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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

There's a difference between trying to destroy ships or blow up power plants and shutting down an airport. Still not great, probably worth heavy fines and some jail time, but not exactly terrorism under the common definition.

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My apologies for implying that _directly threatening_ the lives of 200+ people does not qualify as a terrorist act.

How about risking bringing down a plane with 200+ people inside

You seem to be wilfully misunderstanding. The point of naming a day is that it won't come as a surprise, and the airport will be on high alert for any drone sightings. Activists will no doubt fly the first drones somewhere very obvious, but well away from planes, at which point Heathrow will close to planes and they'll have the runways to themselves. If they take the threat seriously, Heathrow may even close to flights in advance to avoid last-minute disruption.

What, so if an activist does something it is going to go exactly to plan and everyone will figure it out as they go, safely and cheerfully?

This attitude to passenger safety is completely unacceptable. Protesting is acceptable. Doing anything that disrupts airline safety and the control of the airlines over their airspace is not. The reason air flight is so safe is because they understand that that is not an acceptable way to manage threats.

We want engineering control over flights, not the clowns in Extinction Rebellion.

It's hyperbole to suggest that risk exists when the protestors are telling everyone the exact date, time and location they will fly the drones. If the airport still chooses to fly airplanes during that time and people still choose to get on them, then I think you can't say the risk was introduced by the protestors.

Which is not to say I agree or disagree with the protestors, but please don't dilute the meaning of terrorism.

The Provisional IRA did the same thing with bombings, and they were definitely terrorists.

Not that I think these people are terrorists, but "telling everyone ahead of time" isn't an inoculation.

I know this is a "slippery slope" type argument, but if you are going equate "mild inconvenience of your flight delayed" with death and destruction, you are opening up a huge invitation for authorities to apply some pretty frightening laws to anybody who wants to protest about something. Protests have traditionally obstructed traffic or caused other inconvenience and often when notified in advance the police even help them by directing traffic or doing crowd control etc. This isn't that much different and in some ways is better because aviation is actually one of the huge unsolvable contributors to climate change, so this protest is highly targeted to the people who are contributing to that.

I agree, it's not that different from scheduling a protest blocking a freeway.

The last people to disrupt a UK airport got arrested and charged with terrorism-adjacent charges, which was an egregious overreach. Hopefully Extinction Rebellion won't face anything similar. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/world/europe/uk-stansted-...

> The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, caused the deaths of approximately 1,800 people

I mean I feel like that's a difference? What's Extinction Rebellion's body count?

The IRA generally only gave hours warning. The Manchester bombing got 90 minutes, Birmingham pub bombings about ten minutes.

Your logic makes no sense. We told Japan that we would drop a nuke on them. Does that mean it was all Japan's fault, and America created no risk?

I would suggest reading about the recent putative drone incident at Gatwick:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident

The safety precautions taken were so strenuous that i find it hard to muster any fear that any injury to life will occur during this planned protest.

First result on Google: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

Isn't this unlawful intimidation in the pursuit of political aims?

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