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This is huge.
A leaked MI5 internal document has concluded that it is impossible to profile British Islamic terrorists, as they're effectively indistinguishable from the British Muslim community at large (the vast majority of whom, it should go without saying, are not terrorists). In particular, all the lazy stereotypes are wrong: terrorists are not predominantly young, unemployed, uneducated, unintelligent, especially religious, illegal immigrants, single or mentally ill. On the contrary, many are British nationals, born here, married with families, and rarely attend the mosque. They're more likely to be male than female, but often women know about and condone terrorist involvement by members of their families. They're as ethnically diverse as the British Muslim population as a whole, with individuals from South Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian backgrounds. The picture of a lonely, single man turning to religious extremism and terrorism for the promise of however-many virgins in paradise appears to be flat-out wrong.
And a document with this much importance to the debate on terrorism was classified. For goodness' sake.
A leaked MI5 internal document has concluded that it is impossible to profile British Islamic terrorists, as they're effectively indistinguishable from the British Muslim community at large (the vast majority of whom, it should go without saying, are not terrorists). In particular, all the lazy stereotypes are wrong: terrorists are not predominantly young, unemployed, uneducated, unintelligent, especially religious, illegal immigrants, single or mentally ill. On the contrary, many are British nationals, born here, married with families, and rarely attend the mosque. They're more likely to be male than female, but often women know about and condone terrorist involvement by members of their families. They're as ethnically diverse as the British Muslim population as a whole, with individuals from South Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian backgrounds. The picture of a lonely, single man turning to religious extremism and terrorism for the promise of however-many virgins in paradise appears to be flat-out wrong.
And a document with this much importance to the debate on terrorism was classified. For goodness' sake.
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Note the definition:
Restricted
Such material would cause "undesirable effects" if publicly available. Some countries do not have such a classification.
The bigger issue is there are probably outward facing people who this didn't fit with their agenda and didn't talk about it (normally MPs IIRC). The original author however was probably quite sensible with there use of classification. TBH i think the most likely reason is an MP might even just not believe as he knows better, sadly they don't get the job for being bright.
FYI other levels are
Top Secret (TS)
The highest level of classification of material on a national level. Such material would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security if publicly available.
i.e. damage take down a government, Employment figures are this level the day before release.
Secret
Such material would cause "serious damage" to national security if publicly available.
Confidential
Such material would cause "damage" or be "prejudicial" to national security if publicly available.
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Restricted
Information marked as Restricted is at a level where the release of the material will have effects such as significant distress to individuals, adversely affecting the effectiveness of military operations, or to compromise law enforcement. In many cases, information held by personnel offices in Government departments will be marked as Restricted with the additional tag Staff, such that access requires clearance both for the marking and the tag.
[edit]Confidential
The effects of releasing information marked as Confidential include considerable infringement on personal liberties, material damage to diplomatic relations, or to seriously disrupt day-to-day life in the country.
[edit]Secret
This marking is used for information whose side-effects may be life-threatening, disruptive to public order or detrimental to diplomatic relations with friendly nations.
[edit]Top secret
Information marked as Top secret is that which whose release is liable to cause considerable loss of life, international diplomatic incidents, or severely impact ongoing intelligence operations.
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Well, yes. But we knew that about terrorists .. didn't we.
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