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Suspects in terrorist plot on Taylor Swift concerts radicalized by internet, officials say


A 19-year-old suspect and another individual that Austrian police arrested had made concrete preparations to launch a terrorist attack, Austria’s Interior Ministry reported on Wednesday. Concert organizers on Wednesday canceled three Taylor Swift shows slated for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday after authorities confirmed there was a real possibility of a terrorist attack at the Ernst Happel Stadium.

Who were these suspects? Austrian authorities have not identified either suspect. Police arrested the 19-year-old in Ternitz on Wednesday morning and the other suspect in Vienna in the afternoon. The primary suspect had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group (ISIS) via the internet and had chemical substances at his residence, authorities said. Austrian police reported earlier in the day on Wednesday that a raid had taken place and that authorities would increase security precautions for major events.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about organizers’ decision to cancel the shows.


Josh Schumacher

Josh is a breaking news reporter for WORLD. He’s a graduate of World Journalism Institute and Patrick Henry College.


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MrMeow

After adoption of our national Constitution, John Adams had this to say: “we have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

I’m more and more believing our Nation—with so many people having little regard for law, for traditional moral values, for the rights of the people around them—has outlasted the usefulness of our Constitution. Speaking plainly, we may no longer deserve the freedoms our Constitution was designed to grant us.

MinnieKins

I fear the internet will be the end of free speech in America because people will not remember that suppression of free expression is even worse.

onlychansMinnieKins

I would rather live in a world where porn and jihadist speech is regulated even at the cost of my uncle's occasional conspiracy theory posts than have the internet be a hotbed of grooming and radicalization.

MinnieKinsonlychans

There is a point where some speech regulation is necessary for the safety of others; the problem is who draws the line, and if said line is drawn fairly. We've already seen Biblical views on sexuality labeled as hate speech; would you consider that a fair trade-off to censoring porn and terrorism?

Edward MartinezMinnieKins

The internet and Social Media will be end of Western Civilization. In part because "we" are consumed with "our rights", but no one is discussing our responsibilities.