Is it legal to arrest people based on their thoughts?

I was just reading this article about the jailed students for possession of dubious books, videos and other paper documents, and the last comment made me think.
The head of dpt said: 'It is clear that these men were intent on committing terrorism overseas,...'

Basically it is now legal to arrest someone who has the initial intent to do something illegal before he actually does it, even if we dont know for sure what he is planning to do, where, to whom, and how.

We all get quited pissed off by cretins who are rude to us, who cut us in their cars, who annoys us, and often think of doing more harm than slapping them, i even heard a guy say he will kill another guy in a pub in a heated argument.
By extention, should we be therefore arrested for intent to harm others, or does the distinction stops at the intent of harming more than one person, or as long as we dont document how we want to beat the hell out of the other driver.
food for thought. PS: am a pacifist at heart
Intent or 'criminal intent' for this matter, is an intent to commit a crime that will result in loss or excessive damage of property, and/or injury or death to others. The law also says that if you knowingly did not reveal any information that could result in serious injury or death, you are also criminally responsible for intentionally not revealing this information. Intent can be stretched out to be almost anything you want it to be, it will often depend on the situation. For example in a pub dispute, if a person knows that someone intends on beating them, they could and may have that person arrested for harassment. Even if the violent act was not committed, the arrest was enacted as a deterrent to that result. Thereby dettering an intended violent act.
I don't think so.oh no they're here for me.
It's legal if you're George Bush.
Yes, it kind of reminds me of George Orwell's 1984, where they have thought police to make sure people don't think for themselves
If they actually have the literature, it is hard to argue that these were thoughts alone, as they had clearly taken preparatory steps to make those thoughts a reality. It has always been quite acceptable to arrest and punish someone when they are still in the planning stage under our conspiracy laws.
of course it is, otherwise you wiuld have to wait till they actually kill hundreds of people before you could do anyhting about it!!! whats the point in that!

i completely agree with it!
Go up to a cop and say
' I THINK you're a feckin w@nker' and see if you're arrested.
Your premise that these terrorists were arrested for what they thought is nonsense, take your medication, have a rethink and come back when your brain isn't scrambled!
technically its illegal to own a copy of 'the anachists cookbook'.

Theres a thin line between freedom of speech and dictatory rules.
It's a tricky issue.

The moment the line is crossed between 'thinking' and 'acting' it is then legal to arrest you even though no crime was committed.

For example, we can easily think about doing something to the guy who cut us off, but when we write down his license number, find his address, and begin to take pictures...that's crossing the line. Same for the other example, because they had 'documents' it was probably enough to arrest them.
Not yet, but it might come to that some day.

(see minority report)
not unless their criminals minds are exposed
Thinking about doing it and owning a book about how to do it is taking it to a different level. There were also most probably other thing in addition to the books that led the authorities to take that action.
Very good question, i dont think it is legal to arrest people based on their thoughts. Why dont they arrest members of the KKK or BNP they have thoughts of killing non white people. We should all have freedom of speech and thoughts.
Yes it should be legal to arrest someone in this situation,if they were to keep these thoughts to themselves that would be one thing but to voice them is another and if you did nothing before the fact then perhaps there would be much more killing of innocent people so stop it before it happens yes good idea.
You can always let the people go if they truly had no harmful intentions but you cannot get the lives back if the kill.


Answers:
If you are carrying around books on how to build explosive devices, you are begging for trouble.
To the disgust of liberals, you cannot be arrested for owning any book, of any sort. Not in this country anyway. Almost all other countries practice censorship, even the milder socialist countries like england and canada, do not offer the slightest pretense of free speech, or due process, nothing that would meet our standards anyway.

Where did you see that?
Thinking about it is one thing. To actually do something beyond to just thinking about it, is a totally different thing. The action towards intending to harm is already there. Eg. in possession of any related materials, or inciting hate is a start. It should be stop before it went any further. I believe that prevention is always better than cure.
Yes, it is due to terrorism laws- One of the up to date ones being passed in 2006

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/security/te...

From the link you will notice it states;
'it a criminal offence to directly or indirectly incite or encourage others to commit acts of terrorism'.

incitement being key here.

This relates to terrorism. However, if somebody threatened you in a pub they could be reported if the victim felt it was serious enough. If someone verbally continued to threaten your life and had videos on killings or how to murder books in their bedroom- the police would definitely take it seriously as it would add to the intention then. Terrorism in this sense has been given a greater seriousness by the uk parliament and therefore it is legal to put these students in prison.
give it another couple years and the cctv system will be arresting you! its true though, your supposed to commit a crime to get done for it!,
does that mean the polititans are all screwed, i bet they've all lied for money!
Where this is the case, this explains why not too many Sun readetrs get arrested.

Well, not for thinking anyway...
if this is true why aint we all under arrest, unless we voice our opinions in a threatening manor
Scary isn't it ? It's amazing how people can be convinced to give up basic rights in the name of preventing terrorism.
in the current political climate, it would be foolhardy to ignore things like this, people get their cahnce in court to prove their innocence, if in deed they are so.
Things are moving in that direction.
mmmm...George Orwell's real name was Eric Blair.co-incidence?