This entry was posted on
Monday, December 14th, 2009 at
5:49 pm and is filed
under Tories! Tories! Tories!.
If you’ve been following the Jenvey/Mercer/Wightman saga, you’re probably aware of Glen Jenvey’s habit of releasing emails, PDFs, Word DOCs and the like in group emails or via comments on other people’s websites (or both) as evidence of this or that.
This weekend, it was both, so the following data has already been in the public domain for a couple of days, and it appears here couched in the following disclaimer: the source is Glen Jenvey, and I have yet to verify authenticity.
Previous to this, I established that Patrick Mercer, Chairman of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Counter-Terrorism, had continued to endorse and work with Glen Jenvey (more), for quite some time after I published evidence that Jenvey had been fabricating evidence of extremism in online forums.
A vague yet comforting notion had been put forward that Mercer only relied on Jenvey for hard-to-fake intelligence such as voice recordings during this period, but if either of the following emails are genuine and from Mercer, then what we’re looking at is that MP (or someone from his office) taking evidence of extremism in online forums supplied by Jenvey* (almost a month after I published evidence that he had been fabricating evidence of extremism in online forums) and having an immediate full-on terror alert boner over it**, which some might regard to be a bit of a risky thing to do, if not en error in judgement:
Rt Hon Michael Martin MP
Mr Speaker
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA 3 February 2009Al-Firdaws English Forum Website (www.alfirdaws.net)
One of my security sources has approached me with information relating to possible terrorist attacks targeted at train carriages carrying Members of Parliament. It is my view that discussions of this nature on website forums are clearly contrary to Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 (on encouragement of terrorism and glorification of terrorism).
I would be very grateful if you could ensure that this matter is investigated expeditiously by the relevant authorities as I am concerned for the safety of Members of Parliament when they travel to and from their constituencies each week.
I have enclosed a copy of the relevant discussions and look forward to hearing from you.
–
Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP
Home Secretary
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF 3 February 2009Al-Firdaws English Forum Website (www.alfirdaws.net)
One of my security sources has approached me with information relating to possible terrorist attacks targeted at train carriages carrying Members of Parliament. Discussions of this nature on website forums are clearly contrary to Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 (on encouragement of terrorism and glorification of terrorism).
First, I would be very grateful if you could provide me with some reassurance that this matter will be investigated expeditiously by the relevant authorities as I am concerned for the safety of Members of Parliament when they travel to and from their constituencies each week.
Second, I would like to know when the individual responsible for posting these entries under the alias of ‘Resistance’ will be arrested or charged under the encouragement and glorification provisions found in Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006.
I have enclosed a copy of the relevant discussions and look forward to hearing from you.
–
(*Jenvey is not named as the source, but is presumed to be the source on the basis that he was privy to the subsequent calls to action.)
(**If the correspondence is genuine and from Mercer or his staff as has been implied by Jenvey, we can only hope that Mercer also saw fit to inform the police.)
Normally I’d contact the alleged sender and seek to verify authenticity of something like this, but Patrick Mercer has sought to portray such efforts as a form of electronic stalking.
Therefore, he leaves me with little choice but to contact the recipients (and/or the relevant staff/offices) and be as transparent as possible about the whole process (i.e. so my questions to these people aren’t addressed with a further private accusation of stalking).
I’ll let you know how I get on.
Obviously, if the letters are genuine and from Mercer, he’ll have some serious questions to answer about what effort (if any) went into authentication of the evidence before he issued such a strong call to action to the Speaker and the Home Secretary; we can’t have a Chairman of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Counter-Terrorism who echoes cries of ‘wolf’, now can we?
