- PM May says internet must now be regulated, as terrorists have ‘safe spaces’ online
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said that introducing new rules for cyberspace would deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online and that technology firms were not currently doing enough.
She made the comments outside the Downing Street on Sunday morning in the aftermath of the van and knife attack that saw seven people killed and dozens injured. Declaring enough is enough, she called for a review of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy.
Prime Minister May, who faces a general election on Thursday, said that five credible plots have recently been disrupted. She said that the recent attacks were not directly connected but that terrorism breeds terrorism and attackers copy one another. “They are bound together by the single evil ideology of extremism that preaches hatred, sows division, and promotes sectarianism,” she said.
“It is an ideology that claims our Western values and freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. We believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face, as terrorism breeds terrorism, and perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully-constructed plots and not even as attackers radicalised online but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”
She called for international agreements to regulate cyberspace to help stop the spread of extremism and said Britain needs to become more robust at identifying and stamping it out. “That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations,” she said. “Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time,” she said.
“But it cannot be defeated through military intervention alone. It will not be defeated through the maintenance of a permanent, defensive counter-terrorism operation, however skillful its leaders and practitioners. It will only be defeated when we turn peoples’ minds away from this violence.” She said that the men attacked innocent and unarmed civilians in Borough Market with blades and knives.
Prime Minister May said that they were wearing what appeared to be explosive vests, but police determined those were only meant to sow panic and fear. “If we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for terrorism-related offences, even apparently less serious offences, that is what we will do.”
The intervention comes after the introduction of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 – the so-called ‘Snooper’s Charter’ – which expands the powers of spying agencies and the government over the internet. The act, championed by Prime Minister May, requires internet service providers to maintain a list of visited websites for all internet users for a year and gives intelligence agencies more powers to intercept online communications.
Police can access the stored browsing history without any warrant or court order. The British prime minister’s comments come after the third terror attack on the UK in three months. A car and knife attack on Westminster in March left five people dead, while a bomb attack at a concert in Manchester two weeks ago killed 22.
