London...

[Bing]

Really? you know Bourne, Bond and Spooks is fiction I hope! In the 'real world' low tech loners and sleepers marauding with freely available weapons is a tactic that is impossible to completely guard against, even in authoritarian locked down zones like the West Bank of Israel let alone the West Bank of London. The only comfort from this sort of pointless barbarism is that the Brit's have seen worse and not been phased, and using radicalised psychopaths on suicide missions smacks of desperation.

Maybe my point was lost a little....this guy was on the watch list, he was known to MI5, his face would have been on the database...I completely agree it's almost impossible to stop an unknown creating havoc, but surely the people we have marked on an MI5 watch list should be easy to spot coming into a high target area like Westminster....or am I missing something?!

Are you seriously suggesting that technology is available that can reliably scan a face (driver? rear passenger?), possibly wearing shades, hat etc in a moving hire vehicle? even UK border control requires you to stand still, no glasses and look directly in to the camera and moving CCTV of people on foot (let alone in a vehicle) is currently wildly unreliable. The thing you ARE missing is that the US and other Western protagonist have tried increasingly high tech responses which give a false sense of security against low tech, low profile terrorist. The UK has a solid background of 'hearts and minds', and intelligence led strategies against terrorism, that ultimately will be the way forward.

Even if you can do it, the cost of applying this technology to every CCTV camera in the UK, every day, all the time would be astronomical - both in terms of tech cost and manpower to validate what the tech was telling them. The number of false positives would be huge as well, it's not like a CCTV image of a person's face is as precise as, say, a finger print. There are about 400,000 CCTV cameras in/around London, and over 4 million in the UK. London Underground use facial recognition and object recognition (think abandoned rucksack) extensively, but that's in a well lit environment with well defined human traffic flows in a confined space. even sunshine or the reflection of a cloud on a windscreen could prevent someone being identified. I know this sort of tech exists, but I was of the opinion it is used retrospectively ?

And by the way, is advocating a society where everyone / anyone can be (and are) tracked by their face on CCTV a good thing ? All passport photos and driving licence photos are digitally stored now, so in theory could be applied to this technology, where it exists. And of course CCTVs can be hacked into, so that sort of capability could be used for criminal purposes too. Bit Big Brother if you ask me.

Nothing could have prevented what happened - what our security services did was mitigate the threat effectively, and fortunately the chap (or his car) wasn't strapped up with a huge bomb.

 

[TitanTim]

A tragedy for those caught up in it but surprised it's taken this long before something kicked off, looks like the police were onto it quick thank god.

Tim.

Tim, it hasnt this was just one they hadnt caught before it occurred, there's many 'incidents' that dont get published in press for obvious reasons, and i cant tell you more but there's many.

ironically to bolster above statement, how many people up until yesterdays news release knew about the laptop bombing on the airplane last year, none is my bet, until it affected people wanting to take laptops etc aboard...
goes to show you.
sad as it all is, we will never win this...ever

I'm sure counter terror intelligence helps prevents attacks from actually taking place but this one has been the only successful attack in the past 10 years or so, I'm just surprised it hasn't happened sooner.

Tim.

 

[pvr]

I am sure they can trace this back. As always, there is a Muslim convert involved. Find the mosque involved, find everyone involved there and roll it up. I can't comment on what the security forces do as I have no idea, but I would like to think that they are not tied by good-doers and can get on with the job.

 

[elevensies]

I am sure they can trace this back. As always, there is a Muslim convert involved. Find the mosque involved, find everyone involved there and roll it up. I can't comment on what the security forces do as I have no idea, but I would like to think that they are not tied by good-doers and can get on with the job.

unfortunately, yes :thumbsdown:

 

[Geezah]

I am sure they can trace this back. As always, there is a Muslim convert involved. Find the mosque involved, find everyone involved there and roll it up. I can't comment on what the security forces do as I have no idea, but I would like to think that they are not tied by good-doers and can get on with the job.

unfortunately, yes :thumbsdown:

Trude dat! :thumbsdown:

Look at the amount of do-gooders getting their knickers in a twist because the RAF were using drones to take out these nut jobs.
Hell! Use whatever means are at your disposal I would say. These do-gooders live in a parallel universe to normal thinking people.

Experienced this 'Pink and Fluffy' attitude in Starbucks only this week. Woman sitting next to me finishes her coffee and leaves, leaving her bag behind. Me thinking she was away to the cludgie ignored it but after some time, her table was cleared and her bag was still there. I informed a member of staff who removed it.

The owner eventually came back looking all flustered as her bag was missing. I said, good humouredly, ' Good to see you back, you don't look like a terrorist anyway, the management have your bag.' She looked at me and in all seriousness said, ' You shouldn't think bad of everyone, there are good people in the world too you know.' as she flounced off. True, I didn't expect any thanks for being an observant, security conscious member of the public.

So.....by definition then, she acknowledges that there are also bad people in the world....but that we should do nothing about it?

I rest my case Petrocelli!

