policing and civil liberties

[helenic]

I've written a couple of articles this week for Police State UK:

Connecting the Dots

While some writers have linked the policing of the G20 to the history of policing and political dissent, even the independent media have mostly failed to situate this connection in a wider context.

How about this for context: The last couple of years has seen a stream of increasingly repressive legislation, denying the conscience of the individual moral agency and responsibility, and curtailing the rights of the many to protect the few. (So the excuse goes; but do we, the public, really need legal protection from people who look at kinky porn or photograph policemen?) Scare-mongering propaganda urging people to report suspicious behaviour among their neighbours. Ubiquitous surveillance enhanced by new technology; endless strategies designed to make it easier to keep tabs on people, such as centralised databases; internet surveillance; making Oyster cards the cheapest way of using the Tube. Exaggerating the threat of an illusory enemy as an excuse to treat the general public as guilty until proven innocent. Terrorism is less dangerous than bird flu or sunbathing; and yet Section 44 uses it as the excuse to grant the Met stop and search powers which intimidate and inconvenience countless members of the general public.

Call me paranoid, but there's a pattern here. And it's getting worse.

MPA defend peaceful protest

Tim Godwin and Chris Allison accepted responsibility in vague terms for events, while denying any specific culpability, and persistently washed their hands of the actions of "individuals". They couldn't give detailed answers on the subjects of any pending investigations. But they were also reasonably conciliatory, and accepted the need for a review of police strategy, to "learn lessons for the future".

However, I'm cautiously optimistic that if the Members of the MPA have anything to do with it, the investigation will be sympathetic and conscientious.