Over 100,000 stops-and-searches: zero terrorists When it comes to wasting police time, the biggest offenders appear to be...the police. That, at least, appears to be the conclusion of the Home Office. Its official statistics, published today, show that while police stopped over 100,000 individuals last year to "prevent acts of terrorism", there was not a single arrest for a …
HA HA HA HA
Don't be silly. I mean, seriously. The only way forward is *more police powers*, obviously. How else are you going to catch terrorists? What, you didn't manage to conclude that from this report? Well, we'll just have to commission a better report then, won't we then? You'll see we were right all along. From inside a jail if necessairy. We promise you'll see it our way eventually.
Yours, the ACPO.
Are they not guilty of committing a more serious crime, namely terrorism itself.
They have tried and continue to try to change the course of politics in this country by spreading fear and terror. We are all about to be blown up apparently.
Except we're not are we, you lying fucks.
While they were stopping and searching people of dubious stereotypical races the terrorists, cunningly discuised as white middle class eastern european types just carried on their business of selling imported cigarettes and DVD's in Holloway to fund their evil terror campaigns
Damn obvious to everyone but the plod it seems
Actually, half the problem is that because they dare not be seen as being racist, they were stopping the native white anglo-saxons when the threat was posed by non-white anglo-saxons. I'm not being racist here, it's a fact.
Back in the good old days of the IRA, people with Irish number plates and O' at the start of their surname would be subject to more grilling than others. This wasn't discrimination, it was common sense. Plus of course they couldn't be accused of being racist, as the Irish are pretty much the same ethnicity as the English (all be it with more red hair).
Anyway, I thought it was the Chinese that had cornered the market is dodgy DVDs?
For the most part Plod & Bobby are not the ones making the decisions on whom should be harassed. Blame the politicians who direct them.
Most police want to work effectively and most understand policing far better than their overlords. Unfortunately the police don't make the decisions.
These days of extreme political correctness etc, actually doing something useful without causing offense or otherwise getting into hot water, is very difficult. It is far easier to just go along with this anti-terror lark and keep busy but out of trouble.
Also, consider that this isn't their own time being wasted but their employers, ie. the tax payers.
You can blame the politicians for bad law - as many of us do - but it's the police at a local and individual level who spectacularly fail to apply common sense in using it. By applying it to every situation in which it will make their lives easier or more satisfying - irrespective of whether it is appropriate - they more or less prove they cannot be trusted to think for themselves.
Remember the Labour conference a few years ago? Ageing hecklers dragged out by private thugs and then arrested (using said newly minted "terror" legislation) by publicly paid thugs. Same conference, several people arrested for wearing T-shirts bearing slogans not in tune with the Labour "message"; same laws deployed. The Cenotaph; people reading lists of names arrested under said police state "terror" law. No one popped out of Downing st and said "look can you arrest those fuckers they're spoiling Tony's afternoon nap".
The web is thick with documented examples of the police who, faced with members of the public who refuse simply to tug their forelock and do what they're told, resort to the most convenient and ambiguous piece of "shut the fuck up" law they have to hand. It says "anti terror law" on the tin, why use it for anything else if they "understand policing far better than their overlords".
If the military followed the same logic as the police, every squaddie in Aldershot would be spending the weekend slotting people he/she didn't like on the basis that "the government handed me the tools, it's up to me to decide how to use them". Ask yourself; if most people can manage to avoid behaving like prejudiced bully boys with penis envy, why can't the police?
"For the most part Plod & Bobby are not the ones making the decisions on whom should be harassed. Blame the politicians who direct them."
Er, no. I think P&B are *exactly* the people who are making these decisions.
Or can you perhaps name the politician who issued the instruction to police forces to arrest photographers?
"Also, consider that this isn't their own time being wasted but their employers, ie. the tax payers."
I think we knew that. It always is. The trouble is that there is not much we can do about it.
Look at it from the police perspective. Without this law, they would not have been able to stop over 100,000 "villains" who could have gone about their business, which might have involved doing bad things (did I mention, they were villains). No doubt we'll now be told by people in suits that "defence is the best form of offence" and that "prevention is better than cure" and all sorts of other aphorisms which will not only permit these sorts of activities to continue, but with the obvious success of over 100,000 stops must and should be expanded.
I can see the official line, right out of "Yes Minister": "You've stopped over 100,000 people and not found a single terrorist" "Yes, exactly - a huge success, while we've been doing this, there hasn't been a single terrorist. We must do more." Gaaaahhhh.
I think you're right on the money about a lot of politicians reading this as a resounding success.
If only I had the ears (not literally; don't arrest me) of said politicians. I'm sure I'd be able to sell them a large shipment of Tiger Attack Prevention Rocks ... see www.notigers.com (non-commercial).
After harassing the general public with the excessive powers bestowed on them by Plunkett, Blair & Brown, particularly photographers, the Plod has produced a completely unassailable set of figures all on their own.
ACPO must be stunned, at least more stunned that at the present time than usual, that the Met Plod has own goaled ACPO's propaganda.
And remember Labour's bleating for extended periods of incarceration without charge? Another report just released shows that few are kept over fourteen days and that any charges were preferred by the 14th day. And Labour wanted 90!
Thank someone for the Lib-Dems sanity in these matters. Hopefully they will reduce the insults to British freedom.
To show that those 100,000 will re offend at some point.
