We should man up (metaphorically speaking) and accept that a few attacks from violent nutcases every so often are the price of living in a free society.
Obviously you do agree that at some point there is a line to draw. so the argument for finding the solution to this early on is not without merit.
"a stitch in time saves nine." Maybe two pamphlets sent twice a year to every address in the UK, describing why civilization and a free society is great and explaining why it means not blowing people or yourself up, would solve these people. If that costs £70 million per year but cuts terrorism down by 85%, how many people need to die before you would say, hey that's worth doing: 100 people a year? 500? 1,000? 5,000? 10,000? At that point it costs taxpayers around £7,000 per victim and since fatal victims of terrorism stop paying taxes at that point it is free.
I Googled how many people died from Terrorism in the UK. This article from literally yesterday says....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrori...
Well, that article says:
- 13 people died because of terrorism in the UK between 2010 and 2015.
So obviously we are very far from that metric. Actually this kind of supports your assertion.
It doesn't mean nothing needs to be done but your point is a lot stronger than I thought! Thanks for the response.
And that is more or less what they do. The problem, apparently, is that they don't have the resources for this level of surveillance for all the "persons of interest".
And I disagree that increased surveillance wouldn't possibly help here. In all cases that I'm aware of so far, there had been some advanced preparation - and not "45 minutes" advanced. E.g. in the recent London attacks, apparently, the guy was inquiring about how to rent a truck in the past days. If he had been monitored, that alone would have likely triggered an even higher readiness level for a while (to the point of "SWAT team on standby in a van outside of the residence").
Presumably he has to make some plans and if he does that with someone else then they are both guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime. If the police had the resources to follow this up (physical boots on pavement type resources that is) and the courts had the time they could follow this up and have a chance of preventing the planned crime by using the laws we already have.
And perhaps your £200 idea could even work. Not everyone who gets frustrated, angry, and violent is a committed radical. The problem is that we all want this problem to be fixed without it costing us any money, time, or effort.
As for the £200 thing. I know I "floated" this idea but I can't try to evaluate the idea I mentioned without it sounding like a joke. But if I try really hard and set aside my reaction to it: if it really did work than £200 a handful of times per year is nothing. I didn't realize just how few cases of terrorism there are every year, see the cousin comment. It's like, 13 people killed since 2010. How many people do you think are reported multiple times by multiple agencies and citizens? This expense would not even be a rounding error on a rounding error. (But I just can't get over how absurd it sounds.)
I was extrapolating to the more recent events where there were several killers but it applies often to the case where there is a lone wolf because often there is someone else who enables them, perhaps not enough to pin a formal charge of conspiracy on them but close.
So, we heard about a recent terrorist that he was banned from his Mosque (for being too radical), reported by other Muslims, and that the FBI also reported him to the UK.
What do you guys think that the UK should do in this case?
I mean let's take an absurd example of a petition by 50 people from mosques and community saying, "Hey, this person is not a member of our community but is spouting radical nonsense and wants to commit terror."
In this case what should be done?
I am drawing a complete blank, because it doesn't take long to prepare terrorist acts but until you do them you aren't really a terrorist.
The only thing I can think of is something that even I can see would be a joke. If the government came to me and said, "hey we received over 12 people asking us to watch you because you are a terrorist. We'd like you to voluntarily participate in civilization training to better understand why terrorism is wrong. You'll get £200 for participating."
But I can hardly type that without it sounding like a joke. I mean there's politeness but this sounds just absurd. (I added the £200 part because I think there is no way they would agree otherwise. But if it's not voluntary then that doesn't sit right with me either.)
So in this actual, real-world case, what should the UK have done?
I don't think increasing surveillance so that you catch someone between the 45 minutes it takes them to inform themselves how to perform terrorism, and going and doing it. People are pretty strong and powerful and have a million tools of every kind, more surveillance couldn't possibly help here, I mean the reaction time would have to be like seconds from when someone chooses to start googling how to do terrorism to making a concrete enough plot to be criminal. It's just not a solution.
So returning to my question -- for the case I mentioned, what should we done?
Note: I understand that it is easy to make a flippant, knee-jerk response. For example, it is easy to say, "if someone reports a muslim for radical speech the reported muslim should be thrown in prison without a trial, and throw away the key". I really don't want to start a thread like that so please don't respond if you have attitudes like this: I've represented your response in this last paragraph and ask you please not to derail this thread on this subject. Yes, it is very easy to deal with if totalitarianism is okay. I specifically say this because I know people in real life who would make exactly this response or one exactly like it. That is not my question and I've represented this position in this paragraph, no need to repeat it, and you would just get downvoted. In this comment I am asking for people's practical ideas that are close to the center, if they have any. Thank you.