What should be done

[AcrobatMan]

With a suspected terrorist - which according to information is planning to kill 100 civilians ( Indonesians, Iraqis, Russians or Americans..doesnt matter).

But you/ the government dont have enough concrete proof to put him into prison or something like that.

Worse still, he has no previous history of terrorism ( because obviously his first act of terrorism will be his last act of terrorism)

How to stop such terrorists ?

What will your plan of action be if you could decide the course of your govt ?

If you arrest him, Human right groups will go on road with protests..and you dont , the family of civilians killed gets mad with grief and anger

I think this is the single biggest problem faced in tackling modern day "international terrorism" ( dont ask me why i put the quotes )

Or to rephrase, Would you rather arrest 10 people on charge of trying to cause terrorism if you are sure atleast 2 of them ( if not all) is sure to be a suicide bomber ?

Or do you rather wait to address a Condolence message and a day of mouring ?

AcrobatMan

 

[U2democrat]

I don't know. Simple as that.

 

[nbcrusader]

A difficult question indeed. It is hard to establish principled responses when the threats are from such unprincipled sources. The difference between a "terrorist" and a "civilian" changes without notice (a tool of the terrorist).

If you want the suspected terrorists dealt with efficiently, you may need to rely on groups that opperate out of the public eye.

 

[bammo2]

but you can't just try people for 'future crimes'. If you do that, you're moving into the realms of Minority Report

 

[nbcrusader]

Ack! Then we have to rely on Tom Cruise....

 

[A_Wanderer]

I would take the suspect who I am 99% sure has something to do with an attack e.g. Trace levels of plutonium, schematics of various buildings, Al Qaeda training video hand handbook.

I would strap them down to a chair and use a sterilized needle underneath their fingernail until they surrendered the information I needed to save lives.

It is either causing a brief but immense ammount of pain that can be stopped at any moment to a potential mass murderer or sitting back and letting thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people die. I would not stand by to let people die just so I could claim some sort of ridiculous moral supiriority, peoples lives are at stake - sometimes the cost is worth the benefit.

If you are squeemish about this scenario then by all means call me a monster, but ask yourself how many lives would you be willing to loose before such a measure became legitimate, mine is > 1000.

 

[DaveC]

If I had (firm) evidence and had the authority to make such decisions, I wouldn't hesitate to ask the CIA to eliminate the threat.

 

[anitram]

If you are squeemish about this scenario

A few years ago, my hand got caught in the garage door and it slammed onto it and broke one of my fingers in two places. There was all this blood pooled under my nail and they took a cauterizer in the hospital and began to drill through my nail (without anaesthetic) to get the blood out. You cannot possibly imagine the amount of pain this causes. I'd had a severely infected appendix, which sent me into emergency surgery and I thought I would die of pain. I can now tell you that the drilling through the nail to your flesh is a thousand times worse.

God, reading that made the hair on my back stand up. Shudder.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Yeoah! Kind of why it makes so much sense, immense pain that leaves no permanent damage, its not mutilating the person - that would be wrong.