Sat Late-Afternoon Open Thread

Here's Something to think about.

• The New York Times reports that, when conducting anti-terrorist operations, there is a central difference between Americans and the British, the latter of whom are much more willing to wait and watch before taking action.

From the article:

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The differences in counterterrorism strategy reflect an important distinction between the legal systems of the United States and Britain and their definitions of civil liberties, with MI5 and British police agencies given far greater authority in general than their American counterparts to conduct domestic surveillance and detain terrorism suspects.

"[The British] can arrest people without charging them with a crime, which would make a big difference in how long you’d be willing to let things run.”

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The New York Times would have you believe that British intelligence is far superior to US intelligence.

Despite the difference in legalities, perhaps the 'act-now' versus the 'wait-and-see' policy difference is why there have been no terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11, as opposed to the UK, which suffered terrorist bombings in the Underground little more than a year ago.

Other than that, could the timing of the current bust have simply boiled down to a risk factor for the Brits, since the targets in the plot were US based air carriers?

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