UK Police State
- Thread starter Azrael23
- Start date
The only one being black and white here is you, with this bizarre implication that all countries are either a "utopia" or a police state.AnnO'Neemus said:
I never said that this country was wonderful, but it's not a fucking police state by any reasonable definition of the word. And as ks said, it's no worse than it was before.
Because its a trend that litters history, except people like stalin and hitler never had the nerve to put it in black or white, they just did it.
The state now has the legitimate means to do whatever it chooses in terms of sneak n peek, surveillance, curtailing peaceful protest etc.
How long do you think it`ll be before instances of its use are coming daily rather than monthly?
The state now has the legitimate means to do whatever it chooses in terms of sneak n peek, surveillance, curtailing peaceful protest etc.
How long do you think it`ll be before instances of its use are coming daily rather than monthly?
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
The problem with much of this talk of 'police state' is that some aspects of it get positive support on U75 - speed cameras for example - and that other aspects of what many see as the creeping loss of privacy such as the NHS national IT systems etc also have a massive upside in terms of benefits to patients, the NHS etc.
But let's really talk about the erosion of freedoms as a principle. As anyone who studies history will know, the whole issue of freedoms is one that swings this way and that, often in response to security concerns about the threat of 'the other', sometimes simply because the ideology of the ruling party has been one of intrusion and secrecy (anyone remember organisations like 'The Economic League' who used to hold files on people against their knowledge, and which were often seriously inaccurate?). However, what is also clear is that this is a matter of legislation which can either be altered by parliament, it can be ruled illegal or incompatible by the courts etc - none of these things are likely to happen in a 'police state'.
The other thing to bear in mind is public opinion - supports the use of CCTV, doesn't support ID cards, and when shown how specific legislation could theorectically affect them generally come out against many of the anti-terror laws as well. This country is not, as some would have it, sleepwalking into a police state - I seriously challenge anyone to proove to me that the current powers of the police, and the way they are used, number of prosecutions and the level f physical force used is in any way ANY different from any time over the last 50 years, possibly even further back than that.
Yes there is 'mission creep' in terms of rights-eroding stuff, but as the speed camera business (that at present you have to incriminate yourself in order that the fine can be issued) shows, there are ways to challenge these laws as well.
But police state? No.
But let's really talk about the erosion of freedoms as a principle. As anyone who studies history will know, the whole issue of freedoms is one that swings this way and that, often in response to security concerns about the threat of 'the other', sometimes simply because the ideology of the ruling party has been one of intrusion and secrecy (anyone remember organisations like 'The Economic League' who used to hold files on people against their knowledge, and which were often seriously inaccurate?). However, what is also clear is that this is a matter of legislation which can either be altered by parliament, it can be ruled illegal or incompatible by the courts etc - none of these things are likely to happen in a 'police state'.
The other thing to bear in mind is public opinion - supports the use of CCTV, doesn't support ID cards, and when shown how specific legislation could theorectically affect them generally come out against many of the anti-terror laws as well. This country is not, as some would have it, sleepwalking into a police state - I seriously challenge anyone to proove to me that the current powers of the police, and the way they are used, number of prosecutions and the level f physical force used is in any way ANY different from any time over the last 50 years, possibly even further back than that.
Yes there is 'mission creep' in terms of rights-eroding stuff, but as the speed camera business (that at present you have to incriminate yourself in order that the fine can be issued) shows, there are ways to challenge these laws as well.
But police state? No.
I was a bit surprised to see that the Guardian front page today reports that there are hundreds of suspected terrorists currently in prison.
Does this mean that there are hundreds of people currently in prison on suspicion of being terrorists, or that they're in prison on some other rap and that it so happens that they're also suspected of being terrorists. ?
Does this mean that there are hundreds of people currently in prison on suspicion of being terrorists, or that they're in prison on some other rap and that it so happens that they're also suspected of being terrorists. ?
You miss out a third alternative - that the Guardian story is inaccurate / ambiguous / total bollocks.Demosthenes said:
Azrael23 said:
Just reading through the thread now, but it is incumbent upon all those who have achieved sound reasoning in life to resist, disobey, and simply say no to the power abuses going on.
If possible such people can try to help others on the path towards sound reasoning, based on an intuition of what is humane action and what is inhumane action. Absolutely say no to those other people in soceity that chase power for themselves. The minority can always be made to do what the majority want, so we need critical mass achievement in this day and age of blind consumerism.
Britain most certainly is moving towards a police state. Without question.
[this thread is in the british politics, not the world politics forum...]
Patty said:
It doesn't really matter if we're ruled by force, or by persuasion. The end result is that we are not free. In the former we can consciously know this, but the trouble with the latter, ie for example, britain, is that too many people think they are free to make choices. They're not. They succumb to the capitlist way of life: be conned by gross amounts of advertising, and consume till we die. Never stop consuming, that is the motto.
