearm at a gun show without a background check. Not legally. And not without an ID card. But listen to the murderers and take their word for it because they are honest people.

What you can do is buy anything you want in the world illegally, and in any country you happen to be in, so arguing about the black market is a fraud.

I was fairly confident that buying a fully automatic firearm at a gun show was unlikely to be a matter of "ID + background check" as with buying a semi-automatic (or non-automatic) firearm. See links below (8 and 9 years old; the laws are unlikely to have become more liberal since then) for more info.

My (perhaps inadequate) attempt to summarize the high points from those two sources: such purchases (in those states where ownership is legal; in some it is not) require the buyer to undergo an extensive (and apparently very slow: 50-90 days, after payment for the (by definition very expensive) fully automatic legally transferable firearm has been delivered to the seller) check process: an additional Transfer Fee of $200 must be paid, and passport photos and fingerprints submitted, with the application, which must be (before submission to the Feds (BATFE)) signed by the "chief law enforcement officer" of the area you live in. Annual inspections by the Feds of the premises where the fully-automatic firearm is stored are apparently also part of the "ownership contract" which the owner enters into with the Federal Government.

Sources: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090208100642A... https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080102143807A...

I suspect they were not using the right terminology; non-technical people don't know what the word "automatic" means, and some confuse "automatic rifle" for "assault rifle". You don't need an automatic rifle to inflict mass casualties (Orlando, Dallas) and even Western soldiers, I gather, rarely use full auto fire mode in battle. It's usually tactically unnecessary and empties the magazine in a few seconds.

That is quite possibly true, and if they don't understand the language being used then they should not have a part of the conversation, should they? We don't let children participate in adult conversations for the same reason, they don't understand the subjects and can't contribute helpfully to the topic.

I'm not saying ignorance makes them children, I'm saying ignorance makes their opinions unhelpful noise.

The boring truth is that the number of terrorist attacks is too small to draw significant conclusions from.

I suppose there's more data from the number of attacks which don't happen, but how we'd get that data, I don't know.

Attributing all this to intelligence sharing alone seems an oversimplification. I suspect the difference in the level of assimilation between British Muslims and their French counterparts is the biggest factor.

The problem with French intelligence is the number of services :

− la Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI) − la Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE) − le Service central du renseignement territorial (SCRT) − la Sous-direction de l’anticipation opérationnelle de la gendarmerie nationale (SDAO) − la Direction du renseignement militaire (DRM) − la Direction de la protection et de la sécurité de la Défense (DPSD) − la Direction du renseignement de la préfecture de police de Paris (DRPP) − la Direction nationale du renseignement et des enquêtes douanières (DNRED) − le Traitement du renseignement et action contre les circuits financiers clandestins (Tracfin)

And the coordination services: − l’Unité de coordination de la lutte antiterroriste (UCLAT) qui n’a autorité que sur les services relevant de la police nationale − l’État-major opérationnel de prévention du terrorisme (EMOPT) directement rattaché au ministre de l’Intérieur − le Coordonnateur national du renseignement auprès du Président de la République

A 2000 pages and 6 months enquirie by a bipartisan commission found we should unify them but it was promptly ignored by the government.

> A 2000 pages and 6 months enquirie by a bipartisan commission

You're saying like this is part of the solution, but it's part of the problem

Though it seems that some of those still might make sense as a separate entity, like Tracfin and DNRED

I've traveled between London and Paris frequently. I found the visibility of fundamentalist muslims in the UK to be much higher than anywhere in France. The burka and niqab, for example, is not only illegal but even before being so it was extremely unpopular in France (I believe the estimate was ~200 for the entire country). Yet, walking around London and it's outskirts this was a common sight.

France has managed to avoid most islamic extremists by working closely with local mosques; by not treating them as the enemy but as a local resource. The extremists are spreading their views through the internet. They are not welcome in the mosque.

> France has managed to avoid most islamic extremists

Yet any extremist can literally walk into France and terrorize, which is essentially what's happened.

So perhaps the biggest difference the fact that Britain has a physical border wall?

He was originally from Tunisia, there is a large body of water that separates them from France. Extremists can arrive by plane or boat. The same way they can get into the UK.

Not in the significant numbers that have been coming into France by way of land.

Statistically speaking, the fewer terrorists you allow into your country, combined with the fewer amounts of terrorist organizations you allow to operate in your country, the fewer terrorist attacks you will have.

"The burka and niqab, for example, is not only illegal but even before being so it was extremely unpopular in France"

Niqaab/burka != terrorist

No, it is an indicator of fundamentalists who, I feel, hold some really regressive and oppressive views on women and Western society. Extremism is the more virulent version of fundamentalists.

The UK has decided that freedom of religion, no matter how intolerant it actually is, is to be protected. Even if it denies some human rights. France has decided that freedom of religion cannot supersede human rights, ever.

