We got two wars in the wake of 9/11, and I don't think there was any actual increased terrorist threat.
The big, scary, but terrifically unlikely event factors more significantly into our fears than the prosaic, equally deadly, but vastly more likely one.
All the better if I can defend my statements by inciting a sense of nationalism or publicly shared responsibility for preventing future heinous crimes.
This is the raw video of the shooting of the French policeman: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc6_1420632668
Here it is in slow motion, zoomed in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_c4IUO6h7w
We are told this is footage of a 7.62mm round fired into a target at point blank range.
With no recoil exhibited by the rifle, no blood present anywhere on the scene, and no violent head or body movement on part of the person "shot" at point blank range, it's very possible that blanks were fired and that this is yet another deep event meant to mislead the public into accepting a hidden agenda.
You don't seem to be a troll based on your profile, so I'm not sure what would cause you to focus on details like the fact that it was a 7.62mm rifle and that you would know what the recoil looks like for various types of rifles.
I'm assuming you got fed this idea somewhere else, and went with it. Either way I'd urge you to really try and re-evaluate from a neutral standpoint and see if it genuinely seems probable.
Allowing your mind to go down this road unchecked seems like a path to Fischer-esque paranoia and self delusion.
Ya know, don't even bother answering.
Ok, pretend for a moment that you're the terrible neocon type, who would stop at nothing to get France back into Washington's orbit or whatever. Which one of two options would you chose?
1. Pretend that there is some shooting, but don't shoot actual bullets. Make an elaborate show, and be sure not to screw it up - it's all recorded.
2. Pay a couple of disgruntled guys a small stack of cash to go and shoot up a journal office. Actual guys, actual rifles, actual bullets, legit videos.
Seriously. You have to assume those "neocons" are drooling idiots to believe any of this "look at the video!1!!" stuff.
Here it is again in slow motion, zoomed in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_c4IUO6h7w
Kalashnikov rifles chambered at 7.62mm exhibit greater than zero recoil under the best of circumstances.
It simply isn't credible to state that a Kalashnikov rifle will not exhibit _any_ recoil.
And to pretend as if a 7.62mm round fired at point blank range into a human target would cause _no_ amount of blood splatter or blowback in the target is highly suspect.
There is no visual of a bullet hitting this police officer and I will not apologize for my statements inciting controversy. Watch the video. In less than a minute you will see I am accurately describing the events as they unfold on video.
A bit off topic: Ive asked myself this question in general for the past couple of months. People dying from wars and incidents that happened a couple of days ago makes me anxious, miserable, lost and helpless.Maybe its media amplifying everything, I don't know but its truly unpleasant.
Local politics can be quite satisfying with real results. The people are there, contactable, accountable and they listen. But at the national level I don't have any feeling of connection whatsoever.
How can we explain to politicians the extent to which modernity is built upon tools like encryption? How can we explain the brute fact of the possibility of secret communication, whether they approve or not? And can we guess how much damage they'll inflict in these Canutian escapades?
With a lie to placate the people, if he tries at all. Government (like the snooping corporations before them) only want "nobody but us" levels of security. Some countries have already manged to get it from some services (off the top of my head BBM and India).
It's also worth mentioning the Mayor of London's thoughts on this:
"I'm not particularly interested in this civil liberties stuff when it comes to these people's emails and mobile phone conversations. If they are a threat to our society then I want them properly listened to."
He is a trained seal that performs for treats.
Yeah, because that worked so well with perpetrators of the attacks in Paris. These people were actually well-known to authorities as were some of the people who committed the 9/11 attacks. If anything we need to make government and administrative processes both much more transparent and efficient.
I don't think inundating authorities with yet another stream of data they can't possibly make sense of particularly helps the cause.
This probably means you're right. I suggest we start a mass exodus to another country with equally melancholy weather and the guarantee of a Waitrose nearby.
That seems misleading. From what I remember they were accusing Facebook not of "refusing to give them the info", but for "not warning them" about those guys' communications. So they essentially wanted Facebook to do the policing for them, because they failed to do the policing themselves.
In Britain the Security Forces have long been seen as a bit too obsessed with lefties.
There is inneffective Security Theatre at airports - a political sop. What else is inneffective? Are there innefective secret things ?
I would like to see any journalist ask : Are the security services watching radical Islam enough or wasting their resources on what the electorate would consider the wrong targets ?
Will the Security Services having decryption keys to my communications make them more insecure to non-government agents ?
Will how secure the keys are be secret ?
What other governments , agencies and contractors will the keys to our communications be shared with ?
What oversight will there be ?
If the answer is yes, then how about the Vigenere cipher? The Caesar Cipher? 1337 speak? Writing my message backwards? Making spelling mistakes?
He is likely just using common examples that people recognize, and the law will be applied broadly to apps like RedPhone and SilentText.
Very different scenario when it's something that people actually use, especially with elections coming up.
By watching which messaging tools are banned in the UK, we will have a canonical list of which messaging tools GCHQ cannot breach.
Thanks David!