Police Disorder

Over the last few years there has been a steady flow of people warning how, in the west, we are sleepwalking into a surveillance state. Often this is accompanied with references to 1984 and how our government and national leadership seem to view this book as an instruction manual, rather than a stark warning. It seems, however, that we are growing a generation of people who are immune to this, they live under constant surveillance (even aspire to it in the form of Big Brother reality TV) and the idea of privacy may one day be alien.

There is (IMHO of course) a darker aspect to this. In our rush to accept everything the government tells us when it is linked to the Evil Terrorist, we are giving up the basic rights and concepts that make a country a “free” democracy. The press, and police, love the high profile terror raids (such as the “Easter Bomb Plot“) which generate torrents of media coverage – along with huge amounts of right wing outrage at how easy it is for these evil Islamic terrorists to get into our country. These events are used to justify insane amounts of secrecy about police activity and huge public funding, even though it has no apparent return in public safety. When the inevitable happens, and those arrested are released without charge, there is often a short note at the end of the news and no withdrawal of the right-wing outrage. The damage has well and truly been done, so the fact it was a pointless event doesn’t need saying… In this, we are far from a free press. As an example we can look at two events:

1 – Police raid addresses in Lurgan, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, and trigger riots that last over a day – followed by a series of hoax car bombs and attacks on other police patrols. All this was to find the people involved in the fatal shooting of two soldiers and a police officer a few days earlier.

2 – Police raid a few addresses in Manchester and Liverpool, England, and peacefully arrest 12 people. No community response.

The first event generated almost no coverage from the national media outlets. Few people would have known it happened. Less would have cared. The second event was “Breaking news” 24hours a day for days – even when most of the coverage consisted of bored police officers standing outside a house in some unknown street. It resulted in heated diplomatic exchanges with foreign nations and untold amounts of right wing outrage about “furriners” coming into our country.

It is in the states interest to present the situation in Northern Ireland as a closed deal. Peace has broken out. Unless the terrorists are actually “lucky” enough to kill, it gets no news coverage. There are hundreds of actual attacks and bomb plots over there but these are carried out by white Christians who were born in the United Kingdom (or occasionally the Republic of Ireland). There is no where to deport them and no amount of border controls can prevent them. Crucially they look like us, so cant easily be profiled at ports and for stop & search powers. Overall the peace process is working but the dissident republicans present a clear and present danger to the security forces. They carry out attacks, they have wounded dozens of people (and killed several innocents). They carry out atrocious punishment beatings.  They are real terrorists.

On the other hand, we have the Islamic terrorist cells. Yes, they got “lucky” once with devastating effect, but they have managed one attack in the UK. Ever. The biggest difference is they dont look like “us.” Often they are first or second generation immigrants. They speak a “funny” language. They (sometimes) dress differently. They are easy to spot in public. That most of this is nonsense hasn’t stopped Islamic terrorism becoming a massive bugbear, while the actual violence carried out by Republican terrorists is ignored.

The cynic in me suggests that targetting the Islamic terrorist is in the states best interest. Without turning into V for Vengeance, by generating this public fear there is little argument against draconian laws, huge spending on “anti-terror,” crazy policies (no fluids on planes for example), intrusive surveillance and out of control policing. We have to accept this because if we dont the Islamic Terrorist will get us. That the press pander to this crazy idea, and are instrumental in producing it, which can only benefit the state makes me strongly question how “free” our press is.

Without a free press, can we really have a democracy? Is it possible for the public to have an informed vote if their information is controlled by the state?

This leads on to the next bit, and the thing that really got me going. The Police.

Recently the UK enacted a law (part of the Terrorism Act) which has made it illegal to take pictures of police, military or intelligence services personnel. This has been presented as being important to prevent terrorism (how?) and the government claimed it would not be used out of context nor would it be used to restrict journalism.

This is nonsense. Every law gets used out of context. Councils use anti-terrorism powers to mount surveillance on people to see if they live in the correct district for their children’s school. This will always happen – if you give someone a legal authority to do something, they will do it if it makes their job easier. The only alternative is to right better laws – something often lacking with regards to rushed terrorism legislation.

The police are no better. The terrorism act is regularly used out of context. Be it climate change protesters or tourists, the various legislation is often misused. Crucially, looking at the tourist incident, the police not only misused their legislation but they broke the law doing so: (From the guardian):

Like most visitors to London, Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris took several photographs of some of the city’s sights, including the famous red double-decker buses. More unusually perhaps, they also took pictures of the Vauxhall bus station, which Matzka regards as “modern sculpture”.

