So don't you dare tell me that I don't know what it was like.

Er I didn't

I just said what I did, never mentioned anyone else here.

Any freedoms lost will never be regained the terrorist will continue.

If after 9/11 we did not stop them you really believe anything that happens now will change that.

As many have said here we do not and cannot understand them, they come from a different culture.

Remember the IRA, how many of them would have strapped a bomb to them selves.

All of these terrorists are willing to die for their cause, are happy to do so.

Unfortunately until we can try and understand how they think we will have little success in defeating them.

I am glad I will not be around in the world where "to allow us to go about our lawful business" we will have sacrificed our freedoms and the terrorists will have achieved what they want.

---

So you have now all become EXPERTS in the intelligence game. You are now qualified to know what needs to be collected and why.

So you want direct democracy. Welcome to the Roman Senate. Uh, where is that government today?

No, you hire representatives to represent you in the government. You want them to hire experts in each area to advise them on different fields. You trust they make the correct decisions.

Now as to bulk data collection: Yes it pisses me off that the data I create is collected and stored by people it wasn't address to. That includes Google, not just the NSA! But I realize terrorists aren't born terrorists, they convert. So I understand the need to capture everything to find the new ones. There is no need to keep old data on persons who are not of interest. There needs to be a mandatory data destruction policy. There needs to be a policy that it doesn't matter what crime besides terrorism is uncovered, that data doesn't exist no matter what warrant or subpoena is issued. Do I need to know if it destroy date is 30 days or 31 days? No. Nor does the enemy. The paranoia game is the hardest one to play, and mistakes are dead bodies.

---

I was working in London in the days after the tube bombings, some said I was mad and they wouldn't go on the tube, I did.

So did I and many thousands of others. I worked in central London, West End, Mayfair, Old Street, Liverpool Street, Barbican, Islington, from 1975-1997. I missed the Green Park Tube bomb in 1975 by 30 minutes as I worked a bit later that night. Had I gone home at my normal time I might not be here typing this. Airey Neave in 1979 at Parliament, Hyde Park 1982, 1990 London Stock Exchange, 1991 Downing St mortar attack, the Baltic Exchange in 1992.

I lived and worked all through all of that, and I traveled up to London on public transport every day regardless of my own safety, as we all did. It was like a blitz spirit, you don't give in to terrorists, the same as we didn't bow down to the Nazis in WWII and their London night bombing raids. So don't you dare tell me that I don't know what it was like. And we have some youngster still wet behind the ears, having the gall to accuse me advocating a society like Nazi Germany.

Terrorism is evil, what happened in Paris is evil, but if we loose our freedoms because of terrorism, and fear to live our lives then they have won.

In principle yes, but there are too many people that are playing the ideological ticket of "suppression of civil liberties and personal freedom" as if its a dastardly establishment plot to brainwash the populace. They've probably read 1984 by Orwell too many times, and check for reds under the bed before they go uneasily to sleep each night.

What a lot of people here seem to have lost sight of, is that it is worth losing some, not all, of our personal freedoms if it helps to make the streets of our cities safer for people to go about their lawful business, without being indiscriminately killed in the name of some extreme religion or latest fad cult. The day the people of this planet let religion in any of its forms, rule the world, in any way, is the day that human civilisation is lost.

Some people here are hastening that day.

The Old Bailey Bombing in March 1973 & lets not forget 7/7.

Many people know that Sirius and I strongly disagree on a range of topics, but never let it be said that I don't give credit where it is due. Therefore I am happy to give a public thank you to him for his endorsement of my post 1627563.

It was a genuine pleasure to agree with it. We both spent the same time period in London, with myself actually working on London Underground shortly after leaving Reader's Digest[7-10 Old Bailey) the following year.

Also in the early 80's worked at the Royal Mail in Central London. To be frank about it, it was worrying with the bombs going off all over the place, but Londoners have a spirit that is very difficult to break.

Just like Chris, 5 minutes earlier on 7/7 & I would not be here typing this - If I had not stopped for a coffee at the last drop but one, I would have been caught in the Tavistock Square bomb as I had to go through there to reach the last drop of the day which was Hunter Street. I still have a copy of my tachograph & run sheet for that day - quite scary.

To paraphrase an old War Office film...

