RIOTING: London Police Use Smartphones, Social Network to Identify Rioters

Published 10 August 2011

The rioters in London -- and now, in other British cities -- have been using Blackberries to outmaneuver the police; communicating via BlackBerry instant-message technology, as well as by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the rioters repeatedly signaled fresh target areas to those caught up in the mayhem; RIM has now agreed to cooperate with Scotland Yard to turn over protestors using the service to coordinate their assaults; the police is also releasing CCTV images of the rioters to a group using face recognition technology to identify and condemn rioters; the police is also using Flickr, Tublr, and Twitter to spot and identify participants in the riots

London police have been using the same social media // Source: sodahead.com

Smartphones, especially Blackberries, have been a helpful information transmission and coordination tool for anti-government activists in a score of Arab countries – and they have played a major role in helping the rioters in London and other British cities coordinate their assaults and evade the police.

Here is how the New York Times saw it:

Despite an additional build-up in the number of riot police officers, many of them rushed to London from areas around the country, gangs of hooded young people appeared to be outmaneuvering the police for the third successive night. Communicating via BlackBerry instant-message technology that the police have struggled to monitor, as well as by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, they repeatedly signaled fresh target areas to those caught up in the mayhem.  Read more

U.K: Asks Citizens to Report Anarchists Along with Terrorists

[I find this rather chilling, since I have had several conversations of late, about some anarchists and their violent acts...]

Published 4 August 2011

The U.K.'s counterterrorism police force has asked local businesses and residents to report any anarchists in their neighborhoods along with religious extremists; the notice comes in the wake of the attacks on Norway which left seventy-six people dead; the Metropolitan Police is urging residents to report any suspicious activities from Muslim terrorists like al Qaeda, Irish dissidents, and political groups like anarchists; anarchists were the only political group mentioned which is drawing criticism for singling out the organization.

TERRORISM: Study Finds U.K. at Greatest Risk of Terror Attack

Published 4 August 2011

A recent study found that the United Kingdom was at greater risk from terrorist attacks than any other Western nation; the study, complied by Maplecroft and dubbed the Terrorism Risk Index, ranked the United Kingdom at higher risk than the United States, France, and Spain; overall the United Kingdom ranked thirty-eighth behind nations like Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which topped the list in that order; the U.K. ranked higher than other nations due to the internal threat from dissident Irish Republican terrorists; "The U.K. continues to face terrorist threats posed by Islamist militants and dissident Irish republicans. The Islamist terrorist threat has both international and domestic elements," the report wrote; it added, "The majority of perpetrated attacks continue to be committed by dissident Irish Republican terrorists"