Uni of Nottingham: Grad students researching terrorism aren't allowed to look at terrorist documents on US anti-terror gov't sites
Mike sez, "The University of Nottingham has decided that its students and staff have 'no "right"' to possess terrorism-related materials for the purposes of research, such as al-Qaeda training manuals freely available for download from US Government websites. You may know that one Nottingham postgrad student and a clerk were held under the Terrorism Act for doing just this earlier this year, before being released without charge (though the clerk now faces deportation)- the uni has now made it clear that it fully supports these actions, and says that the student has no reason to possess such material. He's researching Islamic terrorism."
The student, Rizwaan Sabir, who is studying Islamic terrorism, said he had downloaded a copy of an al-Qaeda training manual for use in his MA dissertation and PhD application and had forwarded it to the administrator, Hicham Yezza, for printing. After six days in detention, neither was charged.God, what an embarrassment for the poor bastards who spent years getting a degree at University of Nottingham, forevermore known as "The University of Too Stupid to be Believed." Link, Link to Free Hicham site (Thanks, Mike!)Sir Colin referred to a letter of advice issued to Mr Sabir by the police after his release.
The letter warned Mr Sabir that he risked re-arrest if found with the manual again and added: "The university authorities have now made clear that possession of this material is not required for the purpose of your course of study nor do they consider it legitimate for you to possess it for research purposes."
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Should they burn their existing copies of _Insert_your_favorite_anti-government_book_here_ as well?
this is just weird.
Government mandated stupidity.
'Just take our word for it that these are bad guys, don't you dare think for yourself or you'll be in trouble. And we wouldn't wnat that now, would we?'
Sleep. Consume. Obey.
God forbid we have more study in better strategies, some inept Bush crony might end up out of a job... and we can't have that.
Study questions US strategy against al-Qaida
What a load of crap. This is exactly the reason so many native Arabic speakers aren't able to get a job at the CIA - their background is suspicious precisely because it includes information and context that our antiterrorism people desperately need.
Talk about self-defeating cycles. If I were that guy, I would immediately transfer schools. This place clearly has no academic integrity.
"God, what an embarrassment for the poor bastards who spent years getting a degree at University of Nottingham, forevermore known as "The University of Too Stupid to be Believed.""
That's rather unfair on Nottingham. Whatever you might think of the politics, if they decide the material isn't required and there's no legitimate reason to have it for the course, they're totally correct to state that. Saying that it isn't required doesn't say anything about the legality of having the material at all, and that's where your problem is - with the government and police not with the university which is simply stating facts about the course. I see no indication that the university intends to punish those that get that information - merely that it is warning its members of the risk of prosecution - which is unfortunately real (and of course ludicrous).
Please, keep the criticism to those that really deserve it - not the university but the state.
So you think that when a grad student who is studying terrorism believes he needs the document, and when his advisor concurs, and when the US government's top anti-terror squad makes the document available because it is key to understanding terrorism -- that NONE of this makes a ban on the document seem stupid, misplaced and ridiculous?
uh, echidna, do you remember that it was the university staff that turned the student and administrator in, in the first place?
I have always though of the US as being rather... 'silly' when it came to their anti-terrorism laws and regulations. It is rather strange to see a reasonably normal country like the UK following and even surpassing it.
As people have mentioned in the past and made slight references to, 1984 will happen sometime in 2030?
I just hope the rest of the world doesn't follow.
The University's function at some level is to protect its members and their endeavors from the local peasantry and their Nobles, not to dictate the usefulness or relevance of written materials...at least that was a University's historic role, one of the reasons Scholars felt the need to associate back in the Middle Ages and before...
In Paracelsus’s time the energy of universities resided in the conflict between humanism and theology; the energy of the modern university lives in the love-affair between government and science, and sometimes the two are so close it makes you shudder.
-- Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
I wonder if Nottingham gets government funds for more specific and "scientific" graduate/research projects.
But I don't wonder what they'd think of my collection of public, government documents pertaining to the t word.
I just thought of something else.
'Oliver Blunt QC, of the Anti-Terrorism team at Furnival Chambers in London, said that academics do have a "right" to "access" terrorist materials, whether for research or otherwise, as long as they do not "possess" them.
