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Terror Stopped For Putting My Hand In My Pocket
"YOU. STAND OVER THERE."
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This past Sunday night I was subjected to another stark reminder
of how far the UK has descended into a total police state when
I was stopped on the street by "Police Community Support
Officers" for putting my hand in my pocket.
After returning to London in high spirits from an
excursion to see the great Neil Young play a barnstorming gig
at the Hop Farm festival in Kent, I was standing at the bus stop
in Trafalgar Square with my girlfriend only to suddenly have the
following order barked at me by a goon in a bright yellow jacket:
"YOU. STAND OVER THERE."
"Excuse me? Are you addressing me?" I
replied.
"STAND OVER THERE." the man repeated while
pointing about 1 metre to his left as his female colleague stood
silently staring.
"No thanks, I think I'll stay here." I
replied.
"WE CAN DO THIS THE EASY WAY OR THE HARD WAY."
He continued, attempting to assert some form of power over me
in his own mind by forcing me to pointlessly move one step away
from my current position, while speaking to me in a manner you
or I would a dog.
After five long minutes of refusing to move until
he told me why it was necessary, the PCSO told me he was stopping
me because he saw me adjust my shirt and put my hand in my pocket.
That's right, the new terror threat is people with
their hands in their pockets.
(Article continues below)
For those who are unaware, a PCSO
is not a real police officer, but merely a "visible
and reassuring presence on the streets" employed
to tackle "the menace of anti-social behaviour".
PCSOs have the same powers of arrest as any other
ordinary citizen in the UK, and can arrest anyone without warrant
if they know or believe they have committed an indictable offence.
They can hold someone for up to thirty minutes while waiting for
a police officer to reach the scene.
Essentially they are stasi-like spies and tattle
tales in bright yellow jackets.
Until November of last year, when the law was changed,
several forces were recruiting
PCSOs under the age of 18. At this time the government
also introduced a set
of standard powers and duties (PDF) for all PCSOs.
Long time readers may remember that when Alex
Jones bullhorned the Houses of Parliament back in
2005, the day before protest without a permit was banned in Parliament
Square, he was stopped, recorded and reported by PCSOs.
STOP AND SEARCH
Stop and search powers have proved controversial
since their introduction in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
The government has consistently backed the powers as an important
tool in the fight against terrorism.
Since then, the powers, while not leading directly
to the prevention of any terrorism, have been most notably used
against: Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton for protesting
outside Europe’s biggest arms fair in London;
the 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang for heckling
Jack Straw at the Labour Conference; Sally Cameron
for walking
on a cycle-path in Dundee; the 80-year-old John Catt
for being caught on CCTV passing a demonstration in Brighton;
the 11-year-old
Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft for accompanying her parents
to an anti-nuclear protest; and a cricketer on his way to a match
over his possession of a bat.
More recently, Scotland
Yard admitted that its officers have been photographing
children who are stopped and searched, even after they have been
found to be innocent, and keeping the pictures on a database for
"intelligence-gathering purposes".
In the past we have reported on instances where
police have admitted stop and search records are permanently
retained.
The Home Office guide to stop and search states
that "if they don’t find anything, your details will
be recorded
for monitoring purposes, and you’ll be allowed
to go."
New
Ministry of Justice figures published today revealed
that police used their powers to stop nearly two million members
of the public in the street and demand they account for their
behaviour or actions from 2006-2007, a rise of one third.
Each one foot long stop and search form takes an
estimated seven minutes to fill in, meaning that police spent
the equivalent
of 25 years filling in the "stop" forms
last year.
The government has continued to
push for greater stop and search powers for police.
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act bestows exceptional
powers on the police to stop and search at random, once a particular
geographical area has been designated by a chief officer as one
that might be targeted by terrorists and authorised as such by
the Home Secretary. The government has since extended
this power to stop and search WITHOUT GIVING A REASON
to include "troubled areas".
How long will it be before the entire country is
designated a "troubled area"?
And so, to return to the exchange I had with the
stasi this past Sunday....
After a round-the-houses exchange with the PSCO
along the lines of
"Do you have anything in your pocket you shouldn't?"
"Like what?"
"You tell me."
"No, you tell me."
he demanded identification and put in a call to
his higher authorities to check I wasn't a wanted criminal.
All the while his colleague stood watch saying "it's
just procedure, let him get on with it, if you've done nothing
wrong you have nothing to worry about."
That is the crux of the problem, it is now everyday
procedure in this country for fluorescent jacketed tattle tales
and busy bodies to grab anyone they want on the street and order
them around before putting in a hotline call to the police in
the off chance they may have bagged themselves a bad guy.
All the while we are force fed the notion that we
have nothing to fear from such invasions of privacy, when in actual
fact our entire culture, society and freedom are under direct
threat.
After emptying out my own pockets (by choice, so
as to avoid having to deal with the real police) the PSCO exerted
his divine privilege to let me go, but not before asking if I
wanted to hang around another ten to fifteen minutes for a copy
of the foot long form he was about to complete.
"No, just put me on the database with all the
other innocent, law abiding people." I told him, and duly
walked off, seething.
So add my name to the long list on police records
along with Alex Jones' and all the other evil people who have
ever exerted any of their public rights in the UK, all those who
have ever walked around minding their own business, all those
who have merely put their hands in their pockets or adjusted their
clothing in what was deemed by a "community minded person"
to be a suspicious manner.
We are all suspects and we are all being "recorded
for monitoring purposes".
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