Boy arrested for Anarchist Cookbook

Brian says: A 17-year-old in the UK was arrested for "collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism" due to his possession of the Anarchist Cookbook. Strange that a book freely available on amazon.co.uk can get you arrested.

The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year.

The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.

Amazon.com's page for The Anarchist Cookbook contains a note from the author, William Powell, who says "The book, in many respects, was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in." Link

• [Cpt. Tim]

  EDGORE: or the bible or koran, those books contain passages from god telling you to kill unbelievers.

• [Cowicide]

  > It’s just a good thing that he didn’t have a
  > copy of the Gurps Cyberpunk sourcebook
  > too – that thing is a textbook for
  > commiting cybercrime.

  Yes, and they should also crack down on D&D books which are the textbook for dragoncrime as well. o_O

• [A New Challenger]

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• [Not a Doktor]

  so is he going to get an abso for reading?

  “the gubmunt told meh noht tah reed noh moor”

• [dilemma]

  I was kicked out of high school for having this book in my locker. The memories:
  “We know what you did, just admit it and we’ll be easier on you…”

  This was around 1993.
  Ha.

• [Anonymous]

  you ever seen that book? it was dated when it was first out & pretty mild, just like the customers that bought it

• [Anonymous]

  The story doesn’t give any detail about what else he may have done to get arrested. How would they even know he had it and decide to arrest him over all other people who own it?

  I would guess he did something else stupid, and the book was an easy way to bring him in. The article simply doesn’t give the whole story, specifically to provoke reactions like this.

• [Anonymous]

  For a summary of the book try this,
  http://www.righto.com/anarchy/

• [Dewi Morgan]

  Someone really needs to tip off the police that there’s a warehouse in London from which loads of these books are being *distributed*.

  Hopefully, when they get raided, Amazon will kick up enough of a stink that such stupidity doesn’t happen again.

• [Tirjasdyn]

  Better go hid your Mr. Wizard books from the 1950′s and 60′s…and your chemistry books.

• [Jewels Vern]

  I was 13 years old in 1957. I asked my high school chemistry teacher for some aqua regia to take home so I could make nitroglycerine. He gave it to me.

• [mattx]

  @lolcat stevens

  “It’s worth pointing out that both of those compounds are perfectly legal to own.”

  Which is probably why he’s being charged with “possession of material for terrorism purposes under Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and with the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism, under Section 58 of the same act” and not “possession of a bag of potassium nitrate”.

  Most explosive chemicals are probably perfectly innocuous. Ask the IRA if you want to know how to create devestation with simple ‘household’ materials. The point is, should people that you suspect of using ‘simple household chemicals’ to make (and use) explosives, get away with it simply because the core elements are available on the high street? Presumably not (‘fertiliser bomb terror plot’).

  It is entirely possible that a 17 year-old schoolboy has perfectly decent reasons for stockpiling these chemicals in his bedroom. This is why we have a legal process, in this country, and why the matter is currently in the hands of the courts. My point is that Mark Frauenfelder seems to have tried to pass this off as the ‘UK Government’ clamping down on freedom of speech — “Strange that a book freely available on amazon.co.uk can get you arrested” — when a simple google search would have demonstrated that a book freely available on amazon.co.uk has not, on its own, led to anyone getting arrested.

• [Michael]

  Hey, wow, Clif, are you from, say, Centerville? My Mom lives in Richmond and I grew up on a farm out towards Losantville. Very cool to see fellow Wayne Countiers online. …. Actually, this is the first time. Not like there are a whole lot of us.

• [Anonymous]

  The book says you can get high from smoking bananna peels…it was twenty years ago but I can tell you it doesn’t work. That cast doubt on the accuracy of the other information for me.

• [GaryG]

  @Clif

  neat anecdote, great summation.

  I remember reading this stuff when it was reprinted in Flipside zine (late 80s?), kind of thrilling but, well, dangerous. :)

  People who want to blow things up will find a way, almost always through legitimate channels.

• [Clif Marsiglio]

  When I was a teenager (sadly, 16 years back since I could claim this), I lent this book to a friend whose step-father was a police officer. I never knew this because he lived with his real father most of the time and the most I knew about his other family was that they were douchebags. One weekend after repeatedly asking for my book back, I’m told the stepfather confiscated it….pissed off, but I figured I’d eventually get it back.

  A few weeks later, I’m in class and called to the principle’s office over the loud speaker. It is only a few more minutes until class is over so I figured I’d wait…oh no, they weren’t having any of this. Two police officers who were actually waiting outside the door when the announcement went off decided to come in, announce I was being arrested and taken in for questioning…to the entire class, and handcuff me right there.