...Londoners can take it :-)

What a lot of people here seem to have lost sight of, is that it is worth losing some, not all, of our personal freedoms if it helps to make the streets of our cities safer for people to go about their lawful business, without being indiscriminately killed in the name of some extreme religion or latest fad cult.

1) These massive internet surveillance programs don't actually make the streets any safer while, as plenty of inquiries (and by admission of the NSA itself) has found these programs to be ineffective at catching terrorists.
2) Our streets are already safe. Its just not like that without those internet surveillance programs it would be impossible to cross the street without getting killed by terrorists. Again, terrorism hardly kills people in the West, statistically its extremely unlikely it kills you, so why the hell are you arguing that the government needs even more power to keep us safe?

He lives in a neighborhood of 20,000 persons.

A gunman kills ONLY 4 persons, at random, and is still armed inside Мишель neighborhood.

Мишель TRULY believes, because of the low percentage of being killed by this madman, he is safe.

And your response would be to treat all 20.000 people as suspects who constantly have to prove over and over to the government that they are indeed not the gunman?

But of course, I'm the crazy guy in your nightmare warped world.

Again, terrorism hardly kills people in the West, statistically its extremely unlikely it kills you, so why the hell are you arguing that the government needs even more power to keep us safe?

Your head is so far up your backside it is almost physically impossible to contemplate.

What a well articulated, thought provoking response. Clearly you must have been debate team captain when you still went to school.

Stats are invidious. You can find some that say that you are more likely to get run over crossing the road than flying in an aeroplane. Then along comes MH19, QZ8501, etc etc where hundreds get killed all at one go and stats become meaningless.

No, stats do not actually become meaningless. Air travel is still one of the safest methods of travel, even when a plane gets shot out of the sky. Such events do not change the statistics, all they do is give numbers a human face.

And therein lies the problem. Humans are incredibly bad at judging risks and danger and when something like the Paris attack happens, it preoccupies our minds to an absurd degree, while we begin to vastly overestimate the amount of danger attacks like that form to us. We happily ignore the much more potent risk of driving a car, or eating unhealthy food, we don't care about the fact that 1 in 4 people get cancer. Nope, we are much more concerned about terrorists. And you and your fascist friends have always managed to exploit that human weakness, by playing in on those fears to get people to agree with giving up freedoms in favor of more government control. Rather than tell people the truth, the truth that terrorism is only a minor risk, that there is no reason to be afraid, you instead choose to inflate that fear and tell people that they will die if they do not let the government monitor their every day internet activity.

Hell, you even managed to convince our friend CLYDE, who has always been yapping on and on about how governments are dangerous and how power corrupts but how they, as Americans have learned to not trust governments and keep its powers in check as much as possible, to agree with you that the government needs more power. So, well played I suppose, you and your fascist buddies will probably win this round.

Question: Do you understand that you have confirmed, what we already understand about you?

Answer: No.

Oh I'm fully aware that you and Chris have made their minds up about me. Its just that I don't really care.

I wonder what people on here will say once the crap hits Europe hard?

Suspected terrorists killed in Belgium

Never said the above.

Where did I?

No place.

Your entirely confused mind, has confused me with someone else.

Oh really? Forgot about the American vs European culture threads?

We Americans understand the European theory of "Good Government - Run By Good People" has never worked. It ALWAYS goes bad.

Perhaps TRUSTING of Politicians, Government and Power is a real difference in this Board, 'American Vs European Culture'

The U.S. Culture is essentially a mixture from most of the world.

Because of this, unlike Europe, we tolerate, and do not make laws, nor regulations, regarding Free Speech, Free Press (UK parading the Press before their House!), Hate Speech, Offensive Speech. Nor The Nazi Party, Marxist's, and other vile things.

American Culture/Thought, unlike European Thought, knows there is no Government, or group of persons who are Superior to the People (Peasant in Europe).

American Thought/Culture: Never ever give Power to those who think they are Superior. It ALWAYS goes bad!

All quotes by you and that is just the first page of that thread..

Do you realize that continually calling people 'Fascist', is the same as the Hate Filled Right Wing, No Brain, Idiots, continuously calling you a Marxist - Communist - Stalinist - Pig?

Answer: No.