But the tourists have said they had to return home to Vienna without their holiday pictures after two policemen forced them to delete the photographs from their cameras in the name of preventing terrorism.

Matzka, a 69-year-old retired television cameraman with a taste for modern architecture, was told that photographing anything to do with transport was “strictly forbidden”. The policemen also recorded the pair’s details, including passport numbers and hotel addresses.

If we assume the police were right to carry out the stop under TACT legislation, and this was information useful to terrorist, why did they destroy the evidence? Either they thought these two tourists were covert Jihadists, in which case an intelligence stop should have been conducted, with the pictures retained for the DPS to look at (and the intelligence services to brief the Daily Mail as to the plans to attack the bus station) or they knew these were innocent tourists and there was no reason to destroy the pictures. This seems to be unlawful destruction of evidence pertaining to a criminal act. Will anything be done about it?

The Metropolitan police said it was investigating the allegations.

Ok, thats “no” then. In magazines like Amateur Photographer there are regular reports of how people are stopped under similar circumstances (to the point at which a photo-friendly MP has tried tabling this in Parliment) however nothing has changed. Nothing is likely to change because the police dont care.

I am loathe to scream about how our police forces are out of control, but they appear to be under less and less force to obey the will of the people. The police enforce the rule of law with public consent. They are not an occupying army seeking to repress us. They are not here to control and dominate the public. They are public servants who have chosen to do a job which means they will protect the public. They protect no one by harassing tourists. They protect no one by killing newspaper sellers as they try to get home. The tragic death of Ian Tomlinson has opened up a whole can of worms about police behaviour, but it is unlikely to change anything.

As has happened countless times in the past (anyone remember Stockwell?), following Ian Tomlinson’s death the police were quick to issue a completely erroneous statement. It took a newspaper getting (what was actually illegal) footage of police violence before they would do anything. Even then, it took days before they actually got into action and started the investigation. Worryingly there were dozens of police officers there when Ian Tomlinson was hit, yet none thought to come forward about his death. This speaks of an institutionalised idea that hitting people from behind is acceptable. It isnt.

The police are faced with dangerous situations on a daily basis. They are also taught how to react and how to identify when the danger has passed. Although it was a few years ago, and for a different place, I have had considerable amounts of riot training (in the shield wall, as snatch squads and controlling) although thankfully I rarely had to put it into practice. However there were some basic lessons. You stood there knowing you would get abused. Verbal abuse was something to be ignored. No matter what the crowd shouted to taunt you, you were supposed to stand your ground. The idea that you would get a sly hit on someone walking away was unthinkable. It happened, but people reported it because it was a breakdown in discipline, and without that we were the same as the mob. Despite this, footage has come to light of several police officers attacking non-violent members of the public.

There is a time where the use of force by the police is acceptable. Backhanding a woman who has called you a name is not it. Hitting people who are shouting at you is not it. The police are there to PROTECT the public from violence, not be the cause of it. There is a harrowing amount of footage on the Guardian website which shows police failing in their primary duty. I have no idea if this is simply due to the group on the ground having become “maverick” or if this is a sign of larger problems with the police, but it is a problem.

For example: Police on the ground removed their ID badges to make it harder for people to identify them at a later date. This is wrong, as Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) stated. It is very wrong and borderline criminal in itself. It means the officer was intending to do something wrong and mens rea is an important part of the law. What concerns me is the comment made by the HMIC:

“I firmly hope that will be rectified with some certainty”

What? Pure weasel words. What is the point in having the HMIC? Equally disturbing is the fact that these officers were not taken to task by their seniors before deploying. Instutionalised failure. How do you rectify that if the HMIC is beating around the bush? The simple solution is to punish the Sgts and Inspectors as well as the constables (when finally identified). That would very quickly change the behaviour.

This is tied into the behavour of the police on the day. In this video, the police carry out a baton charge against the crowd (who appear to be commiting the offence of singing badly and out of tune in a public place) and attack the press in the process. They are not carrying out a controlled act to move the crowd back, they are simply trying to break heads. At 36 seconds you can see them baton a guy with a camera facing away from them. That is unjustifable. They are not using controled violence, otherwise why hit the press photographer facing away? He is no danger to them and is not part of the crowd. Force is a last resort. Not a first one. The photographer lies on the floor until the police line moves back again (what was the point in the charge if it wasnt to dominate new ground?), when some one finally helps him up.

In the next video, the police impose Section 14 of the Public Order act to make the press go away for “about half an hour.”  Two big issues with this.

First off – why? Why did the senior office want the press out of view? Was it to calm the protesters down? (unlikely) or was it to remove public oversight of the police behaviour? We may never know.

