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Britain: Police State?

It was revealed this week that police searching the emails in the Damian Green Affair were after information on civil liberities campaigner Shami Chakrabarti.
Chakrabarti – a trenchant critic of the government over issues such as the detention of terror suspects and identity cards – today expressed alarm at the claim.

"I think this raises very serious questions about just how politicised, even McCarthyite, this operation was," she said.

There is no suggestion that Chakrabarti was in any way involved in the leaks.
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To prove her point on the increased political interest of the Police, in an article on the downturn in their popularity, I came across this....

Mike Russell filmed police searching his 23-year-old son Bertie's bedroom after his arrest, along with 29 others, in connection with an environmental protest on a train taking coal to the Drax power station in North Yorkshire last June. Officers can be seen taking away piles of news magazines because of "political articles in them".
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... on-assault
 
So possession of The Private Eye is now an offence under anti-terrorism acts?
Like feck is it!
 
It happened to me a couple of years ago when I landed at Newark airport in the US. I'm a diabetic with bad circulation, so when I was standing in the passport queue, I kept getting cramps in my leg. I really didn't feel very good, and I kept having to massage my leg. I was in agony. That (and perhaps the fact that I had very short hair) was enough to get me hauled aside for 'special' treatment.
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That sort of thing really creeps me out, i guess because i work with/around a lot of people who have learning difficulties, mental illness, deafness, physical disability or quite frequently a combination of the above.

Personally i don't think that we should be coming to a point were people are being pulled over or getting tasered for no other particular reason than that someone though there was something odd about them :(
 
I asked if anyone had seen the news report on the thwarted helicopter prison breakout of TERRORISTS immediately after the Jacqui Smith porn embarrassment.

It doesn't seem like that big an incident - certainly when you compare it to preventing the bombing of a shopping centre and capturing 12 TERRORISTS over the easter holidays....after your boss has resigned for stupidity.

Triumph of investigation or knee-jerk reaction to reinforce a TERRORIST threat?

Nine Pakistani students arrested during anti-terror raids released without charge.
Police and counter-terrorism officials were left embarrassed last night after nine Pakistani students suspected of involvement in what Gordon Brown claimed was a "very big plot" against the UK were released without charge.

The nine were due to be deported after being handed over to the UK Border Agency. Two remaining suspects are still being questioned by Greater Manchester police. The move came after investigators spent 13 days searching for evidence following the arrests from a number of addresses in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire under the Terrorism Act.

The raids led to the resignation of the country's leading counter-terrorism officer, Bob Quick, after he inadvertently allowed details of the operation to be photographed. Before the men had been interviewed the prime minister spoke of how the police had foiled a "very big plot", but as early as last Monday it emerged the government had spoken to Pakistani officials seeking reassurances that if the men were deported they would not be tortured.

The Guardian understands the decision to arrest the suspects on 8 April came after a three-way row between MI5, senior officers in the Metropolitan police and the Greater Manchester police. MI5 were strongly of the opinion that the arrests should wait while more intelligence was gathered. But in an example of the tensions between Whitehall counter-terrorism officials and their counterparts in the police, the decision was made to take "executive action" even though the intelligence suggested there was little evidence to charge the suspects.

It is understood anti-terrorist officers in the Met disagreed with their counterparts in Greater Manchester that the arrests should be made. But the concern that there was a threat to the public led to the decision being made to move in.

Investigators had desperately hoped they would find something at the suspects' homes. But after initially hunting for, and failing to find bomb-making equipment, they turned to the computers with their fingers crossed that some evidence of a plot would turn up. They found nothing substantial.

Despite media reports and the plot being talked up by Brown, there was never any evidence that the suspects had identified targets for an attack.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ap ... s-arrested
 
'Growing Old'? Or...[tosses coin] ...'Police State'! :twisted:

Pensioner refused to pay for door smashed by police
Police broke down the door of a pensioner they were trying to find, then sent her the repair bill for £100.
By Sarah Knapton
Last Updated: 10:27PM BST 21 Apr 2009

Mary Reason, 73, returned home from shopping to find her front door smashed down and a squad of police waiting.

The pensioner was due to give evidence at court but officers became concerned when she failed to contact witness services for three days.

