I'm a suspected terrorist!
It's only a matter of time before it starts happening to everyone; I just didn't think New Labour's thinly-disguised thuggery would jackboot its way into my life so directly. Last night I got stopped and searched as a suspected terrorist.
I know it was terrorism, because reading the back of the receipt, that's the only circumstance in which the cop doesn't have to give his name. Following the bag search, and giving an excuse of 'Now I need to give you a receipt', he proceeded to take my name, address, and a personal description. I wonder what happens to these records? There's no confidentiality statement. (I wonder what my 'build' description - 'Prop' - means too, in light of recent appropriate language guidelines.)
Britain has been sliding into a police state ever since New Labour arrived in Downing St; it seems the process is now complete. This government - and the police and civil service it's succeeded in politicising - can now, it seems, do anything it wants, with barely a whimper. Overturning legal precepts a thousand years old.
The ancient right against unreasonable searches - gone. Elsewhere on the statute books, other centuries-old legal principles - lawyer-client privilege; freedom of association; right to a private life; all are fading from Britain's statute books faster than a watercolour in sunlight. The common thread: this Government hates the thought that British citizens might be doing things and not telling the government about them. Even if it's just a quiet beer and burger in the West End on a Saturday evening.
These people will soon be able to lock you away, without reason or charge, for three whole months instead of 24 hours. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. (We will, however, collect $200 from you, soon-to-be-ID-card-holding member of the British public, for the privilege of making it easier for us to arrest you.)
Of course, it had nothing to do with me looking suspicious, and everything to do with me looking co-operative. I hadn't done anything; the cop knew that, I knew that. (What have I done wrong recently? Hmmm, I vaguely remember a parking ticket in 1989.) He just detained me as an easy way of 'making his numbers'. He nodded when I asked if it was to check he wasn't stopping too many black people. It's possible I contributed to it simply by wearing an orange shirt, which would make the 'subject's description' part of the form nice and easy.
And that's the whole problem. Laws like the anti-terror ones make everything nice and easy - for the people who write them. They don't have to justify them, don't have to concern themselves with the way every bad law gets used in ways never intended (throw an 82-yr old heckler out of a conference hall when he embarasses New Labour ministers, anyone?) Bad laws just affect everyday people, while the government basks in the smug satisfaction of Doing Something. Everyone's a wrongdoer in Blair's Britain. You must be, because we said you are.
That said, I don't blame the cop: I got the impression he was as disturbed by his night's assignment as I was. While I have no love for the police, this wasn't a police action: it was a political action, straight from the desks of Blair, Blunkett, Hoon and Straw. And Britain continues hardening, as the police state truly gets a grip.
A hardcore of fewer than 100,000 people in the UK commit 99.2% of all crime; 50% of all crime is committed by just 5000 or so of them, and all these people are well known to the police. With this everyone's-a-suspect policy swamping useful information in a tidal wave of noise, that hardcore must be laughing.
I know it was terrorism, because reading the back of the receipt, that's the only circumstance in which the cop doesn't have to give his name. Following the bag search, and giving an excuse of 'Now I need to give you a receipt', he proceeded to take my name, address, and a personal description. I wonder what happens to these records? There's no confidentiality statement. (I wonder what my 'build' description - 'Prop' - means too, in light of recent appropriate language guidelines.)
Britain has been sliding into a police state ever since New Labour arrived in Downing St; it seems the process is now complete. This government - and the police and civil service it's succeeded in politicising - can now, it seems, do anything it wants, with barely a whimper. Overturning legal precepts a thousand years old.
The ancient right against unreasonable searches - gone. Elsewhere on the statute books, other centuries-old legal principles - lawyer-client privilege; freedom of association; right to a private life; all are fading from Britain's statute books faster than a watercolour in sunlight. The common thread: this Government hates the thought that British citizens might be doing things and not telling the government about them. Even if it's just a quiet beer and burger in the West End on a Saturday evening.
These people will soon be able to lock you away, without reason or charge, for three whole months instead of 24 hours. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. (We will, however, collect $200 from you, soon-to-be-ID-card-holding member of the British public, for the privilege of making it easier for us to arrest you.)
Of course, it had nothing to do with me looking suspicious, and everything to do with me looking co-operative. I hadn't done anything; the cop knew that, I knew that. (What have I done wrong recently? Hmmm, I vaguely remember a parking ticket in 1989.) He just detained me as an easy way of 'making his numbers'. He nodded when I asked if it was to check he wasn't stopping too many black people. It's possible I contributed to it simply by wearing an orange shirt, which would make the 'subject's description' part of the form nice and easy.
And that's the whole problem. Laws like the anti-terror ones make everything nice and easy - for the people who write them. They don't have to justify them, don't have to concern themselves with the way every bad law gets used in ways never intended (throw an 82-yr old heckler out of a conference hall when he embarasses New Labour ministers, anyone?) Bad laws just affect everyday people, while the government basks in the smug satisfaction of Doing Something. Everyone's a wrongdoer in Blair's Britain. You must be, because we said you are.
That said, I don't blame the cop: I got the impression he was as disturbed by his night's assignment as I was. While I have no love for the police, this wasn't a police action: it was a political action, straight from the desks of Blair, Blunkett, Hoon and Straw. And Britain continues hardening, as the police state truly gets a grip.
A hardcore of fewer than 100,000 people in the UK commit 99.2% of all crime; 50% of all crime is committed by just 5000 or so of them, and all these people are well known to the police. With this everyone's-a-suspect policy swamping useful information in a tidal wave of noise, that hardcore must be laughing.
posted by chrisworth at 5:43 PM
1 Comments:
Hi,
Could you please provide the source for the numbers in the final paragraph of your post? Thanks,
Anatole
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