[ExI] Terrorist? Who can tell?

[Lee Corbin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Terrorist? Who can tell?


> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 3:15 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:
>> Below, BillK exhibits an MI5 report on terrorist "types".
>>
>> Not a single word---not one!---is mentioned concerning
>> *the* most salient characteristic of the so-called terrorists
>> who have been convicted of crimes related to mass public
>> bombings and other terrorist activity in the UK.
>>
>> Not a single word about this salient characteristic that
>> any six-year-old would instantly be able to identify and
>> would instantly attempt to articulate (provided that
>> someone has not already gotten to him or her and
>> has already inflicted today's common Orwellian removal
>> of certain phrases and words from his or her vocabulary).
>>
> 
> 
> I presume you don't mean nervous, sweaty people wearing a large
> rucksack with wires hanging out ?  :)
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, I did not quote the full article. I only quoted
> highlighted points that I thought might be of interest. You need to
> read the full article I linked to, to get more information.
> 
> What MI5 were looking for was a list of criteria, a,b,c,d,e, that
> would enable their computers to extract a list of suspects that they
> could investigate as likely to be involved in terrorism. They were
> unable to do this.
> 
> Quote:
> British-based terrorists are as ethnically diverse as the UK Muslim
> population, with individuals from Pakistani, Middle Eastern and
> Caucasian backgrounds. MI5 says assumptions cannot be made about
> suspects based on skin colour, ethnic heritage or nationality.
> -----------------
> 
> It might be that the terrorists were Muslim to some degree, with a
> dark skin, but that is not enough to select them out as terrorists.
> In some areas of London and some cities, that is over half the
> population.
> 
> There is an enormous difference between
> 1) characteristics that terrorists have, and
> 2) characteristics that ONLY terrorists have.
> 
> 
> BillK
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