Secondly – section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 provides police the power to impose conditions on assemblies “to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community.” It is not a lawful use of the act to make the press move on. This act is often misused by the police so its almost understandable that they would try to misuse it here. However, how can they not have known better? Did the senior officer on the ground really think it was an appropriate use of Sect 14 powers? If so, why isnt he being sent away for retraining? Were the police just trying their luck to see if they could make the pesky press go away, hoping most wouldnt question the legality? Again we may never know.

In all, this has been a long rant (sorry) but it is infuriating that we accept this behaviour from the representatives of the public. How can we live in a free democracy while this goes on?

EDITED TO ADD: Sadly I posted this rant before I saw an excellent version written by Alun over on Archaeoastronomy. If you havent already read it, get over there now and read. As always, Aluns post is well written and to the point. I especially like his closing remarks: (emphasis mine)

policing cannot happen without the consent of a community. Otherwise it’s just a paramilitary occupation. The video shows plenty of witnesses in yellow jackets. If they won’t assist the law, who will?

Well said.

Fear, fear and more fear

It seems that some members of the government are not happy that legislation to allow innocent people to be sentenced to 42 days in jail failed. From the BBC:

[Security Minister Lord West] told peers that while some measures had been taken over the past 15 months to make Britain safer “this does not, I’m afraid, mean we are safe”.

he said: “The threat is huge. The threat dipped slightly and is now rising again with the context of ‘severe’, large complex plots, because we unravelled one the damage it caused to al-Qaeda actually faded slightly.

“They are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Now, I am not fully sure what Lord West’s point in all this was, other than he is a supporter (albeit in strange circumstances) of the 42 day internment detention plans.

With this in mind, it seems that Lord West is trying the age old trick of making people worried about a nebulous threat with the hope it will cloud their judgement. For this to work, you need to whip people up into a panic, then explain that “doing nothing” is bad so doing anything has to be good. (Sounds familiar)

As is often the case, this is massively flawed.

For longer than I have been alive the UK has been under threat of a “huge, complex” terrorist plot. Since we became weak and frightened (and the terrorists stopped looking like “one of us”) there has been huge spending on the security services along with a massive increase in technical and legislative procedures to surveil and control the public. All of this has been done on the premise that it would reduce the threat from terrorists.

Despite this, we are constantly told by the government that the threat is as bad as ever with what appears to be a steady state 200 terrorist networks operating in the country. Often (such as now) we are told the threat is increasing. The “Terrorist Threat Level” in the UK has been at Severe for around five years now with no signs it will drop.

Nothing we have done has reduced the threat from terrorist attacks. Nothing we have done has reduced the number of terrorist networks. Even when the terrorists kill themselves (such as at Glasgow) the numbers remain the same. Nothing has changed for the better (*), in fact the more laws we enact the more we hear “DANGER, DANGER” and the more we are urged for more sweeping legislation.

When will we learn – it is not working. Doing more of it wont magically make it work.

If the huge anti-terrorist effort since 7/7 has made no perceptible dent in the terrorist threat, it really is time to find a different way.

However, as it seems the security minister (et al) are more interested in telling the House of Lords and the House of Commons the sky is about to fall on our heads, it is unlikely they have the time to think of a way to be successful. Instead, it seems they would rather pander to the readership of the Daily Mail and be seen to be “tough on terrorism.” The fact it is having no effect is, basically, irrelevant….

* I am aware the security organisations may be working in the background to prevent attacks and destroy terrorist cells – that is what they are there for after all. However, if they are being successful, why hasnt the threat level changed and why aren’t we hearing that it is (even a little bit) safer today than it was yesterday?

End of an Era – but has anything been learned?

It seems today is the end of an era which has lasted longer than I have been alive. At midnight tonight the British Army ends its operation in Northern Ireland after 38 years of anti-terrorist operations. (Belfast Telegraph or The Guardian)

Despite the recent media-led impression that terrorists are all Islamic, from west-Asia, and only started attacking the west in the last decade, the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland have a history of horrific atrocities that were committed by both Catholics and Protestants. For decades Policemen were shot in their living rooms in front of their families, suspected informers were made to “disapear”(The tale of Jean McConville can break the stoniest heart), joyriders were shot dead, teenagers were brutally beaten for having girl/boyfriends from the wrong side of the street etc. As well as this, “low level” terror, the mainland UK in the 1970s and 80s was continually subjected to IRA bomb attacks. The Houses of Parliament were mortared (1991), the Conservative party conference in Brighton was blown to pieces (1984), over 700 soldiers were killed (mostly off duty) and scores of civilians were killed and maimed. As a child in the 70s, I can acutely remember why we have no bins at train stations and why “suspect package” announcements are a regular occurrence.

