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London Musicians Must Give Police Swathes Of Personal
Information To Perform Live
Eight page form will detail names, aliases, private addresses,
phone numbers of all musicians and ethnic background of
the likely audience
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Musicians and performers in London will soon be required by law
to complete and hand over to police an eight page form detailing
all their personal information and the ethnic background of their
audience if they want to perform.
The information will be collected by venue owners
and managers throughout the city, who will have to adhere to the
process should they wish to promote live music.
Failure to comply with the information demanded
on Form 696 could mean the loss of a licence or even a fine and
imprisonment, reports the London
Independent.
Police quietly introduced the legislation in 2006,
and have recently defended it, saying they need the details in
order to ensure safety and "identify troublemakers".
Groups of musicians and promoters have slammed
the move, suggesting that it will harm the live music
scene and encourages venues to effectively spy on patrons. Others
have described the bureaucratic process as a form of racial discrimination.
There are also fears that the legislation will be applied throughout
the country if it is accepted in the capital.
The Musicians' Union is consulting lawyers over
the invasion of privacy, while another group, UK Music
is seeking a judicial review.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
As with most recent legislative erosions of civil
liberties, form 696 is a phenomenon of the culture of fear our
governments have consistently fashioned and promoted over the
past decade. In a post 9/11 / post 7/7 world, everyone is treated
as a suspect until proven otherwise, especially if you have brown
skin and a foreign sounding name.
Musicians and performers are no exception.
Take the case of The Clash tribute band member Mike
Devine who was arrested at his office in Bristol and taken away
for questioning after he sent
an SMS text message containing lyrics from the song
Tommy Gun to his lead singer who had forgotten the words.
The message read:
"How about this for Tommy Gun? OK - SO LET'S AGREE ABOUT
THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER AND TEN PRISONERS"
A terrorism analyst told reporters that the interception
provided proof that Britain's spy teams at GCHQ were actively
monitoring all vocal and textual mobile phone traffic.
That was 2004, now in 2008 the British Government
has openly
announced that it wants to make that very practice
lawful.
In a similar incident, Harraj Mann was reported
to the British airport police for listening
to a Clash record in a taxi on the way to the airport.
The weasel driver was so frightened by some of the lyrics that
he took them as a rallying call for a terrorist attack.
Of course it is unlikely that the police or the
government will raise an eyebrow to the mindless
gibberish passing for lyrical content in the majority
of musical performers' work.
Ask yourself, who is more likely to be classed as
the "troublemaker"? Will it be the performers who sing
endlessly about money, bling and easy girls or will it be those
who wish to address real issues and make their audiences think
about more than the pursuit of expensive baubles and trinkets?
Sign
a petition to the Prime Minister Gordon
Brown to get the Metropolitan Police to scrap the use of Form
696.
Facebook
Group - Stand Up To Form 696
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