Police broke down the door to her home in Staverton, near Gloucester, then billed Mrs Reason for £100 to pay for the cost of repairing the damage.

Now the pensioner is refusing to pay.

I'm a pensioner who has had a stroke and I shouldn't have to deal with stuff like this from the police," she said,

"They had no reason to break in. I get home and I find them in the house. The curtains were open and everything was neat and tidy.

"They could have just walked round and seen there were no problems. I won't be paying - I shouldn't have to."

Gloucestershire Police said the force had checked if Mrs Reason had been admitted to hospital before breaking into her property. A spokeswoman said: "Officers had reason to believe that someone was in, but there were no signs of movement.

"As a result officers forced entry to her property to ensure she was safe. They didn't find anyone in the property and fortunately it was later found that Mrs Reason was safe and well."

The force said it was lawful to batter a door down if there was reason to think the person inside was in danger or injured.

She added: "It is not the responsibility of the constabulary to reimburse the cost of any damage which is the result of officers legally entering the property."

Police have since sent three reminder letters to Mrs Reason, who lives solely on a state pension.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... olice.html
 
While i don't think she should have to pay the money, i don't think the police did anything wrong. Imagine the uproar if the police didn't go around and she was in trouble.

'Mrs Reason' sounds like a name the monty python crew would have used in a sketch. :D
 
Why did they break the door down? That's just overkill. They could have picked the lock or something.
I suspect they just find it more enjoyable to kick the door in...
 
I don't think they did anything wrong either, but it was still a mistake, and there is still personal (or corporate in this case) responsibility.
 
I suspect they just find it more enjoyable to kick the door in...
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Every shitty job has to have its perks, i'd say that if your dealing with scumbags and thugs all day kicking a door in would come as some light relief (especially when you know that in this case there was not going to be some coked up lunatic with a gun waiting behind it).
 
jimv1 said:
I asked if anyone had seen the news report on the thwarted helicopter prison breakout of TERRORISTS immediately after the Jacqui Smith porn embarrassment.

It doesn't seem like that big an incident - certainly when you compare it to preventing the bombing of a shopping centre and capturing 12 TERRORISTS over the easter holidays....after your boss has resigned for stupidity.

Triumph of investigation or knee-jerk reaction to reinforce a TERRORIST threat?
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I'd have thought a botched attempt at distracting from the negative publicity over the handling of the G20 protests, then just a trickle, might be motive enough.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Why did they break the door down? That's just overkill. They could have picked the lock or something.
I suspect they just find it more enjoyable to kick the door in...
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This is the average Bobby on the beat here, not James Bond. Picking locks is a skill used by very few people and then it's hellishly expensive. Most councils use multi bolt doors as well these days, at least they do around here, and getting into them takes the blokes from the council about 30 to 40 minutes of measuring, drilling, more drilling and fiddling about to open them.
 
I'd have thought a botched attempt at distracting from the negative publicity over the handling of the G20 protests, then just a trickle, might be motive enough.
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I wondered about this, but I'm inclined towards cock-up rather than conspiracy in this case.

The Guardian yesterday carried a story claiming that Greater Manchester Police chose to carry out the raids against the wishes of both the security services and the Met. The spooks didn't think there was enough evidence at this stage to justify taking action, and they were clearly right.

In itself it's not hugely surprising that people are arrested and then released because there isn't sufficient evidence to charge them. It happens all the time, and not just in terrorist cases. However, it's clearly inappropriate for the Prime Minister to claim that a major terrorist plot has been uncovered when... er... it hadn't.
 
Quake42 said:
However, it's clearly inappropriate for the Prime Minister to claim that a major terrorist plot has been uncovered when... er... it hadn't.
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I think this point might have been more rigorously investigated by the press, etc, if they hadn't been distracted by the parlous state of the country's finances, and the so-called Budget.... :roll:

(Sometimes, troubles coming not singly like spies can be to the gubmint's advantage!)
 
