Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on police-state http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic police-state Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Leviathan's boys in blue Mon, 03 Oct 2005 16:03:38 +0100 Via <a href="http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/">The Two Wolves Weblog</a> comes a version, by the chap himself, of <a href="http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html">one mans story</a> of being arrested as a suspected terrorist for wearing a jacket, carrying a rucksack, and, well, ..., that's about it. <blockquote>The Police eventually decided to take No Further Action (NFA): a decision not to proceed with a prosecution. In a democratic country such as the UK, one would be forgiven for naively thinking that this is the end of the matter. Under the current laws the Police are not only entitled to keep my fingerprints and DNA samples, but apparently, according to my solicitor, they are also entitled to hold on to what they gathered during their investigation: notepads of the arresting officers, photographs, interviewing tapes and any other documents they collected and entered in the Police National Computer (PNC). (Also, at the time of this writing, I still have no letter stating that I'm effectively off the hook and I still haven't been given any of my possessions back.)</blockquote> Maybe I'm an extremist but, if true, this seems piss poor to me. This war on terrorists (necessary, we are told, because of Chairman Blair's eternal war to create as many terrorists as possible in the Middle East) seems too important to leave in the hands of the Met who, although they didn't prevent July 7th or the follow-up did manage to shoot an innocent Brazillian 6 times in the head. [Note I'm not suggesting they could have stopped July 7th, merely pointing out the limits of what we should expect and be prepared to pay for in Anti-Terrorism.] What about reparations for this mans lost time? For the distress caused to him and his girlfriend? What about his possessions that they have stolen from him without just cause? What about the damage they have willfully done to his identity and reputation? How can the police get away with wrongly turning this guys life up and down and then walk away from the incident with an airy No Fucking Accountability? We're definitely in Quis custodiet ipsos custodes territory now. Who is making the police accountable for the powers they are wielding against us? Who is holding them responsible for their mistakes? Who is demanding they make reparations for the wrongs they cause? Who is challenging them to do better and do no harm? Well, me, for one. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002956.html Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Part I) Mon, 03 Oct 2005 21:32:36 +0100 Do the police publish statistics for:<ol><li>Number of people stopped in relation to anti-terrorist laws</li><li>Specific criteria used for deciding to stop an individual</li><li>Whether detained or not</li><li>Outcome: prosecution, detention, NFA</li></ol>This kind of information is vital for oversight over anti-terrorist measures. I can't find it on the <a href="http://www.met.police.uk/">Met website</a> either generally or in the <a href="http://www.met.police.uk/foi/">FOI publication scheme</a>. If it's not public, why not? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002960.html Bringing the workings of government out into the open Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:49:23 +0000 I've been disturbed by recent reports concerning the Bush administrations use of the tools of military intelligence against U.S. citizens, seemingly in violation of the constitution of that country. I'm not so much disturbed for Americans who seem not to care about the rising threat of a police state in their country as I am for what it says about what actions are permissable for the leaders of a modern, democratic, state in the name of security and how this can be overseen. I accept that I am in a minority: I am one of those people who are prepared to trade security for liberty. I am also one of those people who would prefer their government to stop interfering in the affairs of others. I am one of those people who believe that a more aggressive persuit of the latter policy would make the former more palatable. That I am in a minority of such believers makes me sad, especially since the majority don't actually seem to enjoy the state of paranoia that they will upon themselves. I recently wrote to my MP Siobhan McDonagh about the Blair governments involvement in extraordinary renditions. Unlike my previous inquiry about the DVLA selling my details, Siobhan seemed reticient to address the murkier side of her parties activities in government and I received no reply. I am not surprised. Still I am naive enough to believe that it should still be a matter of shame for an MP to put party loyalty ahead of conscience. Shame on you Siobhan. I believe my government is more than slightly involved in this, despite their denials. For those who think that a British government wouldn't stoop to this I hold up as precedent the actions of a previous government in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1669544,00.html">running the Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre</a>:<blockquote>Ministers were anxious that nobody should learn that CSDIC was running a number of similar prisons in Germany. There was also what the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Frank Pakenham, later to become Lord Longford, described as "the fact that we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps". The army, meanwhile, said it was determined the Soviets should not discover "how we apprehended and treated their agents", not least because some would-be defectors might have second thoughts.Finally, there was the inevitable fall-out for Attlee's Labour government. As Hector McNeill, foreign minister, pointed out in a memo to Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: "I doubt if I can put too strongly the parliamentary consequences of publicity. Whenever we have any allegations to make about the political police methods in Eastern European states it will be enough to call out in the House 'Bad Nenndorf', and no reply is left to us."</blockquote>Blairs government has allied itself with the Bush administration in so many areas, am I to believe that the use of torture is the exception? Torture, incarceration without right of trial, a neverending war on terror, increased use of military methods against civilians: this all leads in one direction. I don't like it. But what control do I have? I can vote for another government but I am reminded that I don't remember giving Blair's original government a mandate to invade other countries. It seems that voting for governments is a poor mechanism of control. And what about oversight? If, for the sake of argument, I agreed that a state should have the right to do some of these things, how should they be overseen? The current deny everything approach is unsatisfactory to me. Is there anywhere a proper debate about what should be permissable for the modern state? How about whether the modern state still has a right to exist? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00003118.html