Ministers 'using fear of terror'

Ministers 'using fear of terror'

news.bbc.co.uk

A former head of MI5 has accused the government of exploiting the fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties.

Dame Stella Rimington, 73, stood down as the director general of the security service in 1996.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and published in the Daily Telegraph, she also attacks the approach taken by the United States.

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[edit on 2/17/2009 by semperfortis]

Wow... I think this is huge!

In the first place an ex intelligence head saying this must make people wake up..secondly it's being reported by the mainstream BBC!

I will be interested to see how long the BBC runs with this story.

This lady is quite brave....especially to criticise the US too.



news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 2/17/2009 by semperfortis]

Great news...

Glad its mainstream also. This takes guts.

Its about time people inside and or formerly with the government start standing up and denouncing these rediculous infringements on civil liberties.

Personally I think the U.S. Congress and Senate and President should all be in GITMO.

Why close it? Lets just start putting the real terrorists in it!

reply to post by mr-lizard

Glad its mainstream also. This takes guts.

Be interesting to see what the U.K. comes out with to try to paint her as a poison apple?

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Indeed! A famous quote comes to mind: "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." -Aesop

+1 star

[edit on 16-2-2009 by EarthCitizen07]

reply to post by EarthCitizen07

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

Reminds me of the Thomas Crowne Affair. "I am no petty theif but a rather exceptional one!"

Hopefully they will pull out the Farmer's Almanac sometimes soon and revisit some of the homespun wisdom of our founding fathers and the great addages of time and get back to something based on common sense sometimes soon.

I like to think even sheeple will have their limits?

Great quote! Star for you!

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
I like to think even sheeple will have their limits?

Yes. I just hope its not too late by then....

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Great quote! Star for you!

Thank you!

Yes. I just hope its not too late by then....

Its never too late. After all in reality all we have is time. Even that is a fluid and fleeting thing at times, or so it seems. It isn't, we have all the time in the world.

Every dog has it's day. It's why I borrowed the stylish sheeps clothing!

Never surrender hope!

Go back to sleep, everything's under control. Your government knows what to do. She's 73, probably has Alzheimer's.

Move along, nothing to see here...

Originally posted by mr-lizard
Great news...

Glad its mainstream also. This takes guts.

i personally have written to the bbc almost every day for the last few months telling them to start to write about these sort of things..that its important the public at large hear whats really going on...the media played a huge part in nazi germany..they basically made everything hitler did possible...now we ask ourselves how could the people have been so stupid..why didnt they see what as going on...why didnt the media do anything...?

and its happening again...

write constantly to your local stations..your national tv and radio stations and tell them how important this all is...you will annoy them very probably...but it might make a difference..

Dame Stella Rimington is a well-respected former member of MI5 - she served there for 27 years and was the Director General for 4 of those years. In other words, she knows what she's talking about and trying to discredit her will probably backfire. She's also been pretty consistent in her views on civil liberties; in 2005, for example, when discussing ID card she said that "I don't think they [ID cards] are necessarily going to make us any safer".

Another former MI5 chief, Eliza Manningham-Buller, also seems to have taken a strong stance in support of civil liberties. Last year she publicly opposed the government's plans to hold terrorism suspects for 42 days without charge.

There's a pattern emerging... the heads of MI5 don't think these draconian laws are going to work, and I'd say they're in a much better position to judge this kind of thing than a minister, who may only be in their job for 12-18 months before being moved to another department.

reply to post by kiwifoot


Mainstream BBC, more like leftstream BBC, and why is it so scary to criticize the United States... people do it everyday and there are no secret prisons they are dragged off too. Talk about hyping the fear, your whole post is about hype.. Why does the world drink so much kool'aid. I will go out on a limb and make a prediction. In a years time everyone, Mexico, Britian, France, Spain will be sucking back up to the big ole bad USA, because we will be the only ones that will be able to get a grip on this depression and be able to extend aid. BTW The mi5 agent you are referring too, was so disgusted that she left, it was more like she was showed the door, and it was Clintons Administration she has problems with.

The article makes the excellent point that FEAR is being used to erode civil liberties - I have been saying for some time that a fearfull populace is an easily controlled populace, and I believe that it has been a concerted attempt by this government.

