Articles by Gilbert Ramsay
Does the government need new Internet surveillance powers?
Posted on April 4, 2012 | 1 Comment
Surveillance of citizens by governments is generally a bad thing. All things being equal, the more of it the worse. So regardless of the specific details of the legislation the government is going to propose in relation to the real time monitoring of Internet and mobile phone traffic data, it is something we should have [...]
Why a cross is not a hijab
Posted on March 13, 2012 | 3 Comments
News in the Sunday Telegraph that the government plans to argue at the European Court of Human Rights that Christians do not have the right to wear crosses to work has prompted outrage from figures as senior as former archbishop George Carey and Archbishop John Sentamu, with the phrase ‘cross ban’ cropping up in various [...]
Lessons from Libya – Democrats make for effective emperors
Posted on August 31, 2011 | No Comments
You have to hand it to Obama. The man is a smooth operator. When he got into power, Republicans threw up their hands in horror at the prospect of a leftie peacenick used to ‘palling around with terrorists’ getting his hands on reigns of American power. Nearly four years on, most of the Bush era [...]
Breivik, Blogging and How Not to Study Terrorism
Posted on July 26, 2011 | 5 Comments
Claims in early editions of newspapers following the appalling attacks in Norway last Friday that an Islamic group had claimed responsibility have led onto a flurry of accusations regarding the Islamophobia of the media and the experts on which it depends. I have to admit to a measure of sympathy in this case for the [...]
Paradoxes of ‘prevent’
Posted on June 11, 2011 | No Comments
In what seems to be becoming my rather curious emerging role as Bright Green’s resident terrorologist, a few words are probably in order about the government’s new ‘Prevent’ strategy, released last Wednesday. I’d like to make something clear before I start. In this analysis, I take the government in good faith. I assume that Prevent [...]
On anti Israelism and anti-Semitism
Posted on June 5, 2011 | 34 Comments
On March 12, two students at the University of St Andrews, where I work, visited the room of a third, who was living in the same hall of residence, and had what appears to have been an intense conversation on the subject of the state of Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians. At some [...]
On internet history and regulation
Posted on May 26, 2011 | 4 Comments
So, we learn that one of the big areas on which the US and the UK are supposed to still have a special relationship is that of ‘cyberspace’. Or rather, I learned that from my brother Adam, who suggested that I write a piece on it. I ought to be embarrassed to admit that. After all, knowing about ‘cyber’ stuff [...]