He said: "Once the researcher knowingly downloads or saves the materials that he is accessing, then he is in 'possession' of terrorist materials.'
This makes it all the more retarded. You are allowed to posses the knowledge contained within the document, yet you are not allowed to posses the document itself. This being the internet there is a fine line between having the file in your memory/cache and having it saved on your hard-drive.
I can't imagine the un-Western-ness of their names has anything to do with their being denied access to these documents. (/irony)
Echidna,
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of research. If someone else can tell me for definite whether or not a certain source is relevant to my enquiries, then they would have to know everything it were possible to discover about that field already.
As an academic (and I am one) ones single duty is to generate original contributions to the body of human knowledge. The entire point of having academic freedom is that neither a university nor the state should dictate what information is drawn upon to reach findings.
Even if I were to draw connections between the patterns of hair on my belly and the weather on Mars, if I were able to construct a decent argument with evidence to back up my thesis, that could still be legitimate research.
How much less outlandish to use terrorism manuals in a project on that very subject. The people behind this decision are an embarrassment to British academia, they certainly do not deserve to hide beneath the administrative mantle they may have assumed when making this policy.
I would start mailing copies to any high official at the Uni, and phone in anonymous tips.
I'm a student at Nottingham - and this whole situation makes me a bit ashamed to say that.
Echidna,
You have also missed the point that this document was on the list of required reading, provided by the Uni.
So they list the document, but when they make a huge mistake and cause lots of bad press for themselves they then say its nothing to do with them.
Nice..
Nilkimas,
Actually, there's no line between having something saved to your hard drive and having it in your browser's cache, which is stored on your hard drive.
Astonishingly dumb and cowardly of the University.
I used to work for the arts faculty of a University, in a tech support role that would have had to deal with this sort of issue. We once had a departmental training day for IT folk in dealing with these sort of policy issues, and had to do a group training exercise in how to deal with downloads such as porn etc that were not within university policy (not that we monitored what was downloaded very actively). I think a lot of the other staff were surprised when the response of the Arts faculty team was that we had at least one grad student who was actually studying porn, and if it was her downloading porn was part of her study and so was OK. But they all accepted that that was the correct response. That was how Universities used to work.
But apparently academic freedom is unfashionable in Nottingham.
"You have also missed the point that this document was on the list of required reading, provided by the Uni."
Yup, I missed that. And also
"do you remember that it was the university staff that turned the student and administrator in, in the first place?"
In which case, it's quite fair to criticise them for that. But we already knew those things right? (Well, I clearly didn't but you did) So I don't see where this new criticism is coming from.
However, Long-Orange-Arms, you appear to fundamentally misunderstand my post. I do understand the fundamental nature of research - I'm an academic too. And I quite agree that
"The entire point of having academic freedom is that neither a university nor the state should dictate what information is drawn upon to reach findings."
but the point I was making is that it's the state that's restricting the research first and foremost, and that's where the bulk of the criticism should be laid. I will concede that I let the university off too lightly in stating that certain materials aren't required for research though.
Ahh, the howling winds of stupidity blowing through ivy cover'd halls.
You are gracious Echidna, forgive my hyperbole, however I would maintain that in light of this particular story, the bulk of the criticism should still be laid squarely at the feet of the university.
They, being more able to withstand such attacks, should place themselves between their students and the government as Ugly Canuck implied above.
Where the state impinges on a principle so basic to the purpose of the University, I would argue it has a higher duty to uphold those principles than to the government of the day. Whether Nottingham is choosing not to do so out of spinelessness or a misplaced sense of obligation; the act of disowning their own is still cowardly.
Academics in more despotic regimes may have to display pragmatism for their own safety, as we are not quite there yet in the UK, our institutions should push back strongly at this kind of interference.
An MA/PhD is not a "course". I doubt the boffins at the university have the faintest idea what materials are needed to work on this thesis and it is none of their damned business. Basically a graduate student is being threatened with a 'thought crime'. Brilliant.
WOW! What amazing stupidity! How can you learn about terrorists without being able to read what they teach and believe? The West is doomed.
I work there and its just another situation where common sense has been ceded to passing the buck.
I have access to about 10 machines. Why dont we download it to every machine we are on?
I feel that it is the duty of intelligent people to point out blatant stupidity. It would appear that this particular university administration isn't composed of intelligent people.