Fear of "terror" attacks, leading to loss of civil liberties.

Fear of AGW/Climate Change, leading to more taxation.

Fear of crime, leading to new laws, greater police powers and less freedoms.

fear of credit crunch, leading to people doing whatever the government says they should.

The list is huge, but there is one common theme that runs through it - the climate of fear that labour has created in order to more easily control us.

Since labour came to power (and even before) we have seen the spin that invokes fear in the populace:
"Save the NHS"
"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"
"Education education education"
and all the other slogans used to instil not a sense of urgency that something must be done, but to instil fear so that we bumble along tugging our forelocks and hiding from the real issues of the day.

Good on Dame Stella Rimington for saying this - although I note that the original interview was with a spanish newspaper....

It would seem that there has been a double post of the same topic... just slightly different titles; www.abovetopsecret.com...


So I will post what I said there, here;



Of course, it makes sense to induce fear into your followers, they are more likely to do as you say and follow you even further.

Some people, in a relationship, will use love as a weapon to get what they want. Here, TPTB are using fear as a weapon to get what they want and justify everything else. If things go wrong, ie more trouble, violence, terror, then all that the PTB are doing can be justified yet again..

There is a bus company in Devon that has an advert running the length of the bus.. It goes along the lines of te local police authority and what they are doing which is 'helping to reduce crime and the FEAR of crime.

It's just so frustrating how these methods of mind control are forced upon us. Millions of pounds are spent on all this sort of stuff when the time, effort and money could be spent elsewhere in a more beneficial manner, yet you dont see people/businesses like us doing the opposite sort of advertising.

But, there is one company that has recently done the opposite and that was the one doing the adverts on busses that promotes the idea of their being no God.
www.belowtopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Even if we did decide to do some 'opposite' advertising, what would we focus on? How would we go about it? what sort of images are we going to use, especially now that certain people want to make things even more difficult b stopping people taking pictures of the police

Why? What do TPTB fear? This is all to do with NWO and BB. A total and complete fascist state.

Every day, the UK stinks more and more of WW2 Nazi Germany.

There is a saying that I have heard on several occasions through the years, and it is this... the Nazis did not lose WW2, they simply moved to the UK/USA

MI5 & MI6 are no better than New Labour and they all are part of the same group, with the same agenda. Numerous times they have exaggerated the threat of terrorism. They like nothing better than to play their silly mind games. How many times do I have to say this. It's all manipulation. They simply tell the public what they want to hear, but behind the scenes, they are doing the complete opposite.

MI5 seeks powers to trawl records in new terror hunt
www.guardian.co.uk...

MI5 tracking '30 UK terror plots'
news.bbc.co.uk...

Robert Fisk: A terrible legacy of hatred and death
www.independent.co.uk...

Revealed: MI5's role in torture flight hell
www.guardian.co.uk...

Bomb plotters 'were known to police and MI5'
www.telegraph.co.uk...;jsessionid=ES23FNWKLNLCHQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/07/03/nterror1803.xml

UK MPs told no imminent threat on eve of London bombings
www.indianmuslims.info...

'Thousands' pose UK terror threat
news.bbc.co.uk...

'Inside facts about the 7/7 London bombings'
www.davidicke.com...

reply to post by kiwifoot


I Really think a lot of this has to due with Obama making a lot of the offices transparent. from judges to congress, they know with everything being more transparent they are admitting guilt before they get caught at it. what that means is people like this person that was in office it should give more of a boost to tattle tail also. hopefully we will start seeing more honest people that have power to stand up to. actually stand up and make a good difference besides filling somebody's pocket up.

Yeah I saw this this morning on Breakfast, however, they only mentioned it in passing.
It is good to see a good article online about it going into more detail.

However, will the people listen or pay attention?

My guess ... no.

interesting to see how long it will be before she commits suicide...?

2 line attack

reply to post by Attackhoe


I doubt very much that will happen. In the UK there seems to be something of a culture of people who once held senior positions speaking their mind after having left the very position from which they COULD have changed the situation had they raised the subject when in power.

Usually the comments are taken as being insignificant or not worthy of particular media note because those people are no longer in the position of power.

Rimington's comments will be forgotten about by the UK media in a day or two, she'll be forgotten about by the masses, and life will go on. That's how it always plays out.