Since France has gone into a state of emergency the results have been worth it.
The Muslim community don't have to know each other personally, they have many Mosques and many people that use them, one could suspect?
Your right it isn't a hollywood movie, but it seems to me alot of people think it is, because whatever alternative is in place at the moment, isn't and will never work.
What would you do to combat this threat?
If a state of emergency only affected the 'bad guys' then there wouldn't be such a problem but it doesn't, it affects all of us including me and you. And you may think that's fine if we're innocent of anything, we won't get bothered, but that's not how it works. You ever had any dealings with the Police? If you have you'll know that a lot of them could do with brushing up on their people skills. They can be arrogant, aggressive, forceful, and as been documented, violent. (They can also be kind, considerate and courageous). So if you're a homeless person getting your bags tipped out as part of a search, or a person of colour getting randomly stopped, this can be frightening and intimidating. If it happens once you might think "ok, it's worth it, they're doing their jobs". But then it ends up happening again and again, to people who've done nothing wrong. Imagine getting regularly stopped by police while you just go about your normal day? It gets irritating, frustrating and just pisses people off and creates division. And once you're in a state of emergency and the government has got these powers, it becomes more tempting for them to keep them and to expand them. People start getting arrested for all sorts of reasons, speaking out against the government, posting something the government don't like on twitter perhaps. You get an authoritarian government and volunteer to give up your rights and you're in for a kicking. You don't have too look to far to find countries where free speech is a long gone right, check out Turkey. Governments will go way further than we might imagine. It sounds over the top and far-fetched but I'm probably not even scratching the surface.
As for knowing people through Mosques, they probably know each other as well as we might know the other people that go to the gym with us. Extremists aren't just going around telling everyone their plans. Yes there may be signs of radicalisation but if you barely know someone how can you possibly predict that they're involved in something like that? Like I said, all the people who've been friends with or worked with or known serial killers or serial rapists or paedophiles, whatever, how would they necessarily know? Bloke who worked in the same place as me got done for child porn, should I have spotted something? It's not as cut and dried as people make out.
I agree that there needs to be a change with dealing people on watched lists, it's incredibly frustrating that this guy recently travelled to Syria and was known to authorities. When police are on to someone like that I'd like to think there was the capability to build up enough evidence to make a case against him before anything like happened. Deportation, prison (anti-radicalisation programmes are in place), I agree that more needs to be done to get them off the streets to start with. More police would help - cutbacks to the police force aren't exactly helpful. Spending £££ on trident while the real threat is here is baffling to me. But I don't believe in making the lives of innocent people a misery in the process.
Unfortunately there is no instant solution to this and im certainly not the person to give recommendations. I would imagine that stopping arming Saudi Arabia and getting involved in conflict would be a smart idea. As would focussing on healing the divides in this country that exist. The images from Manchester of communities coming together, of white people speaking up for their multicultural communities, stories of Muslims, sikhs, Christian's, those with no faith coming together to give free taxi rides, free food and drink, display solidarity at vigils - lots of people dismiss this as weak or foolish, I personally think it's a show of strength against Isis that they would despise. Not only does it defy them but it brings us closer together. People will call this lefty idealism, but I just think it's common sense. God knows further division wont solve anything.