  For 6 hours I’m questioned about having the book. The police were actually from a city over — Richmond Indiana — and wouldn’t even let me call my parents to let them know where I was at, or to ask for a lawyer. My sis had heard I was arrested, but the asshole police from my hometown (actually, a bit grateful that it was the other guys) wouldn’t tell my parents anything.

  SIX hours until my parents actually thought about calling other police stations and stopped the questioning. The police thought my mom would actually be happy they stopped me from ‘making the biggest mistake of my life’ (or something to the effect)…’what if he decided to build a bomb’, to which my mom replied that if we were going to live in a police state where people are arrested for reading forbidden knowledge, she hoped I did know how to make a bomb. I never realized how subversive she was until then :-) That was the end of the questioning and I ALMOST got my book back (which my mom promptly took and decided I could have back when I turned 18…never saw it again).

  Sadly, none of the good explosives recipes really ever panned out. Horrible book from a How-To perspective, but it helped keep the juvenile wannabe anarchist minds active. Actually, I credit books like this for getting that crap out of my system and to foster my belief in pacifism because that and the rest of the paladin press books just felt so nihilistic and the fact that anything you could do to someone else, they could just as easily do to you.

• [ill lich]

  “possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism” is mighty vague. A car is useful for making a car-bomb, but until then it’s just a car, and that book is just a book.

  Nuclear scientists have LOTS of information useful to terrorists, perhaps they should all be locked up.

  The fact is: the only way to TRULY fight terrorism is to defuse the anger of the terrorists. Give the Palestinians some kind of real country of their own, oppose middle eastern dictators without invading them, offer economic development that isn’t predatory, in essence be moral politically on an international level. Rounding up everybody who could conceivably be considered a terrorist means eventually everybody will be in prison or too afraid to leave the house.

• [stevemars]

  I was at school in England when this book came out – it’s crap! Even back in the 70′s it was seen as part of a disinformation programme: the recipes don’t work; most of the information is wrong. It was widely believed to have been written by the British Secret Services!

• [Bob]

  Well ‘said’ New Challenger.

• [LOLcat Stevens]

  @MattX

  It’s worth pointing out that both of those compounds are perfectly legal to own. I mean, potassium nitrate is fucking saltpeter, which you can buy at any drugstore last time I checked (in the US at least). And a web search reveals that calcium chloride is used as an ice melter and a concrete additive among other things, so it’s not exactly a controlled substance.

  As a kid, I played around a fair bit with making my own “explosives,” which were more like glorified fireworks than anything else. The pharmacist got a little nervous the first time I approached the counter with a bottle of saltpeter in one hand and sulfur in the other, but even when I explained what I was going to do with them, he still sold me the stuff.

  If there’s anything I learned from those experiments, it’s that store-bought flammables give you way more bang for your buck than anything that you can easily home-brew with a few chemicals from the drug store. I never bothered with the Anarchist’s Cookbook, though my brother tried unsuccessfully to follow a few of its recipes, which really are crap.

  Since I’m no mind reader, I’m not going to speculate on whether this kid was trying to make bombs, or how big, or for what purpose (though I do have sympathy for the desire to experiment with things that go boom). I just think it’s ridiculous that they’re prosecuting him for the possession of a book, and a pretty ineffectual one at that.

• [anangbhai]

  Clif

  I wish I was there to see that. That’s one a them whaddoyoucallit…A Mrs. Weasley moment. (I still hate the last book though).

  Uh..sorry, but the people in power to make the decisions don’t see drum-circle solutions in the same way we do.
  The only way to truly fight terrorism is to install double doors on plane cockpits so the pilots can decide who gets to enter and who doesn’t. Armed security on the plane. You need people who keep their ears to the ground and gather solid intelligence to stop terrorism before someone even thinks about entering an airport strapped with a bomb. I’m sure he would immediately drop to his knees and put his hands on his shoulders once the fat, disinterested TSA official detects residue on his person. “OK! You got me! And I would’ve gotten to the nearly-empty plane too if it weren’t for those pesky..”
  Most important of all: STOP treating citizens like criminals, because that logic takes us to a place where everyone ever imprisoned, tortured or killed deserved it. We’re omniscient, we don’t make mistakes. (We already know how well that turned out). “Those cigarette burns on your face are proof of your guilt. My logic is undeniable. No need for a trial.”
  Stop pretending, and start looking.

• [Cpt. Tim]

  ill lich, you should read “the end of faith” its a great book that shows that either by religion motivated terrorism, or state sponsored zealotry, we’ll end up wiping ourselves off the planet. Educating people out of their myths is a good idea as well.

