Germany considers increased spying on Muslims

BERLIN - After thwarting what might have become a "massive" attack on American installations, German authorities will review ways to fight homegrown terrorists, including a proposal to allow Internet spying on all German converts to Islam.

The search for seven other suspected members of a German cell of the Pakistan -based Islamic Jihad Union continued into Thursday night, with investigators saying only that they knew whom they were seeking.

Anti-terror police arrested three men in a village in central Germany Tuesday, outside a vacation cabin where they were building a bomb. Germans were shocked to learn that two of the bombers were native-born and had common German names, Fritz and Daniel. All three were unemployed and living on German government benefits, but other details are sketchy.

Fritz came from an upper middle class background, and German media reported that he converted to Islam about 10 years ago. His mother was a doctor, his father owned a successful business, and he's married and attends a technical college in Ulm.

"Daniel", who like Fritz hasn't been further identified, was known for angering his neighbors in Saarbruecken by praying loudly every three hours, but little else is know about him or "Adem", the Turkish-born third suspect.

This was "something new, and not in a good way," said Col. Christopher Langdon of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies . They "came from the white German population. They were very traditional German residents who converted and radicalized. These bombers were not Pakistani or Moroccan. That is raising eyebrows."

Anti-terror forces had been concerned primarily with first or second generation Muslim immigrants - not white Europeans.

Guenther Beckstein , the interior minister in the German state of Bavaria and a conservative leader of the southern wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party , has called for a new law authorizing online surveillance of Islamic converts.

"Germans converting to Islam should be watched because they tend to show particular fanaticism in order to prove worthy of their new religion," he said Thursday.

The number is growing, according to the German Islam archive. In the last decade, only about 300 Germans each year converted to Islam. But in 2005, the number rose to 1,000, and it jumped to 4,000 in 2006.
Germany considers increased spying on Muslims - Yahoo! News

This should prove to be a "hotbed" for debate.....personally speaking, I'm a bit at odds with it.

Have a good one!:s4:

i'll bet the good germans will be spyed on as well.........leave no room for error in the "War on Terror", wonder if the borders are wide open like the old USA.........

The model for effectively dealing with terrorism was establish by the Soviet Union in Beirut back in the early 1980's.

At that time, Palestinians in Beirut were kidnapping foreigners and holding them for very long periods of time - years in some cases. The practice was commonplace. One day a group of Palestinians made the mistake of kidnapping a mid-level Soviet embassy employee. The Soviets quickly determined the identity of the kidnappers, kidnapped the leader of their group, detached his head and sent it to the kidnappers in a box,along with a note demanding that their diplomat be released forthwith. He was. Immediately thereafter the Soviets killed every kidnapper, and every living relative of every kidnapper. Although the kidnappings in Beirut continued for a number of years, no Soviet citizen was ever again bothered.

...and so it should be today.

The only way to deal with savages is with savegery. The leaders of the civilized world should get together and issue our own "Fatwah", based on the Soviet model, that applies to any and all people who would committ an act of terror. On the day the Fatwah is issued, several thousand of the madrassas that preach savagery should be bombed out of existence, regardless of the colateral damage, and thousands of those radical imams who preach in the madrassas should be asassinated, again: regardless of the colateral damage. This slaughter will let them know that we are serious. After that, if someone committs an act of terror, they are identified and their entire family is slaughtered. Radical imams, just as a matter of course, would be asassinated on a regular basis.

Western civilization needs to get off our collective politically correct asses and face this beast before it is too late.

PC :pimp:

DAMN! Pretty radical but I do agree with ya.:thumbsup:

You Republican by chance?? :lol5:

Have a good one!:s4:

This is a hard issue for me. I understand the point of it. But then I have to remind myself that all the terrorists out there arent muslim. And you can't really throw a whole group of people into the same category. But i'm sure it could help.

Not to mention i'm sure that the german government and any other government for that matter could and will use the other info they find against people too. Like what about if their on a site like this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud

DAMN! Pretty radical but I do agree with ya.:thumbsup:

You Republican by chance?? :lol5:

Have a good one!:s4:

---

If this really is a war, then dammit, fight it to win!

I was a Republican, before the party was dissolved and reborn as the neo-cons.

I'm sorry P4B - I just couldn't resist. :D

PC :smokin:

Germany, the 4th reich is born:http://thestar.com.my/.../9/7/worldupdates
Germany debates security after foiled bomb plot

By Sylvia Westall
BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians called for tougher anti-terrorism measures and immigration rules on Thursday after police said they had foiled a plot by Islamist militants to carry out massive bomb attacks.

Leading conservatives demanded new laws to punish those who visit what the authorities say are terrorist training camps, new powers for online monitoring of computers and immigration curbs.

The calls came as security services said they were searching for at least 10 more men involved in what they said was a plot to attack U.S. installations in Germany.

Police on Tuesday arrested three men suspected of planning attacks -- two German converts to Islam and a Turk living in Germany.

"Germany must check much more thoroughly to determine who the fanatics and Islamists are," Bavaria's interior minister Guenther Beckstein, a leading conservative, told daily Die Welt.

"Fundamentalists have a much stronger desire to obtain a German passport than normal guest workers," he said, adding that the most dangerous suspects should be banned from having a mobile phone or Internet access.

Beckstein also suggested that police should closely monitor all converts to Islam because they are often more fanatical.

Beckstein and other conservatives have long called for increased surveillance to help them track suspected terrorists, but the proposals have encountered strong resistance.

Germans are sensitive about state surveillance after their experiences with the Nazi Gestapo secret police and former communist East Germany's Stasi.

CRACKDOWN

All three of the arrested men, identified by prosecutors as 28-year olds Fritz G. and Adem Y., and 21-year old Daniel S, had trained at what authorities described as camps for terrorists in Pakistan.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called for new powers to punish people who go to such camps and he received the support of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany.

Politicians also renewed calls for greater powers to monitor computers, saying that "online searches" are essential to targeting and capturing terrorism suspects.

"We also need to be able get evidence via the Internet when a home computer is used to arrange a crime," federal police chief Joerg Ziercke told a news channel.

Germany's top appeals court ruled in February that the clandestine monitoring of computers by police is illegal.

The arrested men had been on the verge of launching attacks after acquiring enough material to make a bomb with explosive power equal to 550 kilograms of TNT.

Officials could not confirm reports that the suspects had been targeting Frankfurt International Airport and a U.S. military base in Ramstein, but said they had scouted out sites frequented by Americans including discos and bars.