Tom Griffin (London, OK): Three young British Muslims convicted on terrorism charges this week, possessed the "biggest computer library of extremist material ever seized by British police," The Guardian reports.
Over at our sister-blog terrorism.openDemocracy, Tim Stevens examines the resulting focus on the internet as a conduit for radicalisation:
As the British government seeks to strengthen its stance on stamping out home-grown terrorism, it has zeroed in on the internet as a target for regulation and interdiction. Such an approach suggests both a misunderstanding of the internet itself and of the role that online behaviour plays in radicalisation and, ultimately, the creation of dangerously violent individuals. Wrong moves against wrong targets will eventually prove counter-productive.
The reasons for the radicalisation of a small number of young people remain extremely controversial. Phil Groman suggested a compelling analogy with teenage gangs here at OurKingdom earlier this week.
MI5 itself reportedly believes that those who turn to terrorism are "are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism."
SpyBlog concludes from this that the Security Service "are no better at identifying people who are vulnerable to extremist radicalisation , than simply making random guesses."
