UK TEENAGER HOOKED ON TERROR BEEF: Owner of Anarchist's Cookbook and a trivial amount of potassium nitrate

On October 6, the Yorkshire Post ran the luridly entitled story: Teenager 'had bomb-making chemicals under his bed.'

"A Yorkshire schoolboy was found with chemicals used for making bombs under his bed, a court heard yesterday," reported the newspaper. "The 17-year-old, from Dewsbury, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of plotting to make bombs following a trip to Pakistan."

It was another in a long series of depressing news articles on people being banged up on terror charges based on materials and suspicions which are none too impressive.

It is a British law enforcement directive -- a fever to get "terrorists" while they're still only wanna-be bombers.

Call it a unique variation on "Minority Report," one without the fancy machinery hooked up to clairvoyants sauteeing in tubs of goo in the basement.

Alleged to have a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook on his computer, the court was told the court it "had instructions for 'viable' bombs."

The teenager has been arrested in an "anti-terror raid on his home in Ravensthorpe on September 12" and, if one pieces the newspaper reports on him together, under surveillance of some kind since at least last year when he was apparently charged with possessing materials unspecified "for terrorist purposes."

"During the search approximately 500g of potassium nitrate were found under the defendant's bed in the room he shares with his younger brother," said the prosecutor.

"Potassium nitrate is a critical oxidising component of gunpowder. Also recovered was a file on a computer in the defendant's bedroom entitled the Anarchist's Cookbook.

"The prosecutor alleged 250g of calcium chloride was also found which features in the chapter How to Make a Plastic Explosive," reported the newspaper. "Videos including the devil's face made in smoke following the 9/11 attacks, beheadings and references to jihad were also allegedly found at the address."

The teenager was accused to plotting to blow up "members of the BNP," an ultra right-wing party of racists.

To put things in perspective, DD had these quantities of chemicals when a teenager.

As hard as it may be to believe, in the US -- and presumably in Britain -- one was permitted to have chemistry sets in the Sixties.

And it was not uncommon for us young men to be interested in gunpowder and then to make some. Five hundred grams of potassium nitrate was a trivial amount -- then.

Now, it's an entirely different kettle of fish. It is elementary to find someone to tell a jury or a journalist that a pipebomb capable of leveling part of a block can be made from a modest amount of finely ground charcoal, sulfur and nitrate.

The amount of "calcium chloride," another common compound found under the alleged bomber's bed, is also trivial.

However, lay juries and the press don't know anything of this.

And, experts are on hand to profess it could be made into a bomb in minutes, even if it is not quite so. Indeed, a real chemistry set, or even parts of one, would now be regarded as a complete terror lab.

Making the prognosis even more grim for the teenager is the existence of the Anarchist's Cookbook and the fact that while he is a Brit, he also shares Pakistani citizenship.

That's two bull's-eyes on your back, as far as the forces of counter-terror are concerned.

Copies of literature thought to contribute to the cause of terrorism on the hard drive are now enough to set in motion the process of conviction on charges of supporting terrorism or engaging in conspiracy to commit it.

Practically speaking, The Anarchist's Cookbook -- one of the more widespread anarchy files found on the net and in the possession of young boys -- is now considered a jihadi document.

It becomes irrelevant whether The Anarchist's Cookbook, or portions of Maxwell Hutchkinson's The Poisoner's Handbook, or the works of Kurt Saxon (the Poor Man's James Bond) actually enable terrorism in a practical way.

A strong case can be made that they don't -- that the authors were, in many ways, fundamentally incompetent and that their literature serves more as a source of titillation than as one of practical advice.

For example, if one actually tries to follow the recipes found in such books, and then actually gets lucky, the luck will most likely arrive in the form of an accident which burns or maims the home cook.

"The [Anarchist's Cookbook], 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," wrote the author of The Anarchist's Cookbook, somewhat infamously.)

And certainly, the menacingly leering prose of Hutchkinson and Saxon, even when read as bad Arabic translations back to English, always stands a good chance of inflaming a jury into believing any owner of it must be hell-bent on terror.

So if a Muslim man is found with such texts in any language, the probability of being sent over on terror charges is excellent. It is also directly proportional to the amount of additional jihadi video, inspirational literature and links to such material in the cache of your web browser, found in the bedroom.

"After the 40-minute hearing, the teenager was released on bail under several conditions," reported the British newspaper. "These included reporting daily to police, living at his home address, only leaving home in the company of a named adult, and not being allowed to access a computer, use an internet cafe or use a mobile phone."

Perhaps a small victory -- usually one gets checked into a room at Belmarsh.

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If you're Muslim and male -- the police better not catch you with this.

Thanks to David Mery, he who excellently delves the restriction of liberties for the sake of the war on terror here and here.