Actually its the same as calling people Christian Democrat, Conservative, Liberal or any other political stream you can think off.

Well so far no one here has really called me a Marxist, Communist, Stalinist or pig. And I honestly wouldn't care if people called me the first two, because they would have reasonable ground to call me that. The later two not so much, but the names would be so outrageously stupid that it says more about the person calling me that than me.

Do you understand, that you are no different than The Right Wing?

Answer: No.

Do you understand what constitutes a valid comparison?

Answer: No.

That is just rhetoric and bluster. If the security services are able to monitor communications from SUSPECTED terrorists, or their associates that are SUSPECTED of being terrorist sympathisers, then that will help to reduce any threat to the rest of us. Do you honestly think the Security services are going to be the slightest bit interested in an email from you to a friend wishing them a happy birthday. If you do, then it is you that has the problem.

Geez man, have you not read anything related to the Snowden revelations? Look, if the intelligence agencies truly only did monitor suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers you wouldn't have heard one word from me. Because that is an entirely reasonable and proportional response to the problem. But the thing is this is not what intelligence agencies are doing. They are collecting everyones data, regardless of their involvement in terrorism. That means you and me are both monitored when you and me are not terrorists or sympathize with terrorists. This is what I mean with mass surveillance programs. They are not just targeting extremists and terrorists, they are targeting literally EVERYONE. And that is neither proportional or useful.

Clyde thinks you are Right Wing, I think you are more Left wing, or more likely you don't quite know yet what actually you really are. What I do know is that myself and many people who post here, and read here, are thoroughly appalled at your cavalier and apparently dismissive attitude to 17 dead people in the City of Paris.

I'll spare you two the effort on guessing whether I'm left or right. I'm a decisively left wing statist and environmentalist with a liberal individualist streak. I believe the state has an important role to play in terms of social justice (feminism, wealth equality, anti racism, etc) and promoting environmentalist policies while that same state should be kept out of the private lives of its citizens as much as possible (protection of privacy). Now no one ever has to guess anymore whether I'm left or right.

And I'm not any more dismissive or cavalier about the Paris attacks as you are about the thousands of traffic accident victims or the many more people who die of cancer. I'm just keeping the context in mind.

Geez man, have you not read anything related to the Snowden revelations? Look, if the intelligence agencies truly only did monitor suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers you wouldn't have heard one word from me. Because that is an entirely reasonable and proportional response to the problem. But the thing is this is not what intelligence agencies are doing. They are collecting everyones data, regardless of their involvement in terrorism. That means you and me are both monitored when you and me are not terrorists or sympathize with terrorists. This is what I mean with mass surveillance programs. They are not just targeting extremists and terrorists, they are targeting literally EVERYONE. And that is neither proportional or useful.

Tell me who is [every one of them] a terrorist before they attack and they will be happy to monitor just them.

---

Seems IS and Boko Haram can't read. http://quran.com/2/256 That or they are agents of Satan.

---

They, and ALL the other Jihadists, ARE Evil.

Shouldn't that be: ALL religious fundamentalists ARE Evil?

---

Tell me who is [every one of them] a terrorist before they attack and they will be happy to monitor just them.

Following that logic the FBI should just tap everyones phones and the police should just search everyones house, because how would they otherwise know who the criminals are?

A whole fundamental aspect of our criminal justice system is that the government can't just barge into everyone's home looking for crime. They need a reasonable cause first. But when we are talking about terrorists, its suddenly okay to ditch all those principles and have the government just monitor everyone.

There were likely to be others after Paris ....

Belgium

Yes Others

---

How do you control religious extremism?

You hire thought police to mind meld and when found wanting a bullet takes care of the problem. Ask Mr. Kim of DPRK how he does it.

Chris, you are asking how to control free speech. We don't. All we can do is educate. As to those picking up weapons we hope we catch them before they do too much damage.

Religious extremism will only go away when religion goes away.

---

Religious extremism will only go away when religion goes away.

That leaves extremism.
Should not it be the other way around?
Religious extremism will only go away when extremism goes away.

Religious extremism will only go away when religion goes away.

That leaves extremism.
Should not it be the other way around?
Religious extremism will only go away when extremism goes away.

Moderation in all things. But I'm told you can be an extremist following that religion too.

---