Police demand new powers to stop and search terror suspects

Police demand new powers to stop and search terror suspects

www.guardian.co.uk

Police have asked the government for a new counter-terrorism power to stop and search people without having to suspect them of involvement in crime, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officers have told the government the new law is needed to better protect the public against attempted attacks on large numbers of people, and are hopeful they can win ministers' backing.

Britain is facing a double terror threat for the first time in a decade. Counter-terrorism officials believe the risk of att

(visit the link for the full news article)

What are your thoughts on this?
In a place where CCTV records you 300 times a day and police already have alot of power what do you UKers think about this?

The amount of powers that the western world's police want during G20s is disgusting, even in Canada those powers were past being illegal.

Thoughts?
Are we entering a new era?

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

it doesnt matter as the police just say they are investigating a burglary or something in the area and they search you anyway, it used to happen to me all the time as a teenager and it still happens on occasions when they stop my car and find out i have a criminal record even though i havent been arrested in years.
the last time they did it the description was two men and even though i was on my own and about 4 or 5 miles form the supposed burglary of a nightclub , they searched my car as i had a small bottle of vodka in the back(not the big type you get in nightclubs) and i was a man so could of been half of the burgling duo.

A lot of civil liberties have been lost all in the name of fighting "terrorism". Warrantless domestic spying, sneak and peak searches, suspension of due process, suspension of habeas corpus, being held incommunicado and indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer, "free speech" zones, naked body scanners and groping...

1984 is alive and well in 2011.

Once we lose our liberties, we rarely if ever get them back.

The police want new stop and search powers under the terrorism act because the one they had was declared unlawful and illegel by the European Union human rights court. It is a case of whinging.

Stop and search under terror laws unlawful, Europe rules

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, officers can stop and search anyone in a designated area without having to show reasonable suspicion for doing so.

The policy, which saw more than a quarter of a million stops last year, has led to accusations the police are abusing the power to stop anyone, including protesters or photographers, under the guise of preventing terrorism.

But the tactic may now have to be abandoned after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said it breached the right to privacy.

www.telegraph.co... .uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6975087/Stop-and-search-under-terror-laws-unlawful-Europe-rules.html

As of September 1st 2010, the police cannot stop and search anyone by mere suspicion alone and they are now beaching about it. This power was meant to assist in preventing terrorism but all it amounted to was the hounding of black males to the extent that 28% of all black men in the UK were stopped under the terrorism act. The police destroyed their own powers.

No terror arrests from stop-and-search, says government

Not one person stopped and searched under anti-terrorism powers in Britain was arrested for terrorism-related offences last year, figures show.

The Home Office statistics also showed no terror suspects had been held in custody before charge for longer than 14 days since 2007.

In all, 101,248 people were stopped and searched in England, Wales and Scotland under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

Of the 506 arrests that resulted, none was terrorism-related.

www.bbc.co.uk...


You read that right; of the 101,248 people that were stopped under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act only 506 were arrested over unrelated matters. This is a detection rate of 0% for terrorism and 0.4% for unrelated and unintended matters.

We do not need a new terrorism act in the UK because the police are too incompetent to deal with it; leave it to the security services.

It is for the good of the collective, how can anyone be against it? /s

Sorry, I can live with the remote chance of terror attack. Quick math, let us just say in a 10 year period, 2000-2010 there was 4000 deaths in the US. High just to keep the math on the side of error. Now, the chance today that I will be harmed by a terrorist is 1 in 273,750,000. To be attacked in the next ten years would be 1 in 75,000. This is just basic odds, no differing components put in.

I have more of a chance getting hit and killed by lightening today than being a victim of terrorism. Sorry, I think that I do not need the government to infringe on my rights so that there is LESS of a chance of a lightening strike.

Take it what you will.

Ben Franklin paraphrase, "those that would give up essential freedom for security deserve neither."

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


i read somewhere that statistically you are more likely to be hit by a stray policemans bullit or even by a trouser related accident in the us than you are by a terrorist attack

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
What are your thoughts on this?
In a place where CCTV records you 300 times a day and police already have alot of power what do you UKers think about this?

We're not recorded 300 times a day on CCTV. You're quoting, without knowing probably, a report into CCTV in the UK from several years back and not even quoting it right or in context. I read that report from cover to cover, did you? 98% ov CCTV systems in the UK are in private ownership, ie, in shops and the like. They are rarely monitored and only used to gather evidence after a crime, such as shoplifting or the recent murder in Bristol of the young woman.

And the Police were stripped of their previous stop and search powers by the European court. They are unlawful and a breach of basic Human rights.

Also, the Guardian is an extreme left-wing paper known for distorting facts. What it doesn't tell you is that these powers were stripped under a Tory Government (and they face losing powers, not gaining them) and actually put in place by the Guardians party of choice, Labour.

Please, before bleating about a "new era", the NWO, shape-shifting lizards or sppoks hiding under my bed to film me doing the missus, please take a rational look at this and avail yourself of all the facts, not just those presented by some left-wing rag.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Lets say this the way it is meant shall we? The police want the right to stop and search anyone , anytime , without having to justify it in any way . They wish to have the power, to insinuate themselves into the daily lives of anyone they choose, regardless of wether or not the person gives them a reason to think that they are villans?
I am absolutely appalled by this. I would rather live or die in a crater strewn wasteland, under constant threat of bombings and bullets , than ever bow before such a law.
This is a democracy! If laws like this are to be passed, we may as well , those of us who enjoy what liberty remains to us, move to China, or North Korea. Livid? Furious? You better believe it!

reply to post by TrueBrit


The Police have spent the past 13 years being politicised by the previous Government and are used to getting their demands, which is actually against any reason as the Police should concentrate on enforcing existing law and not requesting new ones.

reply to post by TrueBrit



Excellent comment. People often forget their rights when there is fear mongering. We are sleep walking into a "show me your papers" culture.