Anyway, after 38 years, it seems that the worst is now over and the process of normalisation can begin. The soldiers are no longer going to patrol the streets (although I recall it has been a while since they did anyway) and the overt signs of military oppression have been dismantled (such as the observation post on the Divis tower and the watch towers in South Armagh).

It would be nice to think that lessons have been learned, and the mistakes made (of which there were many) would not be repeated again. The government have comissionned studies into the troubles for this very purpose.

Sadly, it seems that, as always, the memory retention of the public is short and politicians are fickle enough to go where ever public opinion drives them.

Countless (certainly more than I intend to link to here) studies show that some of the government’s actions provided massive amounts of support (and volunteers) to the IRA cause. The most cited example was the horrendous internment policy. The CAIN study group has an excellent summary of internment, and pretty much all the research supports the idea that prior to this heavy handed tactic, PIRA were a “smalltime” organisation, playing second fiddle to the “Official” IRA who were much more disposed to peace talks and power sharing. By interning people (on both sides of the sectarian divide) without trial for indeterminate periods of time, the government provided the ammunition for the more militant wings (PIRA and the UVF) to overwhelm the objections of the more peaceful groups and increased the violence on a massive scale. As can be easily imagined, the increased violence lead to an increased security response, which in turn continued to alienate the communities and provided the impetus for more violence. The circle continued for three decades.

Now, hindsight is always 20:20 and I know enough of history to know that trying to second guess “what ifs” is something best left to fiction authors. However, it remains a strong possibility that, had the government allowed the moderates to dominate the thugs (rather than giving credence to the violence is the only option routine), the troubles would have been over 2o or more years ago.

Before any rightwingers get confused here, I am not suggesting a cowardly capitulation. In the late 1960s, the Catholics wanted better representation in government and they wanted the police to stop oppressing them. After 38 years of violence they now have better representation in government and the police are mixed. While I don’t for one second think either side could be described as “having won,” the fact remains that the Catholics in Northern Ireland now have what the Official IRA were calling for in 1968.

Despite this, it seems the recent peace on the mainland primed the public for another terrorist group to cause outrage. Despite the “lessons” from the troubles it seems that the public are crying out for a repeat of all the mistakes made in the 1970s and the government / police are more than happy to repeat them. Every “debate” about the extended detention without charge laws seems to begin with “we are not talking about a return to internment” but I cant for the life of me work out what is different. Can any one explain it to me?

Detention of a specific class of prisoner, who will almost certainly share a cultural and religious background with a significant (yet minority) portion of the UK population will do nothing to engender that population with a trust of the “state” and a feeling of “Britishness.” In reality, people who have family members detained for two months without charge are almost certain to become alienated and distrustful — providing a fertile recruiting ground for the jihad-calling headcases. When you factor in the risks inherent of police detention (injuries from other prisoners, accidents and stress related conditions) it is probable that when the first detainee dies in custody (of purely innocent and natural causes) the conspiracy theorists will have a field day and the terrorist cells will have a recruiting bonanza. We saw recently how the police can be poor at controlling evidence (Dr Haneef for example), so why should anyone assume that the intelligence required to trigger a “terrorist detention” would be any better?

Worryingly, hidden amongst the joys of the end of the troubles, there are some sneaky powers being rolled out. For example, from the Belfast Telegraph:

But at the same time, legislation goes into effect giving soldiers here the power to stop and question anyone about their movements – and hold them indefinitely until they answer.

People refusing to identify themselves or answer questions about their movements could be subject to a £5,000 fine.

The PSNI is also granted the power tonight – even though the Cabinet rejected them as unacceptable for police in the rest of the UK.

The Government acknowledged last night that the role of the Army will be ” slightly different to that in the rest of the UK”.

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said the special powers are necessary because the Army could still be called up to support the PSNI.

Despite what some people tend to believe, Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Is this a sign of the future for the mainland? [tags]Law, Civil Rights, Society, Culture, Terror, Fear, Legislation, Civil Liberties, Northern Ireland, Troubles, Anti-Terror Legislation, Catholics, Protestants, Islam, Government, Media, IRA, UVF[/tags]

Terrorism and Fear vs Rights

Sadly, the annoyingly named, pot smoking, Jacqui Smith has been sounding off about the need to detain innocent people for longer periods of time.

As always, the BBC remains an excellent source of the worrying statements made by politicians, reporting:

“The time is now right” to reconsider extending detention without charge beyond the current 28 days limit, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said.

