We ask you forgive us for becomeing state watch over the last few days read this artical Home Office ‘considering’ tracking social networking movements Facebook and MySpace could be required to hold data about every person users correspond with( more, )
Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a “Big Brother” database.
Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens. ( more ) The passing of the Coroners and Justice Bill and The DATABASE STATE Reoprt we hope you forgive us for becomeing State Watch:
This a Repost fromlondon.indymedia.org
With only days to go before the massive protests against the G20 summit taking place in London, the Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Human Rights has accused British police of being heavy-handed, misusing counter-terrorism laws and anti-social behavior legislation when dealing with demonstrators.
Londons SOCPA law abused by police
“The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and police have a duty to protect and facilitate,“, said Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon and chair of the committee. ”
After a year of inquiry, the seventy page report by the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights raised serious concerns about the police forces ability to distinguish appropriate use of the powers they are given. The committee complained that police been routinely using “legal powers not designed to deal with protests such as anti-social behaviour legislation and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997”.
The report was damming about police abuse of stop and search powers to intimidate, unjustifiable seizures of personal property, and improper detention and containment of protesters. The committees chairman said, “The state must not impose restrictions unless it is necessary, and proportionate, to do so. That is a high threshold. The presumption is in favour of protest without state interference.”
Mike Schwartz, a partner at London law firm Bindmans said, “The police have adopted mission creep. One of the symptoms is their misuse of the power of stop and search under the Terrorism Act. It is being misused because the police have the power to impose a blanket area, where any police officer can search anyone without reason for suspicion on the basis that a senior police officer has thought that there might be terrorist activity or terrorists operating in the area.”
![Police display a warning before attacking protesters (Photo: Tash [alan lodge])](https://i0.wp.com/www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2009/02/422684.jpg)
Police display a warning before attacking protesters (Photo: Tash [alan lodge])
Also under the spotlight was Police intimidation and monitoring of journalists, refusal to recognizing press cards, and accusations of obstruction and assault. The committee said it was unacceptable that journalists had to resort to taking court action against officers interfering with their work.
London’s Metropolitan Police Service excused their wide ranging misuse of power by saying, “We will always facilitate lawful protest and are committed to doing so but do have to minimize the disruption caused to others going about their lawful business“.
The criticism follows a report was made to parliament last week into the abuse of police powers during the climate camp protests at Kingsnorth in 2008. The report and accompanying video documented systemic abuses of power including blanket stop and searches, arbitrary seizure of property, and a campaign of phycological intimidation which included sleep deprivation through helicopter overflying late into the night, mock night and dawn raids by tooled up riot police, and the infamous ‘Flight of the Valkyries’ incident.
David Howarth, Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary said, “What happened at the Climate Camp was deeply disturbing and part of what seems to be a disturbing national trend. Political agendas have no place in policing.”
Defending Kent police’s handling of the Kingsnorth protest, Home Office minister Vernon Croaker had claimed that seventy officers had sustained injuries in clashes with protestors. However a Freedom of Information act request proved that the police chiefs had misled parliament as no officers had really been injured in clashes at all.
Lib Dem MP David Taylor told the Commons: “We were told that [the police behavior] was justified because dozens of injuries were incurred. We have now found that those injuries were of a more prosaic origin—they were due to things such as insect stings and sunstroke. Unless the protesters are to be held responsible for wasps and the weather, are we not to conclude that the justification used at the time was wholly bogus and vacuous?“
Attempt some damage control after the damning report, the Kent Police chiefs have now voluntarily referred complaints about the actions of it’s officers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Even before the these two reports in Parliament, the extent of political policing had been further exposed by the Guardian article revealing that the police have been building up a database of thousands of political activists as well as harassing sympathetic journalists. , 2)
Meanwhile however, the police propaganda department has launched it’s annual offensive against mass protester. They’ve flooded the mainstream media with pieces on the much hyped ‘summer of rage’ in which they began to lay the foundations to justify heavy handed suppression over the coming months.
Related Indymedia posts:
Police ‘turn themselves in’ over abuse of power claims
Report into police tactics at Kingsnorth climate change protest released
Summer of rage? It’s a figment of febrile imaginations
Senior police officer warns of “summer of rage”
Protest against police state
Britain 2009 (are we in a police state?)
Right to protest under attack from state
Police ‘turn themselves in’ over abuse of power claims
Climate camp cops feel heat – piece about filming of protesters / journalists at the camp
Over-policing
Police maintaining special database of thousands of political activists
Other coverage :
Climate camp surveillance
Police Surveillance of Protesters and Journalists at Climate Camp
Why the police riot (part 1 to 9 of 11 parts)
The British police public order manual is a secret document establishing a paramilitary third force in the UK, under the control of a private company (ACPO) with permission from the home office…
take now or stay the same 