Tory terror police were 'fishing' for Liberty

An example of why we need to fight draconian laws

The whole "if you're innocent, you've nothing to worry about" argument doesn't take into account police incompetence (or is it malice?). The more power we give to the police, the more chance we'll end up with wrongful detentions / convictions, either because they have prejudice against groups like Liberty (an entirely legitimate and relatively moderate organisation), or because they don't like you for whatever reason.

I think the G20 fiasco shows just how much we can trust the police as an organisation.

Fishing Expedition

How often do minor offences lead to full scale searches looking for evidence of more serious crimes? Quite often I believe. Look at the case in Plymouth where those teenagers were arrested under anti-terror laws when the original accusation was graffiting. The Damian Green case is disturbing for many reasons, but one is that the police regarded it as an excuse to go flicking through just about. Was the intention intimidation?

Did they take DNA samples?

Download truecrypt www.truecrypt.org

It's free, it's has the backing of a person I know professionally (but you do your own research). Set it to encrypt the whole volume, the performance is enough that you will not notice it is encrypting and decrypting on the fly.

It's really up to MPs to protect their own and their constituents privacy. E.g. your cellphone is tracked, as is everyone else's, so when your constituent comes to visit that's logged in a database too (will be a big central database is Jacqui gets her way), as is your private visits and any other information of 'national interest'.

So for example, if your cell phone showed you visiting a clinic that specialized in stds a few times, a 'protector of the national interests' in blue might suspect you had an std, which he then might have a little dig to see whose cellphone you called and who you collocated with (whose phone was in the same location as yours often). Thus your secret may be 'reveal' in 'the national interest' to a newspaper by a politically motivated officer.

I wonder if they took DNA samples from that bed, or if it was just searched for hidden documents. That would be interesting wouldn't it, a politically motivated officer could reveal any DNA test results from the MP. If the DNA national database was there, they could locate who slept with who and leak that.

The ability of officers, empowered to grab any and all information, with unlimited access to mass databases of private information, and to treat 'the national interests' as 'the labour government interests' is quite terrifying.

The UK faces no great threat, no worse than any other western nation, yet look at what they've become.

Sam C - Trusting the Police

Dont blame the police - blame the real culprits.

I think its a little unfair to tar all the rozzers with the same brush. In any organisation there are people who will exceed their limits, whether its battering a protester or nicking an MP on a politically dubious charge.

Saying you dont trust the Police as an organisation is harsh. Its should be expected that the police try to push the boundaries - infact its healthly that they do so. Criminals arent known for staying inside those boundaries.

Where there has been a massive failure is among the people who are MEANT to restrain the police and dictate their limits - namely the current government - who have gone out of their way in the last 8 years to suggest any conduct is acceptable if its to defend the state from harm. The harm of course being anything the current Govt decides it is.

@Facism, plain and simple

Yes - but years of political corruption and incompetence have spawned the greatest voter apathy of all time... so the general response to walking into a fascist state is going to be 'meh' until such time as they roll out the swastikas.

Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in.

@Gordon

Police should not "push" the "Boundaries" Police should operate within the law, at all times, with no exceptions, and the law should not be "open to interpretation" as far as the Police are concerned. It's the courts job to interpret the letter and meaning of the law, it is to the police to act upon the "letter" of the law as appropriate for the situation. Ergo a police officer may decide based upon the situation and environment that a person should simply be warned and sent on their way for a breach of the peace in one situation however in another situation they may decide to arrest the person.

RE: Sam C - Trusting the Police

The police "as an organisation" is proving itself to be corrupt. If they were "pushing the boundaries" to nick burglars, thieves and rapists then your argument might hold -- but they are not, they are using badly though out (or cleverly vague depending on your standpoint) laws to harass and detain people on the off-chance that they might find some innocuous information (photographs, documents...) that they can use to press terrorism charges even though they no the person poses little or no threat.

@Anon Coward (DNA samples)

Refusal to give a cypher key on demand from the police is a criminal offense...

@Will

if this was a search of e.g. his house of commons email, then I'd imagine it to be a high security system with auditing and logging at all levels.

Either that or b. someone was present whilst they searched or c. this information was divulged by the police to the MP in question after legal pressure.

Wot, no mention of Smith?

Alrighty, just to balance things out - control see control tea control vi the following:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article6120207.ece

(Things are pretty ugly - you have been warned)

Re refusal to give key...

RTFM (truecrypt) and you will be enlightened

@Aimee

Since we all read your comment then we no longer have any free space on our hard drives -- "it's not encrypted" reads the same as "I forgot my password" when you admit that the two are technically the same.

Curious..

What I want to know is, how it came about they were searching for Shamis what's her name in the first place?

The cops were investigating allegations of unlawful disclosure of government information, so what prompted them to search for the name of the director of Liberty when she couldn't have played any part in the investigation?

Did the Home Secretary or other politician construct a list of people's names that had been a thorn in the Labour government's side and hand that to Mr. Quick and ask him to dig for any dirt on them?

I think there should be an enquiry into this, independent of course.

@ How does he know what they searched for

They asked the only person in the building who would know....

"OK Green. If you think you're so clever, how do you spell Shammy Chack Rab Batty?"