L-O-A: You make a good case. I somewhat lack the optimism that many universities would be so strong - but you're right that they should.
It should also be pointed out that the whole 'required for your course of study' thing is doublespeak. The required resources list is used for administrative things like compelling the library to buy enough books, or assessing whether students have reached certain benchmarks. To say that an item is not relevant or not appropriate for a research project is a whole other concept -- even at freshman level, students are expected to go a bit beyond the required list to do well. Nottingham are using a practical administrative category to hide behind, but in the process implying that this minimal list of resources determines and delimits how research is done? Horrifying...even before we get to the shameful treatment of the two people arrested.
What I don't understand is the charge of possessing something which is 'likely to be useful to a terrorist'.
If I were to posess such a document as referenced in the article, then surely it would be less likely to be of use to a terrorist.
Since I'm not a terrorist and have no wish to pass the document to one, since a terrorist can't get at it because it is in my posession, it is not likely to be of any use to them.
STOP making me think about terrorism, or else I might turn into one myself!!!
In fact stop saying the WORD "terrorism" (dammit, I just said it!) We should be like conservative Jews who cannot say the name of G_D-- let's call it t_rr_r_sm from now on.
Type "university of nottingham terrorism" into your browser and follow a few of the links. Facets within facets within facets...
I'm a Nottingham alumnus. Perhaps if I'd stayed on to pursue my interest in terrorism and nuclear proliferation I'd know what a prison bed feels like by now.
I have come to expect paranoid nonsense from my government; it's sickening that students can't count on their university to support them.
This whole mess is so astonishingly stupid that it beggars belief. The fact that the powers that be can be so stupid as to think that criminalizing the possession of a book/paper etc... is a suitable way of "protecting" us from terrorism shows a total and utter lack of understanding as to what it takes to cause terrorism and other anti-social activities.
No wonder we've started arresting kids for writing zombie stories, and accusing parents of pedophilia just for photographing their kids. People don't become terrorists (or go on shooting sprees etc...) just because they read or write something that talks about it, they generally have other things going on in their lives and/or in their minds. Until the powers that be realize that and address those issues, we're just going to keep going around attacking our populace and doing nothing against the people who may actually wish to do us harm.
ILL LICH@31: Quite right. Lets call it by the more technically appropriate name "errorism" from now on.
@19
The precedent that's currently being set in the UK regarding accessing prohibited materials (particularly in kiddie pron cases) online is that, if the material is created anywhere on your harddrive, i.e. in the cache, then you have "created" rather than "accessed" the material, in the same way as if you made it or took a photocopy of it, rather than "viewed" it, as if you'd just looked at something.
@everyone
Does this mean that owning technical specs for computers are illegal? Or owning chemistry books (many of which contain something to do with explosives)? How about a copy of the UK Statute Law Database, as it may help them to get off seomthing they were charged with? If these are illegal, can we report all IT departments, all chemistry departments, the UK Govt itself?
"What I don't understand is the charge of possessing something which is 'likely to be useful to a terrorist'."
A few months ago here in the UK, a teenage boy (muslim, naturally) was arrested and charged with something along the lines of "possessing material likely to be useful to a terrorist". He'd downloaded something like the Anarchist's Cookbook, which probably half the teenage boys in the country have seen at one stage or another.
I'm horrified that this law exists. It's illegal to selectively enforce a law, so the police should be arresting practically everyone in the country. This law, and many other like it, is a catch-all obviously designed so they can arrest practically anyone they feel like getting rid of. It's another part of the constant and accelerating slide toward assuming that all things are forbidden unless specifically endorsed by the govt.
For example: I'm a molecular biologist. During my education I have accumulated notes that'd help me amass botulinum toxin, isolate ricin, create and mass-produce various nasty biological agents, etc. I can remember enough of my chemistry courses to be pretty sure that I could make a fairly low-tech bomb, and enough physics / electronics to build a detonator. why haven't they arrested me? Oh yes, it's because I'm white, secular and they don't currently have a grudge of any kind.
A close friend of mine is a stock trader, working for a large, powerful investment bank. Arguably he should be arrested too, on the grounds that with his knowledge he could probably do some serious damage to the value of certain sectors of the stock market.
