Just weeks ago, in the aftermath of the Barcelona terror attack, the British government announced it was considering extra checks on those seeking to rent vehicles in the United Kingdom as some kind of risible deterrent against terrorism. This weekend, a new scapegoat has been found: the internet. Prime Minister Theresa May stated, following the bucket bombing of a London Underground train last week, that internet giants such as Facebook and Google were not doing enough to stop would-be terrorists accessing plans of how to make improvised explosive devices. “One of the issues that we really need to be addressing, and I’ll be raising this when I’m at the United Nations, is the question of the use of the internet by terrorists for terrorist planning,” she said. “But also this using it for the spread of extremism, of hatred, of propaganda that can incite and can inspire terrorism.” We’ve seen how these counter-extremism measures are used already. Christians and Christian schools have been targeted, as have teenagers who express support for patriotic political movements like UK Independence Party. Now instead — again — of attempting to tackle the root causes of terrorism, Prime Minister May simply wants to try and