Quake42 said:
I wondered about this, but I'm inclined towards cock-up rather than conspiracy in this case.
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If you've ever seen 'The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear' by the brilliant Adam Curtis, you'd see that the main exponents of the art of instigating a fear of the unknown were the fairly cynical and savvy leaders of the supposed free world.
Now we have that warped vision diluted to a crass and inept mantra and the workings of 'Terrorists' are invoked every time the Government gets itself into trouble - which these days is too often. To get to the point where the tactic is used to attempt to sway the headlines away from the ludicrous Jacqui Smith's pornographic bathplug (price 88p) or a photocopied document on display by an incompetent officer shows a complete disregard held for the intellect of the general public in my view.

Try telling the 12 innocent students threatened with deportation there's no element of conspiracy in the way the Government and the Police are handling the threat of TERRORISM and in using it to cry wolf at every opportunity are creating a cynical familiarity with something that is potentially a very real threat. And consider the timing of the release of the bad news that no bad guys had been found doing bad things.
 
I have seen the Power of Nightmares, actually. It was very good. Nonetheless, the terrorist threat is not just a "nightmare", as the corpses in New York, Madrid and London illustrate.

I don't doubt that Western governments are using the threat of terrorism to curb our liberties and to "bury bad news". I'm less convinced that they are cynically arresting random students just to distract attention from Jacqui Smith's bathplug, or whatever. The students had clearly been under surveillance for some time and operations of that nature don't come cheap.

The fact that no credible evidence was found points far more to a cock up than conspiracy... if the agents of the state were really as fiendishly cynical as you claim, why not plant some? Or even target someone who *is* involved in extremist activity?

The whole thing sounds like a massive and hugely embarrassing mistake.
 
G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds'

MP demands inquiry into Met tactics at demo

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... ovacateurs
 
I couldn't understand why it was newsworthy.

Police wish to gather information on the plans of a group that commits criminal acts and major disruption at already sensitive locations. Is that not their job?

What next? London Tonight reporting that 'Fingers' Murphy was shocked to have local CID pressuring him for anything he knew about the big jewel heist in the East End?
 
Police wish to gather information on the plans of a group that commits criminal acts and major disruption at already sensitive locations. Is that not their job?
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Yeah... to be honest to some extent I thought that too, although I may be biased as I find the "Plane Stupid" activists deeply, deeply annoying.

Having said that, we are talking about a non-violent group that, to date, has caused only minor disruption. Who else are police trying to infiltrate?
 
Quake42 said:
Yeah... to be honest to some extent I thought that too, although I may be biased as I find the "Plane Stupid" activists deeply, deeply annoying.
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They are certainly on the money with their choice of name.
 
Quake42 said:
Having said that, we are talking about a non-violent group that, to date, has caused only minor disruption. Who else are police trying to infiltrate?
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Who aren't they? Infiltrating and investigating new political organisations is routine. If you've been involved with a grassroots political group or new political movement, and it's had a public profile (published a newsletter, organised a march, or otherwise gotten out of its founder's loungeroom), it's safe to assume that group was infiltrated, investigated and assessed. If you suddenly find yourself with a new member who's eager to equip or instruct the group in relation to illegal matters (breaking and entering, weapons and fighting, explosives), that's your infiltrator.

(Disclaimer: former grassroots political organiser.)
 
Ffalstaf said:
Infiltrating and investigating new political organisations is routine. If you've been involved with a grassroots political group or new political movement, and it's had a public profile (published a newsletter, organised a march, or otherwise gotten out of its founder's loungeroom), it
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I might have mentioned this before, but when I worked as a postman, I knew the local branch chairman of the National Council of Civil Liberties. He told me that his post was routinely opened and that he never received his letters until the second delivery. I laughed and said that such a thing couldn't happen (I was young and naive back then in the 70's). Anyway, I checked the desk where his delivery was sorted and there, on a piece of wood screwed down to the desk, was the message, "Mail for [the NCCL bloke] must be handed to the supervisor before 0700. Do not deliver it on the first delivery". I was pretty shocked at the time.
 
It is shocking when you first come across it, isn't it?

A couple of organisers with whom I worked suspected their phones were tapped - lots of strange noises on the line. Then one of them began receiving visits at home, at nights and on weekends, from uniformed officers he didn't know, who would just ask, "So, how are you?" and "Where are you working these days?" before driving off again. The other organiser used FOI to get a copy of the file on himself from ASIO. Neither of these organisers was involved in anything more than organising marches, publishing newsletters and delivering the occasional speech.
 
