UK student researching Al Qaida arrested

[thewayne]

Masters student lecturer at the University of Nottingham downloads an Al Qaida training manual, university officials rat him out to the police and the student and his associate/advisor are arrested under the Terrorism Act. Here's the best part: the source of the manual? a US government web site.

I'm not sure which country is winning or losing in the Stupidest Country of the Century contest.

What was the line from the little "educational" segments on GI Joe? "The more you know, the better you are" or something like that?

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2282045,00.html

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/232221

Comments

[silveradept]

I'd like to know what training manuals are doing on publicly-accessible parts of government web sites, myself. But from there on, shouldn't someone at the university be aware of the kind of research students are doing, so that if the police show up, the student can say, "It's for coursework", the professor can confirm it, and the police tip their hats and say "Sorry for the trouble."? Six days without charges over this is extreme.