> The burka and niqab, for example, is not only illegal but even before being so it was extremely unpopular in France (I believe the estimate was ~200 for the entire country). Yet, walking around London and it's outskirts this was a common sight.

I think outlawing religious dress or other iconography simply ends up giving ammunition to religious extremists and further divides already segregated communities from the mainstream.

Maybe the lack of coordination between intelligence agencies is to blame (it cannot help anyway) but it cannot alone explain the difference. First we (I am French) have a larger muslim population: 3-3,5 millions for UK the double in France mainly from North Africa. So statistically speaking there's a higher chance of having islamists in France. Also many of French of Arabic origin just hate or despise France and the causes have different roots: historical (Algerian war), cultural and societal (high unemployment rate especially among arabic population). For UK, I don't think their population of muslims origin "have a grudge" on their host. Every Bastille day, new year's eve or big event does not go without burning cars and policemen attacked by young people with many of them being of North African origin, and it's getting worse with time. Of course relations between the different ethnic group are not going to get any better now .

I am very pessimistic about the future of my country. I see a lot of educated young people wanting to leave it (and not only for business opportunities) and the level of violence raising up. Bad time for being French.

Could you or other French elaborate more on that last paragraph? I'm curious of why the younger French would want to leave. Is it only because of the influx of Muslims, violence, and job opportunities? Or, are there other things going on, as well?

I don't how it is much different to other European countries but many people of my entourage went abroad. Some ex co-workers went to USA & Canada, some cousins to Scotland, Singapore and Ireland. And they have no intention to come back. That's the difference with 15 years ago, expats used to come back. Also some young co-workers also are searching jobs out of France, even co-workers of Arabic origins want to leave (1 is in the process of being recruited for a Dubai job).

That's not a coincidence.

The main reason used to be of the French gloomy economy, especially for the new comers on the job market, it is very hard even with qualifications to find a job. And there's no perspective on improvement on that side since the mentalities are very conservative (to stay polite). People think they cannot be successful in France and can be in the countries mentioned above.

Now since 5 years ago, I think you can add the feeling of France not being safe. Many jews left France being fed-up of being targeted by the muslim community and the lack of reaction from "traditional" French. The influx of people from troubled areas is not going to help. I expect the number of French leaving the country to boom.

I would be very careful in publishing such "pat-in-the-back" articles.

I remember reading a NYT article shortly after the Paris attacks that said something like "this could never happen in the US" (because of better intelligence and integration), and then the San Bernardino shootings happened soon after and the Orlando shooting later...

(found it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/opinion/could-paris-happen...)

While UK DOES have probably a better Intelligence than most European countries, it also has the advantages of being an island and being outside the Schengen area, so entry in the country is much easier to monitor by the authorities.

It is also clear that, unlike UK, France has been singled out as the main EU target by the terrorists. Spain has been safe even longer than UK, and Italy has never been attacked, although both countries experience a constant flux of migrants from northern Africa and it's hard to think of their Intelligence agencies as better than the French one.

regarding the shootings, "gun free zones" are actually "safe for terror zones" and should be referred to as such.

Intelligence sharing is a good idea, but the Nice attacker appears to have been an individual with mental health issues and no known fundamentalist tendencies.

His family and associates probably knew something was wrong with him; he threatened his ex and was violence prone at times. Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do, especially in a free society, unless the person runs afoul of the law. If they stay out of trouble, they can plan horrific attacks at a time of their choosing.

The only thing I can think of is to have more available mental health services including residential treatment facilities, and make it easier for concerned families to get someone the help he needs before a tragedy occurs. Probably in an immigrant community, there's the shame factor to deal with as well; so discretion and confidentiality would be highly important.

Beyond that, France and other countries taking in large numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers from troubled regions need to obviously limit the numbers and scrutinize each applicant more carefully. Easier said than done, but they have to try.

Being safe from terror attacks is 9 parts not being attacked, and 1 part catching people beforehand. If you state you are safe, because you're doing the 10% right, you're mistaken.

Would you also state there's no planes blowing up because the TSA or UK equivelent? It is because they are not trying. So find out why they aren't trying, and you'll find out why you're "safe."

Maybe you are killing less people with drones? Maybe your local assholes are bad at recruiting human meat sacrifices.

If it was because information sharing, you'd have jails full of bad dudes right?

When companies get hacked, their competitors don't say "we have better security." Because they know that invites them to be hacked.

> If it was because information sharing, you'd have jails full of bad dudes right?

How do you know we haven't?

> Forty terrorist plots have been disrupted since 2005 (in Britain) - including seven in the past 18 months.

Does anyone know where these numbers come from? Are the information to the individual cases available?

It depends upon who you trust. Police/government release figures and press releases. However, one of the problems with the official statements is that terrorism trials in the UK can be (and are) held in closed courts in which evidence is withheld. Therefore the public cannot know if what they are being told is accurate+.

+ I don't actually think that we are being lied to (at the moment) but with closed trials we can't know that for sure.

