*** I FULLY support the provisions - they are necessary especially in light on many Muslims refusing to cooperate with authorities and the castigation of those that do.
Now, if you have information on terrorism suspects but don't want to give it up because you have allegiances to your "brothers" - you can sit in jail. I would impose stiffer provisions but I will not get into them here.
Preventive detentions are a bit more controversial and I would like to know the mechanisms in place to prevent against abuse but I endorse them also, with the preceding caveat. It is foolish to wait until someone is ABOUT to commit an offense and then rush to intercept and arrest. I propose a 7 day detention period.
Mr. Harper - you NEED the community, laws alone are never enough, they never have been. MS ***
By Stephanie Levitz And Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Lapsed anti-terror provisions — extraordinary measures the Conservative government has been trying to revive — might have been useful in the current effort to round up suspects in an alleged bomb plot, the prime minister hinted Wednesday.
Federal tactics in the case have come under scrutiny after an Ottawa call-centre worker was arrested, charged with domestic assault, released and recharged, prompting his lawyer to complain it's all a ruse to buy security investigators more time.
Almost a week later, he has not been charged with a terrorist offence.
Provisions that allowed authorities to arrest and hold suspects to prevent a terrorist attack, or compel them to appear before a judge in an investigative hearing, were once part of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The sections were intended to help stop a terrorist plot or help investigators learn more about one.
But those elements lapsed in 2007 and have never been successfully restored.
A bill that would do so died when the Harper government pulled the plug on Parliament last December. It was reintroduced in the House of Commons in April.
Asked whether the government planned to bring back exceptional powers to arrest terror suspects, Harper pointed to the bill, which is still at first-reading stage.
"There is some legislation in this regard that we would like to see passed, but obviously as we watch these particular incidents we'll carefully examine our laws to make sure they're adequate to deal with the circumstances that do arise from time to time," Harper said in Mirabel, Que.
The Ottawa man facing the assault charge is to reappear in court Friday. Audio surveillance of his home is expected to be introduced as evidence and it may provide a link between him and three other men.
Lawyers for the three, arrested last week in police sweeps, have begun wading through hundreds of pages of evidence against their clients.
The men all made brief court appearances by video link on Wednesday.
Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, both of Ottawa and Khurram Syed Sher, 28, of London, Ont., are charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Sher has been ordered to reappear Friday by video link, while Ahmed is to show in person on Sept. 15 and Alizadeh is to appear by video on the 16th.
The Crown is giving each defence team a binder full of general information about the case and will also be handing over a binder specifically about each man's alleged role in the plot.
"The disclosure process will be fairly lengthy," said Crown prosecutor David McKercher outside court.
None of the three men spoke on their video appearances Wednesday, save for stating their names and thanking the judge when their matters were concluded.
Alizadeh, whose slight and gaunt face is ringed by dark curly hair, faces the most charges.
Outside court on Wednesday, his lawyer said he was taking the case seriously.
"He's responding to our meetings in a quiet, thoughtful way," said Sean May.
"It's a very overwhelming set of circumstances and experiences to have in the past week."
While May said he had't looked at the Crown's evidence yet, he's eager to see precisely what information police have on his client.
"We want every scrap of information there is," he said.
"We want to know everything about the case, everything about what investigative steps were taken by all agencies."
The men were arrested after a year-long investigation by the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other agencies.
Investigators found more than 50 electronic circuit boards they say were designed to remotely detonate bombs and booby traps.
Police also seized videos, terrorist literature and bomb-related documents.
Police claim the terrorism plot stretched from Ottawa to Afghanistan, Dubai, Iran and Pakistan, but there has been no official word on the alleged targets.
Showing posts with label prevention terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prevention terrorism. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
COMMUNITY KEY TO TACKLING EXTREMISM
*** It is sad that the Brits are way ahead of us on this given our experiences thus far. Really sad. MS ***
FROM: http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/press-coverage-2008/october-2008/community-is-key-to-tackling-islamic-extremism/
The 'prevent' strand of counter-terrorism is difficult to implement. But security services should see those at risk as individuals first
The British government is reported to be overhauling its counter-terrorism strategy. The threat is apparently as high as ever and there are heightened fears about the appearance of "lone wolf" terrorists self-radicalising and moving into action without the usual connections to known networks.
At the core of this overhaul is an apparent revision of the "prevent" strand of the policy and the problem of measuring success in this opaque field.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the British government revamped its counter-terrorist strategy. Founded in lessons learned from the Irish struggles, the new approach laid out a four-pillar method to counter the terrorist threat: "Pursue, prevent, protect and prepare" – the so-called "four Ps" strategy.
The "prevent" strand is concerned with tackling the radicalisation of individuals, both in the UK and elsewhere; "pursue" is concerned with disrupting terrorists and their operations; "protect" is concerned with reducing the vulnerability of the UK and UK interests overseas; "prepare" is concerned with ensuring that the UK is as ready as it can be for the consequences of an attack.
This widely emulated bureaucratic codification (both the EU and American homeland security strategies owe something to it) was intended as a way of defining how we face the immediate threat, while also outlining a long-term strategy to tackle a "generational" struggle.