Any state rule is abhorrent, police, military, or some pseudo-democractic variety as espoused by blair, but which fundamentally imposes terribly on the unconscious choices of people.
Britain is turning into a tragedy.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I'll bite.kyser_soze said:
50 years ago, the police had to get a warrant to arrest you for misdemeanors (and many felonies), and this was, as a rule, followed. Famously it gave Oscar Wilde a window of opportunity to flee to the Continent. (Which he squandered.) They had to get a warrant to search your house after arrest, take your fingerprints by force, and "intimiate searches", now authorised by an inspector, were completely illegal and would have been GBH. Fingerprints, and later DNA, had to be destroyed upon acquittal.
That's not getting started on the erosion of rights at trial. (Right to silence, double jeapoardy, suppresion of previous convictions, etc etc.)
Saying "the rights weren't followed" is a bit of a red herring, because even if they weren't (and I have no illusions the police didn't use "falls down the stairs" as a matter of routine) they were supposed to be. Making a denial of rights official is far worse. At the very least, it was certainly a very different world.
And if we want to go back further, the Victorians had civil liberties we can only dream of. (Ownership of any firearm they chose, right to imbibe any narcotic in existence without fear of prosecution.) We, in turn, have gained a few they haven't, but the general treand has been a shift of power from the people to the state, and it's about to get far, far worse. Is it a "police state"? Well, the government is already deploying anti-terrorism legislation against political opponents, so I would say it's definitely heading that way, and being in denial of how bad it's getting will be fatal.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
1. You provide no actual proof in your first paragraph that police action then was any less intrusive then as it is now. For example, the OB had the 'right' to assault children (or give them a 'thick ear' as my nan would have it).
2. It's funny you should mention the right not to incriminate oneself, since that's EXACTLY what the case with the speed cameras in the press at the moment is about
All you've done is provide some anecdotal examples of how 'then' was better than 'now' (or vice versa) - not actually shown that, for example, being a suffragette in 1910 and being a eco-activist in 2006 meant having any more or less shit from the OB and government.
All the legislation that has been introduced can be repealed, or as seems likely, will fail in the courts when it's tried against both existing UK laws and EU law. Yes we do need to be on our guard about our freedoms and rights, but to overstate the case by declaring the UK is a 'police state' is the kind of rubbish that puts people off paying attention to it.
2. It's funny you should mention the right not to incriminate oneself, since that's EXACTLY what the case with the speed cameras in the press at the moment is about
All you've done is provide some anecdotal examples of how 'then' was better than 'now' (or vice versa) - not actually shown that, for example, being a suffragette in 1910 and being a eco-activist in 2006 meant having any more or less shit from the OB and government.
All the legislation that has been introduced can be repealed, or as seems likely, will fail in the courts when it's tried against both existing UK laws and EU law. Yes we do need to be on our guard about our freedoms and rights, but to overstate the case by declaring the UK is a 'police state' is the kind of rubbish that puts people off paying attention to it.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Erm, yes I did, the Oscar Wilde case. The state was desperate to convict him (for convoluted and much disputed reasons, involving, variously, Lord Sailsbury's son, juvenile rent boys and members of the aristocracy), to the point that the DPP's own QC asked if they could stop after the first trial collapsed. Yet, given all this pressure, the police went and got a warrant off a magistrate before they nicked himkyser_soze said:
The police never had a "right" to assault children, that was as illegal then as it is now. I addressed this when I compared flouting the law to altering the law. (As I said, I'm under no illusions they didn't do this sort of thing.)
And you cannot deny the DNA/fingerprint database hasn't exploded, or that the police have powers of invasive search they haven't enjoyed since the repeal of the Infectious Diseases Act.
Ironically I'm completely on the side of the government over that one. Self-incrimination was never an end in itself (or fingerprints and blood samples would never have been taken), it was a means to protect against torture and ensure verbal confessions, notoriously unreliable, were not given too much weight. That case is exactly the abuse of due process protections that gives such protections a bad name.
I never said "then" was simply better than "now" (in fact I specifically said it wasn't that simple); I offered a pattern of evidence that traditional civil liberties have been undermined in law.
Are you seriously suggesting "it's pretty much the same" is a reasonable response to a century of legal change?
I said the UK is becoming a police state. If you leave it until it is a police state, it's too late to do anything about it.
Yes, in theory everything I listed could be restored tomorrow in an all-night sitting in the Commons. But once rights are removed, a momentum builds up that makes them very difficult to restore. People are too casual about their liberty. They've had it for too long. Calling accurate describtions of our legislative direction "rubbish" is the sort of naeive complacancy that helps ensure its success.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Fair and well argued, thanks. Makes a bleedin' change round 'ere 
Still don't agree that the UK is even becoming a police state tho - what's happening, IMV, is a transitional phase while new technologies and procedures establish themselves within the law. Do you think that there is a culture or momentum toward a police state by the public in supporting CCTV but not supporting ID cards? And what about the challenges in court to such legislation also?