All knowledge is potentially useful to terrorists. Forbidding people from knowing things is simply enshrining thoughcrime in British law. It's fucking scary stuff.
the answer
http://media.movieweb.com/galleries/2851/2130/lo/J10-07.jpg
Echidna, well done.
Next, Liberty University will forbid their law students from downloading information about the US DOJ scandal.
'possessing something that is likely to be useful to a terrorist' dose that mean melanin?
Asterion @34:
If you want to be a supervillain, I'm sure there are better universities. Have you considered going abroad? I hear that Latveria State Uni is very welcoming to foreign exchange students, and the cost of living there is so low, you can use your entire SPECTRE scholarship on equipment.
So... let me understand it, if im doing a PhD in Chemistry them the possession of a periodical table is not required and I may even be expelled from the Uni???
I see from the U of Nottingham's homepage that they have campuses in China and Malaysia. I wonder if that ties into this somehow.
Beijing anti-muslim pogrom money?
@24 -
I wouldn't go so far to say the bulk of the blame should be laid squarely at the feet of the university. I'd say there are 2 entirely separate piles of blame to be handed out.
Instead of the university finding the document. Freaking out and instantly calling police. They should have done the tiny amount of research needed to find out.
A- What the student was studying (where it would have been made evident it's relevant to his studies. I'm positive the uni realises now that the information is relevant, and this nonsense about it not is simply a way to pass the buck).
B- Why the student had passed the document onto someone else.
They then should have done NOTHING except maybe tell the student to delete the document from network machines and only keep a copy stored securely (possibly encrypted).
Instead they found the documents, freaked out, called the police. The guy ended up being tortured (YES I think 6 days of sleep deprivation and interrogation is torture!) and is now facing deportation to a country that won't take kindly to his being involved in a widely publicised terrorist case. Essentially his life could be entirely ruined.
____
The Government should be blamed for
A- Passing absurdly unjust laws that destroy civil liberties and demolish fundamental rights English residents have had for about 800 years.
B- Giving power from these laws to idiots who take 6 days of interrogation and torture to realise someone is innocent. Then punishing the innocent anyway.
BUGS@38 & ITSUMISHI@47: Well said!
One step closer to the US and UK Govts becoming Oceania...
(...as Tak implied with imagery.)
Unless we (the people) all spread the word and somehow dispel this ignorance that is... ERRORISM!
Hey, we managed to do it for several decades with McCarthyism (until like a hydra it came back with more heads.)
need Tom Sharpe to write a Wilt about this one
I almost agree with you, Ken, but what's rotten about this case is the way the immigration system was used to attempt subverting justice.
-- as far as we can tell, Yezzah was in the process of doing immigration "by the book", and the government decided to attempt fast-track his deportation by putting him to the front of the queue and then declaring "no".
Immigration laws are there to be enforced equally, not selectively against people who inadvertently flag themselves as `deserving it'
One could suppose that there is enough evidence to credit the idea that Bad Ideas (memes) can be spread like viruses. So, from time to time some people might wish to isolate the infection and reduce the number of available vectors. This idea goes somewhat contrary to the philosophy of the Enlightenment, not to mention modern academic standards. But still, there is good evidence that memes can be virulent. Just look how bad ideas spread after 911? How do you keep dangerous data out of the hands of people? For instance, although the US feds make the data available, the University wants to firewall it off. We want to think our advanced intellects will immune use from fanatical ideas. If only that were so. But it's not.
No Jeff, there are no thought-crimes.
RAJ77, did I give the impression that a thought should be criminalized?
#11 posted by Ken Hansen :
Um, it's also about the lack of access to U.S.A. anti-terror gov't sites and that's part of my point. So what's your point?
#56 posted by Ken Hansen:
You are correct and I am wrong. I didn't read the article throughly enough and thought the blockage was coming from the Bush administration when it was not.
I stand corrected.
Why mention them? Well, on that note, why not?
The Bush administration has vastly expanded government secrecy, removing information from the public domain, limiting its disclosures to Congress and allowing law enforcement agencies to operate in the shadows.
Don't take my word for it, here's Judicial Watch, a conservative group, "This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration. They don't believe the American people or Congress have any right to information."
What's really stupid: If his name had been George Carver or something else sufficiently Anglic, I bet none of this would ever have come up.