BF2S Forums Should the government monitor Mosques?

mosques shoul be monitored. anywhere citing hatred should be.

abu hamza would not have been able to signal the go ahead for kidnappings in iraw of american and british soldiers for beheading if it was not for the religious freedom laws in the UK. Finsbury park mosque would have raided saving lives.

KylieTastic wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

I guess the point of contention is whether or not this would really make us safer.  Would such surveillance thwart more terror plots than it would create?  I think that ultimately should be what determines the merit of this policy.  Unfortunately, it's hard to get a grasp on this without actually implementing this policy.

If you monitor people by government policy they would just move from the Mosques to another place to 'plot'.... and probably then be even more difficult to infiltrate and monitor covertly

Turquoise wrote:

By chance, does the U.K. do anything like this?

Not officially... but then there are MI5 and MI6

So essentially, you're saying it works better if it's very discrete?  If so, I agree.

This is what puzzles me about the Patriot Act here.  Why pass a law that allows the feds to spy on you?  This is the kind of thing that must be done secretly in order to be truly effective.

The Patriot Act also didn't specifically have a purpose attached to it, so it basically gave the government carte blanche in spying on people for ANY reason.  If ever a law should be passed that allows spying, it should have a very rigid purpose attached to it that minimizes abuse.

Of course, there will still be abuse nonetheless.

Islam needs a reformation like the Catholics had.  Until then you'll have this Wahbi version of Islam that wants to take the world back to the Dark Ages.

Too large of a percentage of Islam is composed of radicals and extremists.  What's more alarming is how many moderate muslums support extremism while not actually practicing it.

i dont see what law prevents the government from monitering a religious establishments...  they are public, not private, and if they are private they are not a religious establishment, but an organization...

Harmor wrote:

Looks like we are now fighting the 2nd generation of terrorists who are now naturalized.

Please the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations of muslims in the UK and France have been living there peacefully for decades. They're British and French. If they become terrorists then it was by their own choice - they didn't immigrate there (as was their right after British and French colonialism) to mount some secret plan to bring down the west: kind of like how the Jews didn't have some secret plan to take over the world - a theory Hitler made popular in the 30s...

Grover wrote:

Religion is Exempt from all government activities... Congress shall make NO law on religion or speech...
- 1st Amendment + Free Speech clause & the redress of grievances.  SPYING on Americans is UNLAWFUL, ILLEGAL...
until you accepted the NAZI Gameplan.

That was the old America B4 'G W'rong Bush Lied, Conspired with his family, business partners, & covert mercs.
Osama (Family Business & Foreign Ops for CIA), Sadam (Business with 41), Jeb (Rascist, Coke snorting Pig), and Neil (Disgusting do anything for $ - ask his wife who wrote a book about his ways) along with 41 all played a fiddle for you all.  Google Tim Osman.  Jerome Hauer.
Oh well forget it - Go back to sleep and blame someone in a cave... Yeah and we couldn't find a guy in our hospital
that we visited in summer '01 for kidney problems.

Kiss my butt you stupid arse people.  Steal the Election with your terminator POTUS & VP.
The Freemen will put this to a stop time & time again! 

Your Intel is propaganda at best.  Mini Nukes, Termite, & Remote Planes on 9-11 with Georgie Reading a Goat Tale.
The truth is the truth.  Ask Rummy who told us that 93 was shot down and a MISSLE hit the Pentagon.

G W is related to many many kings of the past - Count Vlad.  His family was invovled with the Gunpowder 'TREASON' Plot.
Bush, Percy Family are relatives of the queen of England, J F Kerry, and Hugh Hefner to name a few.
You support tyrrany of the past come to our land - NOT THE HOMELAND.

1776 Rules, 1984 will never!  This LAND IS OUR LAND, THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND.  IT IS NOT THE HOMELAND.
THAT IS IN GERMANY. THE MOTHERLAND.


You bought it hook - line and sinker as we say in the fish tales.

for all our conspiracy theories do you have any proof or shall i make a tin-foil hat for you?

sergeriver wrote:

No, CameronPoe already asked this.  No, they shouldn't violate the right to free church and the right to freedom of speech.  The government should use intel agencies to monitor real terrorists, not innocent people that worship a God.

http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=73374

CameronPoe wrote:

usmarine2005 wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Erm. It's common sense to monitor them??? A damn sight more effective than travelling thousands of miles to some dusty hellhole to blow up radicals and their innocent neighbours.

Isn't it a violation of privacy?


Not that I am saying it is, just echoing some forum members views.

They're public meeting places. If someone wants to address the public then I see little problem with checking out their rantings.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

How does monitoring to protect the country's safety impinge on the right to assembly?