I agree it's unlikely they are outright lying but it is possible some of those terrorist plans were instigated in sting operations. So it's not clear how many of them would have proceeded absent government involvement. This is similar to the US: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-age...

Imagine if the Birmingham 6 or Guilford 4 and Maguire 7 were tried and convicted in secret courts.

You mean the cases we know about due to the independent judiciary and that have led to massive systemic change? You're not going to find a terror suspect being interviewed by the police without a lawyer present and the whole thing being videoed. The days of false confessions and coercive interrogations are long gone.

Really? I was under the impression that terror suspects could be held for several weeks without having charges brought against them? I was also under the impression that due process is completely ignored in some circumstances (e.g. at airports).

Given Erol Incedal, prosecuted in one of the few actual "secret trials", was found not guilty I'd say that suggests a pretty decent basis for believing the system isn't rigged. I'd even go so far as to say that secret trials are likely to be the ones with higher acquittal rates as the further advanced the plot is the less likely the need for secrecy as more conventional evidence can be led by itself.

The judiciary and bar are still independent. The Court of Appeal regularly sides against the government on issues relating to terrorism trials - for instance why you can know the name of Erol Incedal.

Compared to Roman system on the continent, or the much more politicised US system, I'd definitely contend the UK is one of the fairest judicial systems on the planet to be accused of a serious crime.

Can you tell me about some of the differences in the Continental system? As an American is love to learn the nuances

They need to define "terrorist plot".

Does a 15 year old child travelling to Syria count as a terrorist plot? Because some of those people have been stopped. (although plenty of others haven't).

Does it count as a terrorist plot if there's almost no chance of it being successful? Grooming someone with a learning disability to kill someone seems unlikely to actually be successful. Here's one such plot that got stopped: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/30/eight-years-...

It would be good if UK Gov released some better information. That's unlikely to happen.

I expected much more from the BBC than some stupid "our intelligence is better you see !!" article. No it's not the intelligence which prevented anything, it's the fact that strategically, the UK is a much less desirable target than France. No amount of intelligence could have prevented what happened in Nice and Paris and saying the opposite is trying to rewrite history.

One problem in France there is no single equivalent of MI5 - there are multiple organisations doing counterterrorist work.

I assume that its plausible to put in place policies such that terrorist attacks can be much reduced, but that wouldn't be a modern western country any more and indeed the level of repression required would inhibit a countries function so dramatically that it would likely create more terrorists in the long term.

Would joined up intelligence really prevent the lone lunatic attack? If so how?

Also, weren't the Paris attacks organized from Brussels?

The suggestion is that "lone lunatics" don't wake up one day and decide to commit murder without there being any warning signs in advance. Even people who aren't in a cell are likely to exhibit changes in character, association and behaviour that could bring them to the attention of the authorities.

One of the other things about the UK over the past 15 or so years has been the massive investment in "community policing". It has been a huge cultural change, police forces became police services. Thousands of PCSOs were hired and conscious efforts made to get officers out of cars and into communities building up relationships. While sources aren't revealed I'd be amazed if some of those 40 foiled plots hadn't been in part stopped due to better initial local intelligence rather than hi-tech GCHQ gizmos.

You monitor people who download certain material. You then see if they apply for passports or buy tickets to Syria (or the gateway countries to Syria). You then monitor them to see if they buy knives, guns, fertiliser / etc. You also monitor them to see if they're talking about their plan to kill people (because so far most of these attacks seem to have had some planning in semi-public fora.)

To me this list is scary, and we should resist governments that ask for these powers. But currently this is at the mild end of what UK gov is asking for (and doing). They'd go much further in their human rights violations.

As an example of some intrusive monitoring, and other measures, that were aimed at stopping radicalisation of a family, and preventing a child from flying to Syria: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/london-borough-tower-...

This case in interesting because they could have used "joint enterprise" to convict the family, but chose not to. (A good thing, joint enterprise is linked to many miscarriages of justice).

If you have various groups working a problem and they don't communicate, they are significantly disadvantaged relative to groups that talk. Each of these groups have their particular specialties, and it could only be beneficial for them to communicate. Now whether this communication is THE standout factor preventing attacks...that seems a stretch.

I would counter that being in the loop on everything adds a lot of noise and decreases your focus (because you have much more to look at) possibly making you less effective. Communication is hard.

A fair point. I assumed with the article that the communication is working to some extent. I have no way of knowing whether that is indeed the case.

I think it's due to 1 million CCTVs http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8159141.stm

Terrorism is a problem of technology. As technology gets better so does the ability for a small group of people to inflict damage. A quiet surveillance state is the inevitable response, and this is what's being described.

AI and drones are the next step, because they are autonomous. It is not known yet how to deal with that. States may soon try to lock down all code for drones and AI from being used by the public.

There's no such thing as 'safe places'. They're certainly picking and choosing their data.

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