Here's an interesting piece of the history of the organisation that brings you this website, which some may recall but most will not have been aware of.
As part of our ongoing efforts to promote discussion and awareness of issues considered taboo yet too important to ignore, we were distributing warnings for British commuters to prepare for a major terrorist attack in London targetting the public transport network, in a prolific campaign several months before we were tragically proved right by the 7/7 attacks of 2005:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.local.london/browse_thread/thread/3acb9c965d0ea990/30a088b6e0389311
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.transport/browse_thread/thread/5f33dc5c0397f46/302e1980449b8e75
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.current-events.general/browse_thread/thread/bda23e132cfa8df3/52967ec7f458b372
Under the codename "Acheson Intelligence Group", with the help of unpaid volunteers, we posted thousands of warnings on websites and usenet, linking to a web page we'd set-up providing practical survival advice, and also distributed thousands of paper leaflets on the underground network and on buses. Many leaflets were handed out directly to people, and we also left leaflets on trains and buses with the attenion-grabbing title "WARNING: TERRORISM" and asked large organisations in the capital city to circulate a copy to their staff.
As usual, there was widespread dissaproval of what we were doing, expressed in various ways before and since. A key member of our team noticed that his mail was being delivered to his postbox at home by folks in plain-clothes and unmarked cars. That's fine -- we don't do it to be popular, we do it to try and help.
Retrospectives:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.local.london/browse_thread/thread/3992f7458e06d731/50f720e2edcf5b9a
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.transport.london/browse_thread/thread/9ee2760b41eaa19b/fad38ffe3b138729
"The Insider" mailing list article, 26 August 2011.