All four pillars are interlinked and it is impossible to completely separate them from each other. Broadly speaking, the pursue, protect and prepare strands can be addressed in a relatively clear pre-emptive manner. This is not to say we can completely insulate ourselves, but we are able to at least understand the parameters within which we can manage the risk. The prevent strand, on the other hand, is hard to grapple with and previous assumptions are regularly thrown out with the discovery of new plots.
To those seeking patterns in terrorist profiles, there would seem to be almost none – a fact broadly confirmed by a recent MI5 report published in the Guardian. Our end goal in preventing terrorism is a cessation in attacks, but what are the mid-points to know we are going in the right direction?
There has not been a successful attack since 2005 (though a number of near-misses), but does this mean that prevent is working? And against this backdrop, we continue to be told that the threat level remains "at the severe end of severe".
One step would be something that measures a lessening in radical activity – or more specifically, some way to assess a lowering of dangerous radical activity that may lead to violence. But this is where the difficulty comes, as it is very hard to define where that line should be drawn. We may find someone's views abhorrent, but does that mean they are dangerous to the point of violence? What exactly is the "acceptable" level and who determines this?
Similarly, there is little value in focusing on whether people agree with government's foreign policy or not – this may be an exacerbating factor among individuals involved in terrorist activity, but hardly a defining one given the broad disagreement against current foreign policy that exists.
An alternative approach might be to focus less on the ideology and more on the individuals. Measuring tangible and positive community engagement such as working with local youths or helping local community development projects (and assessing whether this is merely a cover for something else or genuine) could offer a glimpse into whether groups or individuals are potentially a risk, or are actively engaged in a positive way in the world around them and consequently have less of a vested interest in destroying it.
Efforts could be made to draw individuals towards active engagement in projects that appeal to their sense of adventure, but at the same time assuage their sense of being part of an international community. Projects, for example, that provide youths from at-risk communities with an opportunity to work in international development.
In the end, what is needed is some way of assessing what value we are getting for the money that is being poured into preventing terrorism. By focusing on individuals' tangible and proactive engagement with the world around them, we may be able to start to map this.
FROM: http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/press-coverage-2008/october-2008/community-is-key-to-tackling-islamic-extremism/
The 'prevent' strand of counter-terrorism is difficult to implement. But security services should see those at risk as individuals first
The British government is reported to be overhauling its counter-terrorism strategy. The threat is apparently as high as ever and there are heightened fears about the appearance of "lone wolf" terrorists self-radicalising and moving into action without the usual connections to known networks.
At the core of this overhaul is an apparent revision of the "prevent" strand of the policy and the problem of measuring success in this opaque field.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the British government revamped its counter-terrorist strategy. Founded in lessons learned from the Irish struggles, the new approach laid out a four-pillar method to counter the terrorist threat: "Pursue, prevent, protect and prepare" – the so-called "four Ps" strategy.
The "prevent" strand is concerned with tackling the radicalisation of individuals, both in the UK and elsewhere; "pursue" is concerned with disrupting terrorists and their operations; "protect" is concerned with reducing the vulnerability of the UK and UK interests overseas; "prepare" is concerned with ensuring that the UK is as ready as it can be for the consequences of an attack.
This widely emulated bureaucratic codification (both the EU and American homeland security strategies owe something to it) was intended as a way of defining how we face the immediate threat, while also outlining a long-term strategy to tackle a "generational" struggle.
All four pillars are interlinked and it is impossible to completely separate them from each other. Broadly speaking, the pursue, protect and prepare strands can be addressed in a relatively clear pre-emptive manner. This is not to say we can completely insulate ourselves, but we are able to at least understand the parameters within which we can manage the risk. The prevent strand, on the other hand, is hard to grapple with and previous assumptions are regularly thrown out with the discovery of new plots.
To those seeking patterns in terrorist profiles, there would seem to be almost none – a fact broadly confirmed by a recent MI5 report published in the Guardian. Our end goal in preventing terrorism is a cessation in attacks, but what are the mid-points to know we are going in the right direction?
There has not been a successful attack since 2005 (though a number of near-misses), but does this mean that prevent is working? And against this backdrop, we continue to be told that the threat level remains "at the severe end of severe".
One step would be something that measures a lessening in radical activity – or more specifically, some way to assess a lowering of dangerous radical activity that may lead to violence. But this is where the difficulty comes, as it is very hard to define where that line should be drawn. We may find someone's views abhorrent, but does that mean they are dangerous to the point of violence? What exactly is the "acceptable" level and who determines this?
Similarly, there is little value in focusing on whether people agree with government's foreign policy or not – this may be an exacerbating factor among individuals involved in terrorist activity, but hardly a defining one given the broad disagreement against current foreign policy that exists.
An alternative approach might be to focus less on the ideology and more on the individuals. Measuring tangible and positive community engagement such as working with local youths or helping local community development projects (and assessing whether this is merely a cover for something else or genuine) could offer a glimpse into whether groups or individuals are potentially a risk, or are actively engaged in a positive way in the world around them and consequently have less of a vested interest in destroying it.
Efforts could be made to draw individuals towards active engagement in projects that appeal to their sense of adventure, but at the same time assuage their sense of being part of an international community. Projects, for example, that provide youths from at-risk communities with an opportunity to work in international development.
In the end, what is needed is some way of assessing what value we are getting for the money that is being poured into preventing terrorism. By focusing on individuals' tangible and proactive engagement with the world around them, we may be able to start to map this.
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