It's not just assembly, it's free assembly. Once the government has the unfettered ability to monitor assembly, it is no longer free. Bear in mind that the final arbiter of what constitutes anti-government sentiment is, in fact, the selfsame government that would be doing the listening. Even if the government never acts on such monitoring, it still has a chilling effect on speech. This is exactly backwards from the way things should be; government should be transparent to the people, not the other way around. Their actions, which affect literally millions of people both here and abroad, should be under the microscope.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

we are not forbidding people from attending the mosque.  What we are doing is gathering intelligence to prevent and protect our citizens.

And also letting those people attending the mosque know several major things. One, despite the fact that many of them live ordinary and productive lives and have integrated into their communities, we do not trust them at all. Might as well say directly to them "You will never be considered American, ever, as long as you worship as you do. No matter what you do for us, you will always be the other, the outsider, and we'd rather you weren't here at all.". Two, we're letting them know that everything they say in that mosque is subject to the scrutiny and approval of people who believe they are inclined to violence and mayhem. Three, we're letting them know we're watching them all the time and that one wrong word, one sentence that doesn't meet with some government wonk's approval, could land them an all-expenses-paid vacation in the Wonderful World of Extraordinary Rendition. How free would all of that make you feel?

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

I'm all for monitoring churches and temples too.  I would think that many of us are currently going to churches and temples and are already monitoring them as i write this.

I'm not. And I'll be honest with you, I despise the major monotheisms. They've left a highway-wide stretch of misery and bloodshed behind them for the past few millennia of human history while they duke it out to see whose invisible friend is the strongest and which one of them gets to dictate how everyone lives. That said, I would never be cool with the idea of blanket surveillance of houses of worship. Besides, there is no way in hell this government would monitor anything but mosques. Christians wouldn't stand for it; well, let me rephrase that. Christians wouldn't stand for it being done to them. I doubt they'd lose any sleep over what the government does to worshipers of a heathen moon god. 

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

Vigilence.  Does it have to be a government agency doing the monitoring?  perhaps no.  i would think that citizens can do alot to alert authorities but Muslim track record on ratting out their own people is not the best.  hate speech and inciting violence is not protected speech.

I was under the impression that we were talking about government doing the monitoring. There's a huge difference between that and a regular citizen informing authorities about a potential plot.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

Regarding highest body count in single terrorist act - if you are talking about Oklahoma City bombing it was 168.  There were 230 some Marines killed in Lebanon so this is not correct unless you are talking about domestic terrorism

I was speaking of domestic terrorism. In terms of both single act and overall body count, before 9/11, white Christian terrorists were in the lead. They're still in the lead in terms of overall body count.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

We don't need Franklin or Jefferson.  We need Ronnie!

You know, I used to hero-worship that man too. That was before I discovered what a lying, phony sack of shit he was. Under his presidency, most of the bitter harvest we're reaping right now was sown in the Middle East. I'd go so far as to say that he's probably responsible for at least part of what's been directed at us. Oh and after the Marine barracks were bombed in Lebanon, he talked a lot of tough talk and then pulled our forces out without even so much as taking a poke with a dirty stick at those who killed our soldiers. So fuck Reagan. Six feet under isn't deep enough.

Also, regarding monitoring mosques, i think the burden of proof lies with the muslim community - not with Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist communities to produce any radical terrorists that wish us harm.  Let's say you had the local Lions, Masons, or Shriners club telling their members to arm for a war against the current establishment.  i for one would like to know this is happening.  Of course, there has been no recorded evidence stating that any of these three groups was supporting in any way a terrorist act against the USA.  So, there's little need to monitor them.  People who attend or are members of these fraternal organizations (being vigilant) would hopefully make a call if there were talk of terrorist behavior.  Then, we would have probable cause to have the govt monitor the goings on at that assembly place.  if there's nothing going on, then there's nothing going on and nobody has anything to worry about.  it's not like the govt would have the guy in black suit with sunglasses and earpiece sitting in the back row of the mosque anyway.  you'd never know he was there to begin with.  that's the point.

This is simply put a security issue.  I'm sorry but security for all should trump freedom of assembly to discuss how we can destroy the country.

now, painting the picture in terms of muslims and mosques.  I believe that we could have the citizens be vigilant inside their own mosque and report it to authorities in case there are terrorist plots going on.  Of course, we have to trust that this would actually happen and they would not be complicit to begin with.  Fact is, the burden of proof is on them.  i wish it weren't but it's just the way it is.  why do i say this?  well, how many muslims do you know or have been reported as turning in their radical clerics?  The 'radical' mosque that encouraged the 1993 NY World trade center bombings?  why wasn't the blind sheikh reported? 

if you take away the ability to monitor for terrorist behavior then we are on the defensive and will have to react to another (and another and another) bombing instead of preventing them from happening in the first place.

now, if you can suggest some alternative preventive measures that ensure safety on the homefront, i'm all ears.

Last edited by CaptainSpaulding71 (2007-07-11 08:01:22)