Blair Wants 'Wartime' Police Powers

British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving "wartime" powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.

If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said. Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.

The Sunday Times said the powers already existed in Northern Ireland. Civil rights groups viewed the plan to extend them to the rest of Britain as an attack on civil liberties, it said.
Such powers had existed before in other parts of Britain only in wartime, it said.


SOURCE:
CNN

Not being a UKer myself I can not in good conscience say whether or not this is a bad
thing for the UK, however being a believer in civil rights, I have to say I think this is ridiculous.

I could understand if the 'war' was in or near the country (like during WW1 & WW2),
but this is a complete abuse of power.


Comments, Opinions?

Blair and Reid and Co are Fascists, simple as. I've been saying it for ages now, and I just wonder how many of my fellow Brits are STILL thinking Blair, Brown and their people can be trusted in power.

What the hell are you going to do? Wait until your kids are fingerprinted in school? RFID chips in your clothes? GPS tracking boxes in your cars? Travel cards that tell them what stations on the rail and bus network you have been to? Arrest and detain you for no apparent reason and get away with violating YOUR human rights simply by uttering the now-infamous, abuse of power whitewash phrase of 'Terrorism'? Imprison you indefinately without trial?

Everyone needs to seriously wake the hell up IMO, before its too late.

And make no mistake, the clock IS ticking...

As I pointed out,
Stop and Question powers already happen in Northern Ireland and have been very successful (as the article points out)

its nothing new.

As already stated its nothing new, but my only concern is the scope for abuse by the police.

This is an excerpt from the independent in Jan 06

But the Terrorism Act, when sanctioned by a senior officer, allows police to stop and search people even without suspicion - something that campaigners say is a throwback to the notorious "sus" laws of the 1970s. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "This is almost worse than the sus laws. The police have the power to change the law of the land in whole parts of the country.''

Dominic Grieve, the shadow Attorney General, said: "These figures speak for themselves. The powers are being used as a blunt instrument and it is far from clear if those arrested are being done so for terrorism. "While we accept such powers may be necessary to protect the public from terrorism, it is vital these powers are not abused."

Heres an example of how powers ca be abused from the same article;

Mr Gillan, 28, a PhD student from Sheffield who has been researching political protests, was among 140 people arrested under the Terrorism Act outside an international arms fair in 2003 in London's Docklands.

Mr Gillan said: "I was within sight of the Excel Centre when the police stopped me. They asked to search me and said it was under the Terrorism Act. A police officer went through my stuff and confiscated some bits of paper with details of other demonstrations. It took about 20 minutes.

"I was pretty amazed that they were using anti-terror legislation against protesters. The law is giving an incredible amount of power to the police. It is an exceptionally strong law. These are supposed to be extraordinary powers, not used all the time."

There is not only the well known problem of police simply targeting Black males for no reason, there is also the ability to disrupt or stop peaceful protest or demonstration from taking place.

I'm not against the Stop and question and search laws as i think they are well neeeded, but we must be vigilent that the powers are not abused and that we are not rendered useless to reverse or change that law should we need to.

There's a very reasonable debate to be had about the extent and limitations we as a society place on the Police & their powers........

......but a blind accusation of 'fascism' which is wholly ignorant of similar practices which have long been in place (ie the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act, which was a renewable Act passed every year since 1974 until made more formal in 2005) within the UK (in this instance largely Northern Ireland but it did apply throuighout the whole of the UK) and under both tory and Labour Govs in that 33 year period is exactly the kind of obvious loaded partisan nonsense that turns many people off of such a debate.

I do find the undertone that 'they' are repressing us and making ever harsher law for no reason whatsoever ludicrous and to totally ignore reality.
We had anti-terrorist measures before because there really was terrorism going on, just as there is right now.

It's one thing to be anti-Labour or anti-TB or JR but to pretend that these reported claims of 'new proposals' herald a brand new repressive series of measures is to simply be ignorant of our own past.

It's also worth pointing out that at this point this is merely a media story - in the UK carried by 'The Times' here and picked up elsewhere.
'The Times' is a Murdock paper; Murdock papers are not exactly known for it's reflex sympathy to this Gov......but like 'The Sun', for instance. have been putting a pro-war spin on things and looking for harsher law and anti-terrorist measures.

When I see actual proposals and the Parliamentary debate then I'll think about what strong position (if any) I take over this
but sorry, I just do not think cries of 'fascist' are merited on this tale just yet.

They already have those powers

They just need to state they suspect you of committing a crime or of being in posession of evidence etc etc etc