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Police Terror Stops Occur Every Three Minutes
In London
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act has a 0.035% success
rate
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London Police stop and search a member of the public every three
minutes under anti-terrorism laws, new figures have revealed.
Potential terrorists clearly lurk around every
corner as statistics
released to the BBC show that the Metropolitan
Police used section 44 of the Terrorism Act more than 170,000
times in 2008 to stop people in the capital.
The figures represent a more than 140% increase
on 2007 numbers.
Of all the stops last year, only 65 led to arrests
for terror offences, a success rate of just 0.035%, the article
notes.
Furthermore, when you take into account how many
of those arrests have translated into convictions, according
to the Home Office, you come up with a round figure of 0.0%.
"The new Metropolitan Police commissioner should look
at London again from the viewpoint of section 44," commented
Lord Carlile, the Government's independent reviewer of terrorism
laws.
"It catches no or almost no terrorism material, it has
never caught a terrorist and therefore it should be used conservatively."
The new figures follow on from recent revelations that the
use of the 'stop and search' power has increased exponentially
by over
ten times in less than ten years.
In addition, Ministry
of Justice statistics, published last summer, revealed
that from 2006-2007 police used their anti-terror powers to
stop (but not search) nearly two million members of the public
and demand they account for their behavior or actions, a figure
that translates to around 3.5% of the entire British population.
(Article continues below)
Stop and search powers, which were initially
conceived only to be used in emergency situations, 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."
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 REASONABLE
SUSPICION to include "troubled areas".
As of February 17 2009, Section
76 of the Counter Terrorism Act also prohibits
photographing police and permits the arrest of anyone found
"eliciting, publishing or communicating information"
relating to members of the armed forces, intelligence services
and police officers, which is "likely to be useful to a
person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
Essentially, under anti-terror laws, anyone caught photographing
police could face a fine or a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
As we have
recently reported, this section of the act is being
used primarily to target journalists covering protests, who
say they are being targeted by police surveillance officers
more so than the actual protesters. The law has also been used
against tourists snapping pictures of landmarks and members
of the public documenting police misconduct.
A recent report by the Joint
Select Committee on Human Rights confirmed that
journalists and protesters were the primary targets of increased
police misuse of anti-terror laws.
Anti-terror laws are intended for use on the general
public, they always have been, and now we are seeing the rotten
fruits of continued blind acceptance contaminate every section
of society in this country.
Our government is paralytic with power. It continues
unabated in its attempts to force vastly unpopular mass
biometric ID databases down our throats, and has
no qualms announcing the fact that it wants the authority to
monitor
all our phone calls, text messages and emails,
all in the name of "fighting terrorism".
Meanwhile, the primary concern of swathes of the
voting public in this country remains whether or not Simon Cowell
will still come on their television every Saturday night and
demoralize a deluded housewife for their entertainment pleasure.
Britain has become a literal realisation of George
Orwell's Airstrip One. Of course, if you don't like that or
disagree with any of our government's laws you will either be
deported, or if you hold a different nationality, you may simply
be banned
from entering the country as well as publicly shamed.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find
a positive note to end on, however, I do believe that more and
more people are waking up to the control grid that has been
constructed around them in this country. The question is will
enough people wake up quickly enough to put a stop to this onslaught
on our liberties before they are completely wiped out?
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