"Liquid Bomb" Plot: 75 per cent charge-rate so far.

Three more of those arrested have now been charged with conspiracy to murder and planning acts of terrorism by plotting to blow up planes. That makes 15 charged and five released without charge out of the 25 arrested. The remaining five must be charged today or released, if a judge will not grant a further detention period.

Interestingly, the brother of the alleged plot "mastermind" was one of those released without charge. He wasn't even charged with failing to disclose information about the plot, the charge two of the four accused of lesser offences have been remanded on. UK authorities are attempting to have his brother extradited from Pakistan, but on charges unrelated to the bomb plot.

There's only a 75% charge rate so far. Less if you discount the four not actually charged with involvement in the plot but rather with lesser offenses involving not coming forward about it. The conviction rate may well be far lower still, if past experience is any indicator. One has to wonder if official US leaks hampered British authorities in this matter by pre-emptively causing the arrests.

Meanwhile, the New York Times yesterday published what it said were additional details about the plot but barred those details to website visitors from the UK and put a one day hold on sales of the paper in Britain, citing British laws over fair trials. Unlike most bloggers commenting on this move by the NYT, I am fully in favor of the Time's move. Fair trials are one of those freedoms that terrorists are supposed to hate so much and if the paper thinks its article would prejudice such trials then it has acted competently and sensibly.

Bruce Schneier abstracts the main points:

-There was some serious cash flow from someone, presumably someone abroad.

-There was no imminent threat.

-However, the threat was real. And it seems pretty clear that it would have bypassed all existing airport security systems.

-The conspirators were radicalized by the war in Iraq, although it is impossible to say whether they would have been otherwise radicalized without it.

-They were caught through police work, not through any broad surveillance, and were under surveillance for more than a year.

Which is pretty much what I've been saying already. It makes British government insistence that its involvement in Iraq has not increased the threat of domestic terrorism simply ridiculous - a symptom of an administration that has just had too much unchallenged power for too long and has become detached from reality therby.

It also confirms that the initial hype of the threat as "the greatest since WW2" and deliberate leaking of scare-stories - especially by US officials - was cynical political manouvering of the most base kind. And indeed, neocon operatives are already crowing the success of that manouvering.