The article continues to discuss how she feels that the complexity of modern terrorist plots means the police need longer than 28 days to detain and question a suspect before they charge him or her. Worryingly, this seems to be garnering general public support and it has all the hall marks of the “reasonable” sounding claims I detest with a passion.

On the face of it, detaining terrorists for indefinite periods of time seems like a good idea – it is one of those things which make it difficult for people to argue against, I mean who wants to support terrorists? The same argument is used over a variety of crimes and it is almost always false.

Basically, the problem is that these are innocent people. The bedrock of western laws is that a person’s liberty can only be taken away from them under certain situations. Most of the time, the only way for this to happen is after a court of law finds the person guilty of certain offences. The primary exception to this is people who are charged with a grave offence and may prove to be a flight risk or a continued threat to the public, at which point they may be refused bail.

The current terror legislation (in that it is a law based on terror, rather than the principles of law or good governance) allows some one to be detained by the police for 28 days without any form of charge, nor is a formal charge required when the 28 day period runs out. It is unique in this respect, I can not for one second imagine someone being detained for 28 days while they were being investigated for vandalism…

In a nutshell, this means that someone without being charged of any crime can have their liberty taken away from them for a month. I am sure the police forces of the UK are (currently) professional enough to have some standard of evidence required before they enact this detention, but the fact remains this is something wide open to abuse. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see how this can be misused – especially as there is no censure, nor public oversight, over the police actions. They are not punished if they detain some one wrongly (accidentally or deliberately) and the innocent person wrongly imprisoned receives no restitution for their suffering.

Is this the way people envisage a western democracy treating its citizens?

The terrorists, who want to destroy what they see as a decadent society, seem to be winning and we are slowly becoming a police state in the manner of the Middle Eastern dictatorships we used to condemn.

As always, the irrational fear of terrorists seems to cloud people’s reasoning when it comes to detaining them – the old refrain about the public’s “right to life” being more important than the suspect’s “right to liberty” is the most common. It is also complete nonsense and draws an ad absurdum over itself like a cloak. The fear of a terrorist killing lots of people is used as the argument behind excessive pre-charge detention, however Harold Shipman killed more people than any terrorist in the UK and we do not detain Doctors for 28 days without charge on the off-chance they may be mass murderers.

Sadly, the main victims of this legislation are minority groups so the will of the masses overwhelms any complaints they may make. Oddly (although not odd for anyone who has thought about this rationally), the main effect of this legislation will be to further alienate and isolate a vulnerable group of people. The extremist rabble-rousers must be overjoyed at the thought of disgruntled Islamic youths who feel like the state is oppressing them unjustly.

As well as the potential deaths a terrorist could cause, another “reason” often cited for excessive detention is “the complexity” of a terrorist investigation. This is reasonable and actually has my full support, although I think that if the Home Secretary agrees that complex investigations should allow the police to detain suspects for long periods before charge, this should be applied across the board.

Complex criminal investigations are widespread in the modern society we live in. With the exception of terrorism the suspect remain free until a charge can be made though – some recent examples are footballers suspected of fraud, the Members of Parliament suspected in the “Cash for Honours” fiasco, companies suspected of financial crimes and the like. In not one of these cases was a suspect detained (without charge) for more than 24 hours – even though the investigations lasted months or years. Obviously the police are more than able to investigate people who are not sitting in the cells – even very rich people (all of the above) who are a real flight risk.

Ah, I hear the right wing cry out that these are “fraud” cases where no one will die as a result. Ok, that seems reasonable – although if someone loses their lives savings thanks to financial fraud and is left penniless at the age of 60, I suspect they will die a lot sooner than if they had their money. What about complex cases involving health and safety legislation or corporate manslaughter? What about the cases of human traffickers (or any organised crime)? There is a multitude of incredibly complex cases, in which the investigations last years, where the police are not allowed to detain a suspect without charge for 28 days (or more).

What makes a terrorism suspect any different from a CEO who’s corporate negligence has allowed 50 people to die?

As a parting shot, I will return to the BBC’s article and Miss Smith’s comments:

In recent operations … six people were held for 27-28 days and three of those were charged.

A fifty percent success rate does not fill me with confidence.

[tags]Terror, Terrorism, Law, Legislation, Jacqui Smith, UK, Civil Rights, News, Fear, Civil Liberties, Society, Culture, Police, Arrests, Islam, Minorities, Crime, Home Secretary, BBC, Corporate Crime, Logical Fallacy, Ad Absurdum, Reductio Ad Absurdum, Logical Fallacies[/tags]