The Flight Against Terror...

Last week, the convictions of five young British Muslim men jailed over extremist literature were quashed by the Appeal Court. The men, all of whom had been convicted in 2007, were originally arrested for downloading extremist literature, obtaining an Al-Qaeda Manual, and for having involvement with jihadist websites, on which they adopted the names of suicide bombers. The case for the prosecution was that the five extremists had planned to go to Pakistan to receive terrorist training and then go on to fight in Afghanistan, however the requirement to prove that every shred of evidence recovered supported this accusation may have been too much for the Crown Prosecution Service.

The case for the defence was that although it was evident the men were planning to go to Pakistan, it could not be proved that the extremist material recovered by police was to be used there; and so the case had the potential to be thrown out due to supposed lack of evidence. That, mixed with the ambiguity surrounding the Terrorism Act 2000, and the institution of politically biased Judges eventually led to the men's convictions being dropped, a decision which may prove to be a mistake should any of the men go on to be part of Britain's next batch of suicide bombers. Indeed the news of this 'triumph' will ring in the ears of many would-be jihadists, sending a message clear enough to them that involving themselves in internet terrorism and downloading Al-Qaeda manuals is something which is, in terms of law, somehow acceptable.

The argument for many, in favour of the dropping of the men's convictions, is that the very freedoms of expression and freedoms of thought existent in our democracy might have been undermined had the case succeeded in the allocation of jail sentences. This 'freedom at all costs' sentiment has been the stumbling block for many who attempt anti-terror measures, and scrutiny of British security agencies became apparent most recently with the bugging of Labour MP Sadiq Khan whilst visiting a terror suspect. The allegation was that a bugging device had been placed in an area where the Mr Khan and one of his constituents, a suspected terrorist, were sat; and that the conversation the men had was recorded by security officials.

Since the allegation came to light, many MPs have expressed the view that such discussions between MPs and constituents should be private, and that recording such discussions is an infringement of individual freedoms, and should therefore be outlawed. Never before had I realised that members of Parliament, and indeed members of the public, had the right to tell security agencies what they should and shouldn't be allowed to do in terms of surveillance. Maybe they have such high standing in society, that they will also be telling MI5 what colour their building should be next painted, or indeed what brand of staplers should be used in their offices.

As an avid fan of the fictional, spy-thriller, mini-series 24, the idea that legislation could prevent a character such as Jack Bauer from bugging a suspected terrorist because that suspect was with an elected Government official, seems to me to render the whole purpose of a security agency as futile. After all, security agencies like MI5 are dedicated to discovering which members of our society actively support or engage with enemies of the United Kingdom through the use of stealth surveillance technology, not brut force or torture which is used in many other countries. For those of you who might have devoted countless hours of your life into watching the award winning 24, you will know that Special Agent Jack Bauer is no stranger to using torture in the field; fiction of this kind however enables us as a society to have a healthy understanding of such situations, from which we can base our levels of morality which formulate the zeitgeist.

The controversy surrounding the allegation also highlighted the worry of many that Britain is creeping further and further towards a surveillance-state, a prospect that, in the wrong hands, could deeply benefit a dictatorship government. The trouble here, is that we don't live in a dictatorship, but many people still don't trust intelligence agencies or the establishment; seemingly regarding them as potential threats to their individual liberties. This is a mentality formed by many years of bombardment from well aired conspiracy theorists in the media, including the likes of Mohammad Al Fayed and the ridiculous David Ike. A broad mentality which, in this war against extremism, could not have come at a worst time. Calls for limitation or banning of surveillance technology should not come as a surprise, in this age where the principles of liberty have become somewhat of a betrayer in halting the attempted prevention of terrorist activities, but nor should such requests be taken seriously.

Thankfully justice did prevail yesterday, when 37 year old Parviz Khan was jailed for life for plotting to behead a British soldier 'like a pig'. Khan, a British-born resident of Birmingham, was also secretly recorded teaching his five year old son to hate the 'Kuffar' or non-believer, by security officials. "Who do you love?" asked Khan, "I love Sheik Osama Bin Laden...Allah and Sheik Abu Hamza" replied the boy. "And who do you kill?" Khan had asked, "America, Bush I kill, Blair kill, and yeah, Kuffar" replied the boy. Khan claimed up to £20,000 a year in benefits and often boasted about himself making the non-believers 'bleed financially', saying it was the duty of every Muslim to 'take from the Kuffar'. He made his children sleep on the floor of his cold home at night, to apparently 'toughen them up' should he ever take them to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan; and is thought to be totally unsafe for release at any time in the near future due to his murderous nature and wholehearted indoctrination.

Thanks to the covert and yet effective operations of British intelligence agencies, such plots are successfully prevented all the time. If agenices are successful in this then there are concerns over the wellbeing of the suspects from liberal extremists, and if they are not successful there is widespread criticism from those same people directed at our security services. No one should realistically be exempt from surveillance in the right circumstances; after all that is how dictatorships flourish.

If anything, we should be following the examples of Israel's Mossad in the fight against home-grown Islamic extremism, instead of persistently accommodating the concerns of a few paranoid communist sympathisers into our statute books.

(Picture: Kiefer Sutherland as 24's Jack Bauer.)