Ffalstaf said:
It is shocking when you first come across it, isn't it?

Neither of these organisers was involved in anything more than organising marches, publishing newsletters and delivering the occasional speech.
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Reminds me of the beginnings of some Austro German character in the 1920's and 1930's, great public speaker.... went on to murder a few million people....oooh whats his name :roll:
 
Police State??? You reckon???

Nah! we will not descend into a Police State, for one thing Cops like the rest of us have their names and addresses on the Electoral Register, so that means that we can know where our neighbourhood Fascist Plod lives, and that being the case, he will know that he or she would become a sitting target for any "Accidental Burning" of his home, car, garden shed etc. Not that I,m saying I would be the Incendiary mind you, but I might just be an interested observer of any conflagration and nod sagely safe in the knowledge that "It wasn,t me Guv, Honest, it was like that when I got here", innit.
 
Re: Police State??? You reckon???

Tangaroa42 said:
Nah! we will not descend into a Police State, for one thing Cops like the rest of us have their names and addresses on the Electoral Register, so that means that we can know where our neighbourhood Fascist Plod lives, and that being the case, he will know that he or she would become a sitting target for any "Accidental Burning" of his home, car, garden shed etc. Not that I,m saying I would be the Incendiary mind you, but I might just be an interested observer of any conflagration and nod sagely safe in the knowledge that "It wasn,t me Guv, Honest, it was like that when I got here", innit.
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The saving grace for Police officers is the knowledge that the "It wasn,t me Guv, Honest, it was like that when I got here", innit mob can't read so they wont be able to read the voters roll anyway.
 
Beam me up.

Town halls hire citizen snoopers as young as SEVEN to spy on neighbours and report wrongs

Children as young as seven are being recruited by councils to act as 'citizen snoopers', the Daily Mail can reveal.
The 'environment volunteers' will report on litter louts, noisy neighbours - and even families putting their rubbish out on the wrong day.
There are currently almost 9,000 people signed up to the schemes. More are likely to be recruited in the coming months.
Controversially, some councils are running 'junior' schemes which are recruiting children.

After basic training, volunteers are expected to be the 'eyes and the ears' of the town hall.
They are given information packs about how to collect evidence, including tips about writing down numberplates, which could later be used in criminal prosecutions.
Luton Borough Council's Street Seen scheme encourages its 650 volunteers to report 'environmental concerns'. It is also recruiting 'Junior Street Champions', aged between seven and 11.
Primary schools could also be involved within two years.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rongs.html
 
jimv1 said:
Beam me up.

Town halls hire citizen snoopers as young as SEVEN to spy on neighbours and report wrongs

Children as young as seven are being recruited by councils to act as 'citizen snoopers', the Daily Mail can reveal.
The 'environment volunteers' will report on litter louts, noisy neighbours - and even families putting their rubbish out on the wrong day.
There are currently almost 9,000 people signed up to the schemes. More are likely to be recruited in the coming months.
Controversially, some councils are running 'junior' schemes which are recruiting children.

After basic training, volunteers are expected to be the 'eyes and the ears' of the town hall.
They are given information packs about how to collect evidence, including tips about writing down numberplates, which could later be used in criminal prosecutions.
Luton Borough Council's Street Seen scheme encourages its 650 volunteers to report 'environmental concerns'. It is also recruiting 'Junior Street Champions', aged between seven and 11.
Primary schools could also be involved within two years.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rongs.html
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And of course, we all know that kids don't lie or make stuff up...

Will they get issued little uniforms in a nice shade of brown or black, with a neat little logo, I wonder?
 
Mythopoeika said:
And of course, we all know that kids don't lie or make stuff up...

Will they get issued little uniforms in a nice shade of brown or black, with a neat little logo, I wonder?
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To be fair we could say and ask the same of the Daily Mail's journalists.
 
The Daily Mail aren't enlisting the children of Primary Schools to dig out the indescretions of the neighbours...as far as I know. I imagine there'd be some sort of kerfuffle if Blue Peter started a 'Shop Your Parents Hotline' (ask them first for permission to use the phone though).

Junior Street Champions. EEEeeuuuuurrrrrrrrgh!
Mind you. That's how the Pope got where he is today.
 
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