All the home secretary has to do to prove this is pay the JD Institute of made up research to make up some research like they did with the DNA retention argument.
I gather the going rate to get a report of choice is 3.9 million quid a year.
Surely this report provides all the evidence needed to support the claim of "Abuse of police powers".
The law was debated in parliment on the basis that the powers could be brought in, as a draconion measure as a short term response to a specific threat in which the people involved were not identified.
Police have abused that power. This report proves it.
The cops have been really pissed off ever since the scrapping of the suss laws.
They have used various other ruses to carry on pretty much the same as before though, targetting the same sections of society.
Do they really think we are that thick?
Well, with the cuts to everything coming our way - oh, apart from the Xmas presents to 'anti-terrorist' companies - they will have thier hands full elsewhere (hopefully).
I mean not 1%, not 0.1%. Zero. Not *one*
What is the average length of time spent on one of those?
5 mins? 10 mins? 20 mins? 1 hr?
On a 40 hr week that would be 4 years of PC time at 5 mins a stop
Depending on time allowed it could be over a *decade* of plod time.
*Total* wast of police time.
I'm pretty sure that I remember being behind an underground train that was blown up on 7/7, that was fairly terroristey.
Also, you know those two big towers in New York that aren't there any more, where three thousand people died, despite what you may have heard, that wasn't done by the government. No, that would have also been terrorists.
Those bombings in Bali, the bombings in Madrid, also terrorist attacks.
There demonstrably are terrorists, your position is based in just as much reality as the position that everyone with a beard is a terrorist. The truth lies somewhere between the two extremes, neither of which are useful.
My point is that pigeon holing statistically random acts of violence under a single umbrella allows the .gov to make the problem seem a hell of a lot bigger than it really is. Couple that with television making said random acts in Bali or Madrid look like they are happening in your living room, and you have the situation we are in now.
I am not trying to say there are no politically, culturally and/or religiously xenophobic idiots out there, some of whom are willing to kill themselves in the name of whatever cause. I am saying that they are not linked in any meaningful way, shape or form. Hanging the label "terrorist" on all of 'em is a convenient way for the government of your choice to make the problem appear much larger than it really is.
Recently here in the US, I've seen a disturbing trend towards calling schoolyard bullies "school terrorists" (thanks, Faux news). Gangs have been "terrorizing" the East Bay for years.
Next thing you know, Jerry Brown will be "terrorizing" Meg Whitman ... In a nutshell, in my mind the term "terrorist" has become overloaded to the point of becoming meaningless.
Maybe you should have said what you said in your reply, rather than "there are no terrorists". I tend to agree with what you said in your reply, but your initial statement isn't helpful. Like I said, the truth is somewhere between the terrorist equivalent of "reds under the bed" and "no-one is a terrorist."
I would argue that the atrocities I mentioned can and should be called terrorist acts, but that there should be greater understanding of and more responsible reporting of the chances of being involved in one of them. Furthermore there should be a better reporting of the social and political reasons for them having come about.
It will be true for a small number of people, but using the 6-degrees rule...
1. How many times have you personally suffered directly from terrorism?
2. How many people do you know who have?
3. How many people do you know who know people who have?
4 etc.
5.etc
6.etc
Suffering from terrorism doesn't mean 'being made a bit late', either.
#4 or 5 for me, effectively as I know someone who was working in NYC when the first WTC got hit and looked out of his window and typed on IRC 'Fuck. A plane just hit the WTC' so I guess he knows someone who knows someone. Pure chance I was in the same IRC channel at the time, too.
Suffering directly from terrorism is the exception not the rule. Same can't be said for suffering from beaurocracy though :o(
Some Welsh Terrorists in balaclavas fired 8 automatic rounds into the trees above our heads. At the time I thought it was excellent fun and ran to catch the falling leaves. My mother was very frightened and my dad chased after them swearing in welsh once they were safely speeding away in their landrover. They simply did not like English people.
1. once
2. 3 (chap I worked with was blown up by the IRA, he was still annoyed about it)
3. 1 associate had an associate killed on 9/11
4. Everyone, we all suffer from the "after 9/11" excuse for the loss of freedoms.
I read it as the terrorists are the ones crying Terrorists!
Thinking back to the death of Jean Charles DeMenezes after 7/7, did we not all rejoice that the cops had wasted a terrorist only moments later to prey that they had not fucked up?
Clearly we did not hear the full truth of that. Is it not possible that the electrical engineer had some role in 7/7 that the authorities did not want exposed?
(Thinking of the movie Brazil where there seemed to be a lot of small terrorist attacks)
As a former bobby, I can clearly say everything to do with paperwork is detested including filling out the little S. 44 form. Same thing goes for the S.1 PACE search. I just remember so much pressure from above citing "You need to do X Section 44 searches a week to show we're proactive on Terrorism"... where X was anywhere between 10 and ridiculous, and of course the mood of the home office at the time. I agree partially with a poster above that the poor bobbies are inundated with forms to fill out, which they actually spend most of their time doing. For a humorous and realistic look at our miserable lives I suggest the book (aptly named) "Wasting police time" by PC David Copperfield. You'll then realise most of the time we're not outside patrolling or fighting crime. We're actually writing up our reports by hand.... yes, still by hand.
The police actually do an excellent job....
here are two other examples in today's news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/29/cctv-police-punching-stabbed-man
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8090575/Three-police-officers-arrest-traffic-officer-over-parking-row.html
top stuff! well done boys!
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