• [ill lich]

  “As for the book, it’s pretty crappy. Much of the research for it was done using dated knowledge from a public library.”–JTF

  Reading the comments here has reminded me of other recent events (Steven Kurtz detained by the FBI for suspicion of creating biological weapons, only to find out they were harmless, they then press charges anyway!). I think the cops are maybe more scared than the rest of the public, or maybe it’s part of the ego-driven mindset of the people who become police officers– they see the title of the book and flip out, not knowing that the information is all out there in other publications, and maybe mostly false (the original author of the book did a good job titling it– guaranteed sales forever), and then when/if they find out that the book is pretty common they press charges anyway to protect their image.

  The other thought is that police are pressing charges for “intent” when true intent may not be known– the kid could just as easily be exceedingly curious about chemistry instead of a troublemaker. Interestingly, conservatives in the US harp on about our “nanny-society” where everyone is trying to protect us from ourselves, but I imagine they’d have no problem with this kind of “nannyism.”

  No wonder “MacGuyver” was taken off the air.

• [strider_mt2k]

  He’s a witch, BURN HIM!!

• [DMStone]

  I love how worked up people get over this book, when there is twice as much information in any undergraduate chemistry text book. The science in which you could actually trust.

• [PT]

  It’s probably something to do with acquiring suspicious materials and the book after returning from a trip to Pakistan. Pakistan is in the Commonwealth and it’s a reasonable assumption that the Brits have ways to know what their citizens get up to when they visit, so I’ll reserve judgment until after the trial.

• [jtf]

  Funny, the author of the Anarchist’s Cookbook is the former superintendent of a rival school of my high school. I just confirmed it with a friend still in high school; it seems for a few years he ran the International School of Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia. Weird.

  As for the book, it’s pretty crappy. Much of the research for it was done using dated knowledge from a public library. As for arresting someone based on possession of materials that might be made into a bomb… reminds me of an incident in which an American company was fined for selling glucose syrup to Singapore because it “might have been converted into biological weapons.” In other news, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

• [OM]

  …Jesus fracking Christ on a crutch. I’ve owned a copy of the AC since 1980. Does possession of the book now make me a terrorist? I guess owning Gilbert Chemistry Sets are next on the “Go To Jail Free” list.

• [mattx]

  Brian says: A 17-year-old in the UK was arrested for “collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism” due to his possession of the Anarchist Cookbook

  … and half a kilo of potassium nitrate (“a critical oxidising component of gunpowder”)…

  … and a quarter of a kilo of calcium chloride (“which features in the chapter ‘How to Make a Plastic Explosive’”)

  Google. It’s easy when you know how: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk.

• [Mousse2012]

  A couple years ago me an my friends decided to try something in that cookbook, and we decided to do something moderately safe-smoke bombs. they had me go to cvs and buy some potassium nitrate which is a prime ingredient in smoke bombs. we didnt have a hot plate so wee decided to use a glass jar, while we were heating it up, the glass got to hot for the flame so it busted.
  then a couple months later it was the fourth of july.
  we took some roman candles smoke bombs cherry bombs the such and put the contents in a satchel with about 5 fuses twisted together and lit it .
  it was pretty.
  then we decided to light old actiopn figure on fire and the local police came by and thought the basement was on fire. there was about three firetrucks and a lot of police cars. we got scared shitless and ran behind the shed til we decided that we werewnt going to get away, so we gave up….
  I am now A class D felon.
  I remember seeing a copy of the actual book and looked it up. I was not suprised that owning destructive writing was terrorism. I still looked and found an on-line version of it
  its not the same, and THE JOLLY ROGER takes credit for it. If the police track my ipadress, then theyre in for a suprise..
  IP HIDER!
  yeah my current IP is in paris.
  P.S. im only thirteen.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Again? That thing’s been in print since 1971. You’d think law enforcement would recognize it by now.

• [Ceronomus]

  Nice to see that police in countries OTHER THAN the United States can horribly over react and arrest people for stupid things. I was beginning it was just us and the tinpot dictators.

  Sheesh.

  I can walk onto an airplane with enough explosives to bring it down, but I can’t get through security with a bottle of water. Instead I have to buy a bottle of water for $3.50 at LAX.

  It is amazing that Amazon UK hasn’t been shut down for “supporting terrorism” yet. I suppose we just need to give it time.

• [edgore]

  It’s just a good thing that he didn’t have a copy of the Gurps Cyberpunk sourcebook too – that thing is a textbook for commiting cybercrime.