Thomas wrote:McGentrix wrote:Are you arguing that the government shouldn't do everything in it's power to protect it's citizens from terrorism or terrorist plots under the full power of the law?
FreeDuck can talk for herself, but my answer would be yes, that's what I'm arguing. I prefer a certain risk of dying in a terrorist attack over losing my civil liberties. Consequently, there are things that are in the government's power to do that I don't want it to do.
As you state here,
Quote:Coming from a country whose government didn't fall for Bush's WMD scam, I feel disinclined to respond to your claim about "much of the world".
I don't think you really need to worry about Americans losing civil liberties, do you? You are welcome to what ever risk your government deems appropriate.
German minister outlines risks from terrorism
BERLIN: Germany saw only a slight rise last year in the number of suspected Islamic extremists, but its top security official said Tuesday that an attempted bomb attack and other incidents showed that the country was facing a "new quality of terrorist activity."
"The biggest threat for the stability and security of Germany comes again from Islamic terrorism," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said as he presented the government's report on extremism for 2006.
Still, he noted an "alarming development" in far-right extremism, with a 9.3 percent increase in violent attacks over 2005 to 1,047, while the far-right National Democratic Party saw its membership rise by 1,000 people to 7,000.
Violent attacks by leftist extremists were down 3.8 percent to 862, but Schäuble said that with the Group of 8 summit meeting in Germany only three weeks away, the authorities were watching "specific activities of the left-extremist scene and violent globalization opponents" with care.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is playing host to the event, which will be attended by the leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan.
About 6,000 people on the extreme left were considered potentially violent, 500 more than a year earlier. Schäuble stressed that "we will not allow for possible attacks to disrupt the smooth development of the G-8 summit."
The 333-page report, from Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, listed 10,400 far-right extremists as potentially violent, the same number as in 2005.
In the fight against Islamic extremism, Schäuble pointed to failed attempts last year to blow up two trains - in which bombs in suitcases were successfully planted but failed to explode - and a sophisticated video posted on the Internet earlier this year threatening Merkel and her cabinet if the country did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
These "show clearly that Germany now has to deal with a new quality of terrorist activity," Schäuble said.
Where Islamic terrorists once used Germany as a place to plan missions elsewhere - three of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide pilots lived and plotted in Hamburg before heading to U.S. flight schools, for example - Schäuble said the country was now "no longer only a retreat, but also an operations area."
"The suitcase bomb attacks and the video message show clearly that Germany lies in the target spectrum of terrorist groups," he warned.
He refused to go into detail about a warning from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin last month of a "heightened threat" within Germany that prompted U.S. diplomatic facilities to increase their security.
But he said that Germany was working closely with the United States on the issue and that Washington generally was happy to share its information.
"Most of what we know, we know from the Americans," Schäuble said.
