He's no prankster.
It's also worth noting that he a) upset the British government when an Ambassador for publicising GWOT rendition flights, and b) has also upset the SNP/Scottish Government for publicising SNP corruption and their treatment of Alex Salmond.
Though he does seem like a bit of a crank. Apparently Craig Murray thought Russia "lacked a motive" to poison a Russian spy who defected to the West, but he believed the Jews had "a clear motivation." That reeks of a broken reasoning process driven by prejudice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray#Skepticism_about_...
was right there with you until the very end. people seem to confuse the fact that members of congress that are elected by the people do things on behalf of those people. this isn't a situation where the transitive property from math can be used. for example, if A elected B and B did C does not mean A wanted C
Usual disclaimers, 2005, polls etc - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/aug/22/july7.terrorism - breakdown by party/class/gender/age and the support is the same (+/- tiny margin).
I dont think you really need further specifics - years later without bombs going off I expect, with no further explanation to those polled needed, that the 70/30 split would probably be the opposite direction.
That "some" is the problem. People who say they support the tradeoff often change their minds when the specifics are explained to them. This happens all of the time in polling and even rigorous studies. Subtle changes in phrasing and context completely change results.
We're seeing that right now. There was a survey done on college campuses on the phrase "from the river to the sea". many endorsed it, until they were shown a map of the region such that the specific meaning became clearer, and then a lot of them changed their minds.
This sounds more like manufactured consent than the will of the people. Plus, I don't know if this happened with Blair's measures, but across the pond, the Patriot was initially written to be sunset after 4 years (from 2001), but wasn't fully sunset until 2020! This was long after the majority of Americans in polls said they didn't want to trade civil liberties to fight terror.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/183548/americans-say-liberties-...
"Journalism" is an activity, like programming, not a protected class of people. No one who routinely does journalism thinks they have rights above and beyond ordinary people; the very fact that anyone can do journalism is what entails that any rights "journalists" have are rights that everyone should have.
A lot of <activists|tiktok pranksters|politicians|others> pretend to be "journalists" these days, and claim to have special rights above and beyond the general population. I dont claim this to be the case here, but notice it constantly as a feature of the modern attention economy. Their own bio doesnt even back up the contention that they are from said "protected" group.
Attacking Citizens as Terrorists, misappropriating the anti-terrorism laws to infringe upon due process is disgusting - although it is the will of the people who were happy to usher through these powers, out of fear, back in the 911 days.