The police were practising on violating the rights of minorities because it is easy. When it becomes acceptable then they move onto the majority. You will end up having police officers walking into your place of work to look at your papers, they will send search squads into pubs because they have "intelligence" and places like hospitals will have police checkpoints.

The irony is that with the the terrorism powers, there crime detection rate was even worse than normal policing methods.

When all the IRA terrorists attacks were going on, this wasn't deemed necessary. I see no reason why it is necessary now. There are actually significantly less terrorist attacks today than there were then.

reply to post by stumason


Oh hell, it doesnt even matter which government is in at any one time Stumason! The Conservatives are just as likely to use the tool that the police represent for thier own disgusting aims as were the Labour Party. What is important is that when it comes to it, they are simply not allowed by weight of public opinion, and under threat of civil action against thier institutions, to do what they wish to do with regards to these laws.
The people must stand up for thier right to privacy and allow no argument to disuade them from protecting that right.

reply to post by Ilovecatbinlady


Most of the so-called Terrorism powers are actually quite useless and are often misinterpreted by the Police, such as "not being allowed to photograph" them. As it happens, we have plenty of rights, inculding not being obliged to carry ID or even prove our identity. It is worth educating yourself on your rights rather than belating about us becoming like NK....

reply to post by TrueBrit


True enough I suppose, but we're helped by the fact that the Police, like all Government agencies, are facing big cuts so they really cannot afford to oppress us!

Also, as I said, it is worth educating yourself about these so called "terrorism" laws, as they are full of holes and are often misinterpreted by the Police at the detriment of people like you and me. Know where you stand and you can run rings round them, I do!

reply to post by Ilovecatbinlady


With regard to the detection rate being worse, of course it was. The police spent so much time stopping and searching, that they forgot how to actualy investigate crime. There was a time where your local beat bobby in this country , had a solid head on his shoulders, and had a measure of investigative skill. Nowadays you would think that all they do is concentrate the training on fitness and ability to ignore thier own guilt in order to make clouting protestors possible, and so that they dont feel so bad when they burst in on peoples privacy on the shakiest grounds imaginable !
Police now are nothing like the paragons of moral and ethical values they were when I was a small boy (and they damned well were too. All our local bobbies were top blokes who respected the citizen, and prevented harm) and now enforce laws they know to be wrong, force innocent protests into frenzied melees in which they can brutalise people with abandon, and now, to top it all, they wish to rifle my pockets? Impinge on my privacy , and yours, and your friends, and your parents, and your brothers and sisters privacy ?
I say damn them, and damn thier ridiculous laws. Screw the law, what the hell happened to JUSTICE?

reply to post by stumason


Stumason, while I understand well enough the holes in the laws about which we are raving at this time, I am also aware that the ability to examine a law and gain understanding of it, is not an ability shared by all our countrymen. I myself was lucky to be a bookish sort of a chap when I was a nipper. But plenty of my contemporaries are barely capable of spelling thier own name , let alone examining a document of law, and gaining insight into its useful meaning.
It is for those people that I really rave about these things, and for them that I contact my MP on as regular a basis as I can to contest these issues. They do not have the capacity to dance around the law as you or I might, and all to often fall foul of laws such as these without the slightest clue that they are being badly done by .

reply to post by TrueBrit


Again, another true statement. Without wanting to be too derogatory, it's the national "idiocy" that enables this siutation to arise in the first place. I go to great lengths to "educate" (I know I sound patronising...) people as to the actual Law, not what the Police (who are, quite often, as retarded as Joe Bloggs) interpret it as.

I spent a couple of hours this Christmas Day enlightening family members that they can, in fact, take as many pictures of the Police, the Army, Westminster palace or a Naval base as much as they like, when previously they believed that it was illegal! It is only "illegal" if it can be proven that those images are likely to be used in preperation of an act of terrorism, which must be done in a Court of Law, which requires evidence to even get past the CPS. I pointed this out to a Fuzzleton once when he told me to stop taking pictures of a place in London and said that if I was arrested, he'd better have a good reason to believe I was a terrorist and have some evidence otherwise I'll be calling my lawyer and suing the Force. Never did get arrested and was left alone.

At no point can the Police confiscate your camera, delete images (that's actually Criminal Damage) or what have you, but up until recently the Police believed they had this power, until someone finally stood up to them!

reply to post by TrueBrit


I know where you are coming from. The police are incompetent and small minded idiots. I work in a local authority and my office is next door to the statutory asbo team who deal with the police on a daily basis. They tell me the cops they work with are dull, bullies and sex perverts. The manager of the section always has a male colleague accompany the female asbo officers to protect against the police officer sex pests.

It seems that the quality of police recruits over the last 10/15 years has dropped through the floor and criminals are actually joining the police. Apparently you can join the police even if you have a criminal record as long as it is spent and it is not for violence.

reply to post by Ilovecatbinlady

Its a difficult one I think.
While you get idiots in every job,the cops are under more public/media scrutiny than your average Joe.
They are not all bad people,not by a long shot IMO.
The experience my family had with the cops when they were REALLY needed was better than I could have hoped for.
They were professional and relentless in the pursuit and capture of a very nasy person.
And after that,they continued to visit members of my family to reassure them they were safe.
They were good Cops.
Most of them are.

I can sort of understand the Cops wanting additional powers for anti terror matters,as, if they make 1 cock up or miss one bad guy many people could die.Thats the pressure they are under.Thats why they want more powers.
But if these searches got misused,and applied to everyone-like the TSA system in America but on every street corner,I would think we would have gone too far.

Like I say,its a difficult one.