[Sandwich]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/11/22/uk.attacks.ap/index.html

[Bri_Dog]

Holy ****

[aldo_14]

Daily Mail newspaper reported in its Tuesday editions.

Pinch of salt alert! Pinch of salt alert!

[Flipside]

So, we're coming up to an election that will be centred on Security, the government has plastered every tiny Terror-related hint all over the papers, and then, all of a sudden they refuse to comment on something as major as this.....

I'm with Aldo here, let's wait and see.....

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flipside
So, we're coming up to an election that will be centred on Security, the government has plastered every tiny Terror-related hint all over the papers, and then, all of a sudden they refuse to comment on something as major as this.....

I'm with Aldo here, let's wait and see.....

It's not in the BBC news, either.  Plus if you look at the juxtaposition of the headlines on http://www.itv.com/news/ .... well, the timing is very iffy at best.  

I'd hoped this sort of scare-mongering shenanigans was confined more to the US, but recent news has made me more & more worried about how genuinely concerned with security this government is compared to with consolidating its own power.  Roll on independence, I say.....

[Flipside]

How was it the Mirror defined it....

Manifearsto for re-election

[aldo_14]

"Stunning Shocker of Al-Queda Near Miss:
The Mirror explains how asylum seeker peadophiles planned a 9/11 attack!  
Join our campaign now!"

[Flipside]

What cracks me up is the whole 'security' aspect of the last day at Parliament seems to be centred on ID Cards and.....litter fines?

Considering half our public Bins were removed as a security measure against the IRA it seems to me are government can't figure out which way it's arse is facing

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flipside
What cracks me up is the whole 'security' aspect of the last day at Parliament seems to be centred on ID Cards and.....litter fines?

Considering half our public Bins were removed as a security measure against the IRA it seems to me are government can't figure out which way it's arse is facing

Well, they 'need' the ID cards to pay for this central biometric database of personal information.

So....they probably need the litter fines to pay for the id cards.

[vyper]

I'm doing my honours project on the id card system guys, and let me tell you right now: Whoever actually came up with the plan for this must've been on space crack. Even if it survives politically, It's doomed to failure from a technical point of view.

They have no defined scope, no clear purpose, certainly no room for the future expansion they intend to initiate one day, and very little provision for special users of the system.

If you don't believe me, go have a look at www.bcs.org.uk and check out their feedback to the commons committee examining the idea.

[Rictor]

If the plan was thwarted in February 2003, why are they only releasing this info now, almost 2 years later.

Seems to me like a bit of scare-mongering.

[Clave]

I think you are all pretty much on the nail about this being scare-mongering, BUT:

UKADGE has never been so weak in my opinion.  

If you want protection from 9/11 type events, then you have to be prepared to down the airliner, and quickly.  Scrambling fighters is not an option, unless you have them on permanent CAP, and even then, they will take time to reach the target.  So what you need is a ground-based SAM system, with long range and fast ready time.  But guess what? the Bloodhound was scrapped in 1993, the ulta-high power search radars? also scrapped, the passive radar linked defense system? also scrapped.

So what to we have left?  Well, there are Type 91 and 93 radars at various points round the coast, fighters, and the short-range Rapier missile systems.  Now, granted, the equipment is more modern than the old system, but I don't think it will do the job....

Oh, and UKADGE = UK AIr Defense Ground Environment

My credentials on this:  12 years in the RAF working at various radar and missile stations, including the Military Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton, London..

Just on heresay, I think the US is pretty much the same, apart from a few Patriot mobile launchers, there is little in the way of SAM defences....

[Rictor]

Are you telling me that the UK is incapable of downing a commerial airliner anywhere over its territory? C'mon, even ****ty little countries like Serbia have that capability, and they're using old Soviet technology.

I guess you know better than I do, but it seems a but unbelievable.

[vyper]

My response to that is: make the police and intelligence services more effective (no, that doesn't mean giving them the power to **** our civil rights away), and you won't need to shoot anyone down.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor
If the plan was thwarted in February 2003, why are they only releasing this info now, almost 2 years later.

Seems to me like a bit of scare-mongering.

Queen's speech - where the monarch is handed a speech outlining the policy plans of the government for the next session of parliament and reads it out (ceremonial thing).

Amongst those measures are extensions to the anti-terrorism acts (that include removal of the right to trial by jury) and plans for both biometric passports and id cards (which will be used - via their cost - to fund a national database holding personal information).

Originally posted by Rictor
Are you telling me that the UK is incapable of downing a commerial airliner anywhere over its territory? C'mon, even ****ty little countries like Serbia have that capability, and they're using old Soviet technology.

I guess you know better than I do, but it seems a but unbelievable.

They never needed it (or felt they needed it) before.  It's not like Serbia where they had the long civil war - the last conflict to threaten British airspace was WW2.  Besides which, we're going to have ID cards now!  We can chuck them at incoming planes!

EDIT; actually, I guess you could say it was needed for the Cold War... but that was 20 years or so ago, and knowing the militaries habit of pissing cash against a wall, they probably pawned them off.

[Clave]

I think we could take down an airliner, but just not as easily as pre-93....

[aldo_14]

The Registers take on these things is always interesting;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/terror_scare_spin/

[Corsair]

who knows if it's true? the government can always give out a little leak like "oh yeah by the way, just so you know we're winning the war on terror, here's what we've done for you recently."

and then the media will go LIEK OMG WTF HOLY **** TERRORISTS ALMOST CAME because that kind of headline sells.
i've gotten far too cynical recently.

[Clave]

You are never too young to learn the art of cynicism.

[ionia23]

Okay.

I'd like to ask a non-political 9/11 question to the group.  Maybe someone with piloting experience can answer it.  This conversation is in no way an attempt to bring the rights and wrongs of what happened here (and what nearly happened in England), but the mechanics of it.

I've been working with MS Flight Simulator for some years now.  Not too long ago the sick-bastard in me decided to try and recreate the flight of the plane which hit tower #2.  It's flight path is publicly available.

I set the weather conditions as similar as possible and was flying a 727.  The objective was that at the point the planes changed direction I had to find the greater New York City area, then the trade center itself (visible in my version of FS).

Even knowing which direction New York City is I was never, ever able to find it without using some kind of radio based navigation.

Steering a plane really isn't that hard to do, sure.  Not necessarily easy either.  In addition to knowing how to steer the plane I anticipate the hijackers had to:

A - Know how to disable the autopilot
B - Know how to operate the navigation radios
C - Know how to interpretate that the nav radios are tuned corrected to a Navaid near the New York area
D - Know what frequency to tune in on
E - Know what altitude to be at so as to avoid crashing into a mountain or something.

This challenge is amplified 100-fold when trying to hit the Pentagon.  You can't see it untill you're on top of it.  How did they know where to go?

You can't see diddly/squat in the cockpit of a commercial airliner.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how they pulled it off.  Hijacking a plane is one thing, knowing where the hell to aim is another.

Anyone?