Light aircraft "could be bombs"

[qwertyplop]

Robin wrote;

I wish I shared your view, but being an old b*st*rd and having seen the way that those in any form of authority behave, I have little faith

Take the situation of the army being sent into Heathrow after a security alert. The reality is there is 17 miles between Central London and the airport where someone could lauch an RPG or SAM missile and guarantee bringing it down. Yet the Army went into the centre of Heathrow where you can't see an aircraft at all.

Obviously it was PR to show they were doing something.

They are likely to use Lord Carlile's concerns to wind up the politicos who know b*gg*r all. If you want more resources or more authority tell the idiot MPs that there is a credible threat and hope they don't ask difficult questions - they don't usually

Politicos like this sort of thing as it means they can grab more power

As I said earlier, !!!!! happens and an engine-out, like the recent Heathrow incident can happen with, or without terrorist help. Politicos need to accept this and accept that a certain number of people are likely to be killed or injured through any form of incident.

They can't know everything and one day the bad guys will get through. It is wrong for them to pretend that they can stop any and all threats. And it is more grown-up of us to accept that life itself is a risk

The problem is that we, as a people, are colluding with the rulers who want to make life more repressive on the promise that all will be well if we give up our civil liberties

If we do so, we will never get them back, and a regime, such as that in Zimbabwe, could use these laws to destroy any and all protections we enjoy.

I think that most of us, especially those whose general outlook is humanitarian, believe in notions similar to those Plato spoke of in Republic - that is: (a) an equal distribution of the burden of citizenship, i.e. of those limitations of freedom which are necessary in social life; (b) equal treatment of the citizens before the law, provided, of course, that (c) the laws show neither favour nor disfavour towards individual citizens or groups or classes; (d) impartiality of the courts of justice; and (e) an equal share in the advantages (and not only in the burden) which membership of the state may offer to its citizens. Individualism can counter these notions yet it is indvidualism that has stopped the British people from standing up and arguing the toss over any of the notions we've covered in this thread. We don't stand together, we don't support one another. We are factional and place self interest over the greater good. Perhaps it's time we, as a people, reviewed this methodology.

So, it seems to me, these ideals are slowly being eroded away if one compares them to what is happening in the UK today more generally in favour of some twisted notion that offers me more protection but at the cost of my civil liberties - I agree - this is not acceptable either.

No-one asked me if I was happy to appear on CCTV everyday, no-one asked me if I wanted my number plate scanned 20 times a day and nobody asked me if I wanted all of my electronic mails stored for months/years. On the other hand, who have I bothered to challenge over any of these issues? We all know the answer to that.

I agree that !!!!! happens but IMO this issue is different in the sense that there is more to it than a simple domestic agenda of control, it relates to harm reduction in any numbers of criminal activity in an area where there might lot's of regulations from the CAA et al but where there is little overt control from the law enforcement agencies.

A hurridly filled in GAR with half the details missing and no-one checking with a Mk1 eyeball that the person declared on board is the person flying. How can that be acceptable?