Unfolding events at UK Airports

A few brief thoughts spring to mind about today's unfolding events:-

• We must, both morally and politically, support everything the security services do. Given Forest Gate etc there will be analysis of Today's events, but now is not the time.
• The Conservatives continue to become a parody of a cartoon liberal, thinking that Liberal = Police Basher, with their absurd suggestion that the public should have been told of the threat earlier.
• Where is Ming Campbell? I'm sat here listening to 5 Live drag out anyone with a pulse who has an opinion on this to fill their 24 hour new cycle, why isn't Ming's office on the phone?
• Say what you like about John Reid, but his news conferences so far have been excellent.
• George Galloway is an idiot. End of.

Comments

[Susanne]

Short but straight to the point.

[Aaron 'Teejay' Trevena]

"We must, both morally and politically, support everything the security services do."

Utter tosh. Just because there is something happening doesn't mean you suspend accountability and transparency.

Transparency and accountability aren't much help when they are a footnote to an event 6, 12 or 18 months later, when be ignored by the politicians, media, public and press. Remember the 'ricin' plot that turned out to be a lone nutter with a recipe from the internet and no actual ricin (not even a castor bean), or the Sun's football pitch plot that wasn't.

Look at Mr Reids numbers of those arrested vs those that make it to court, given the relatively low requirements of proof for terrorist offenses vs theft, rape, fraud it's pretty shocking.

Security works best under scrutiny, not in the absence of it - the airport current security measures are riddled with flaws, not least that we now have overcrowded airports full of luggage and confusion that are impossible to monitor for IEDs, not to mention the fact that any plotters that haven't been caught will have gone to ground to find an easier target.

Once again we'll have massive inconvenience and a charade of ineffective 'security measures', just when any potential plotter is least likely to try anything - even the 2nd group of london bombers waited a fortnight, by which time the current measures would have ceased to be effective (nobody will want to keep on going through the grief, economic pressure will force it to be curtailed early, those searching intensively will become less alert and more slipshod).

The alternative would be for the security services to actually analyse weaknesses in security at transport and other key infrastructure and work to improve them at a sustainable level, and maintain those standards - this combined with intelligence is the answer, what we're seeing instead is poor intelligence, ass-covering 'just in case' security theatre to make it look as if security forces were 'doing everything they could' in case somebody slips through the net and even more draconian laws and curtailment to our freedom and a poorer quality of life.

[Will]

OK.

No, hang on. Not supporting 100% everything the security services do is "immoral"? I can see good political and logical reasons for supporting their action (and they've done a very good job in thwarting this plot - I'm not doubting there was a real threat), but I don't see that morality has anything to do with it. And there's nothing wrong with asking questions.

[Austin Rathe]

Perhaps some slight misinterpretation here. What I was saying was, at thie point in time, when an operation is "ongoing" we should support it. Obviously afterwards we can discuss anything we like, today isn't the time.

[Tristan]

Reid seems to me to be playing more of the word games this government likes to play by redefining freedom in ways to undermine and take away our freedoms.
Remember, he was a long term member of the Communist party, he supported the Soviet Union. His ideas of freedom are not the ideas of liberal britain. The same goes for many in the government.
Rest assured, they will use this as a basis for more assaults on the legal process and our freedoms. I doubt we will hear much if those arrested are found not to be guilty either.

And we should criticize the security services. They fail to actually give us any information, except that they have raised the security level (what does that actually mean? what should we do?) and just enough to stoke rumours.
I believe that it is most likely that there was, and possibly still is, a direct, known threat, but that should not stop us critisizing.

SpyBlog gives a good initial analasys of the measures. One of the conclusions is that forcing all electronics into hold luggage increases risk due to detonation electronics being less likely to be noticed.

I agree though, Galloway is an idiot.