 

[buzyg]

I am sure they can trace this back. As always, there is a Muslim convert involved. Find the mosque involved, find everyone involved there and roll it up. I can't comment on what the security forces do as I have no idea, but I would like to think that they are not tied by good-doers and can get on with the job.

unfortunately, yes :thumbsdown:

Trude dat! :thumbsdown:

Look at the amount of do-gooders getting their knickers in a twist because the RAF were using drones to take out these nut jobs.
Hell! Use whatever means are at your disposal I would say. These do-gooders live in a parallel universe to normal thinking people.

Experienced this 'Pink and Fluffy' attitude in Starbucks only this week. Woman sitting next to me finishes her coffee and leaves, leaving her bag behind. Me thinking she was away to the cludgie ignored it but after some time, her table was cleared and her bag was still there. I informed a member of staff who removed it.

The owner eventually came back looking all flustered as her bag was missing. I said, good humouredly, ' Good to see you back, you don't look like a terrorist anyway, the management have your bag.' She looked at me and in all seriousness said, ' You shouldn't think bad of everyone, there are good people in the world too you know.' as she flounced off. True, I didn't expect any thanks for being an observant, security conscious member of the public.

So.....by definition then, she acknowledges that there are also bad people in the world....but that we should do nothing about it?

I rest my case Petrocelli!

May be, but PVR was talking about the security services not the general public or a bunch of bored Liberal councillors.

Personally, I have every confidence that the UK security services are amongst the most well trained, well informed and most effective in the world. We live in a free democracy not a police state, so of course they can't just go around locking every one up, or hounding every nut job. But when in comes to the sharp end they get it right most of the time.

Bearing in mind the huge personnel responsibility, one of the protection team at Westminster on Wednesday, shot to kill, when they needed to. They will have known the consequence of getting it wrong, but training & skill, allowed that individual to do what had to be done, within the rules, in those few split seconds. What followed within seconds was a calm well executed plan, coordinating all of London's emergency services, whilst the whole world looked on. Of course lessons will be learned but from what I observed the UK security and emergency services did a bloody fine job.

 

[Silverzedtom]

Even the most high tech security systems available can't stop everything. MI5 etc work to a budget and are probably stretched beyond their limitations.

Even if they did stop this one they can't stop someone unknown to them and inspired by propaganda / f*cked up ideology doing similar or worse.

As horrible as it sounds, and my thoughts are with all of the victims and their families I am suprised that since 7/7 we haven't had another mass attack. I'm sure the many attacks have been foiled, some probably massive but the details never released.

We are all sheep and will never know what goes on behind closed doors, but I'm sure the secret services are doing their jobs well. We can't let them win, it's life as normal and more lessons learned in how to prevent / respond I'm afraid.

 

[elevensies]

[/u][/b]



Bearing in mind the huge personnel responsibility, one of the protection team at Westminster on Wednesday, shot to kill, when they needed to. They will have known the consequence of getting it wrong, but training & skill, allowed that individual to do what had to

but the press got it very very wrong

there are now facial pictures of armed police at the scene, these officers are part of SO teams, and now compromised...thank you free press

yes you could argue that anyone could take a photo of them walking the line, as they are on duty, at any given point...BUT

these pics were taken of the officers stood over a shot body, the terrorists now have a direct angle to point blame on the shootings.

 

[buzyg]

but the press got it very very wrong

there are now facial pictures of armed police at the scene, these officers are part of SO teams, and now compromised...thank you free press

yes you could argue that anyone could take a photo of them walking the line, as they are on duty, at any given point...BUT

these pics were taken of the officers stood over a shot body, the terrorists now have a direct angle to point blame on the shootings.

The Press I could happily throttle at times like that. Only interested in selfish money making far too much of the time. I was also not impressed with a few of the MP's giving information of their location within Westminster during the lock down. That's down to thoughtlessness though. Far too many members of the press are just greedy parasites at times. :thumbsdown:

 

[Ewazix]

but the press got it very very wrong

there are now facial pictures of armed police at the scene, these officers are part of SO teams, and now compromised...thank you free press

yes you could argue that anyone could take a photo of them walking the line, as they are on duty, at any given point...BUT

these pics were taken of the officers stood over a shot body, the terrorists now have a direct angle to point blame on the shootings.

The Press I could happily throttle at times like that. Only interested in selfish money making far too much of the time. I was also not impressed with a few of the MP's giving information of their location within Westminster during the lock down. That's down to thoughtlessness though. Far too many members of the press are just greedy parasites at times. :thumbsdown:

To be fair the press all played ball when asked by the Police/security service not to publish the name of the murderer whilst they were in the middle of their operations, I'm sure there were arguments behind the scenes but they stuck to it as far as we know. As to publishing faces at the scene it's bad, but I'm afraid the public blasting images on Instant-Twat-Face-Agram in real time let that particular cat out of the bag, which is the test the media apply when considering what to publish, i.e is it already out there?

 

[elevensies]

yet they cover up and dont show the footballer breaking his leg playing footy....go figure