Still don't agree that the UK is even becoming a police state tho - what's happening, IMV, is a transitional phase while new technologies and procedures establish themselves within the law. Do you think that there is a culture or momentum toward a police state by the public in supporting CCTV but not supporting ID cards? And what about the challenges in court to such legislation also?
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
That's the Labour Party's excuse for their actions. "The traditional arguments for civil liberty aren't so much wrong as outdated" said the Lord High Weasale himself. It just isn't true. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you must do something. They're not being led by new technology, they're harnessing it in a frightening direction.kyser_soze said:
Example: biometric passports. Got mine today, valid until 2017 (should be enough time to sort out the Irish passport by then ... knew that ancestory would come in handy one day). It contains, simply, a digitized photograph on the chip. Yet soon the government will have used the technology as an excuse to collect everyone's fingerprints, which the police will then have access to.
Mission creep in the extreme, except stripping away civil liberty has always been their mission.
Public are, as a rule, deeply apathetic until a measure affects them personally. CCTV has, at the best, a negligible effect on crime, and enormous potential for government abuse and surveilance. Beat policing and community support would do far, far more than a remove eye in the sky.
Challenges, under the woeful Human Rights Act, can be disregarded by the government because the Euro Convention rights can be "balanced" against the government's "rights". Proper bills of rights, like the English Bill of Rights 1689 and US Bill of Rights list absolute rights. Besides, if the wishy-washy Euro law does conflict, the government have shown ease in "derogating" troublesom passages.
They don't need to abolish it: while its scant protections exist, people assume they're protected in a way the patently are not.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
While we're having this debate, ironically, one of the 9/11 truth crew is basically saying that because they are 'the government' that presumption of innocence doesn't apply, and that past misdemeanours by previous administrations should be accounted for also...
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
kyser_soze said:
So, the best way to alert people to the fact that their 'civil liberties' are threatened is to say nothing?
Who passes all this legislation? The government. Who enforces the legislation? The police. Who decides on the proper application of the legislation? The judiciary.
What about a government introducing legislation that offers serious opportunities for them, and for future administrations with more authoritarian aspirations, to undermine basic rights established many years previously?
Holding suspects for extended periods of time without charge, for example. What about changing entitlement to free legal representation that undermines the ability of people to make the very challenges that could overturn the more insidious aspects of other legislative acts.
Basically, keep them away from the judges, thus avoiding any chance of a legal examination of their application or appropriate use. And as a result, the police are called upon to enforce more stringent and far-reaching laws that do enable them to act in ways that disregard the basic rights of citizens.
Its right in front of our faces.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3025603.stm
And all these laws were only passed because of the events on 9/11 and 7/7.
Makes you wonder if "muslim extremists" were the culprits. Its the state that has gained everything its ever wanted...power, fear and justification. Money barely even comes into it.
We need to all realise how far down the road to authoritarian police state we`ve already gone...let alone what it will be like after a few more planted bombs and contrived fearmonger videos. Let us also not forget that if the US do end up mini-nuking Iran, we`ll also have WWIII to bolster the fear levels....oh how I fear having children in this world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3025603.stm
And all these laws were only passed because of the events on 9/11 and 7/7.
Makes you wonder if "muslim extremists" were the culprits. Its the state that has gained everything its ever wanted...power, fear and justification. Money barely even comes into it.
We need to all realise how far down the road to authoritarian police state we`ve already gone...let alone what it will be like after a few more planted bombs and contrived fearmonger videos. Let us also not forget that if the US do end up mini-nuking Iran, we`ll also have WWIII to bolster the fear levels....oh how I fear having children in this world
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Until you learn to control your deranged, evidence free view of the world I pity any kids you do have...
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Azrael23 said:
We're doomed I tell ya, we're all doomed!
Only if attitudes of narrow mindedness and willful ignorance continue.
Guess what, false flag terrorism is ages old. Get with the programme.
Recent Examples,
Google: Operation Gladio
Google: P2SOG
Google: Operation Northwoods
We can talk about the British empire, Napoleon, US revolutionaries, CIA in various countries, MI5... or
Stop decrying my statements as evidence free and begin educating yourself on the systems of power that surround us all. Because believe it or not we`re all in the same boat.
Guess what, false flag terrorism is ages old. Get with the programme.
Recent Examples,
Google: Operation Gladio
Google: P2SOG
Google: Operation Northwoods
We can talk about the British empire, Napoleon, US revolutionaries, CIA in various countries, MI5... or
Stop decrying my statements as evidence free and begin educating yourself on the systems of power that surround us all. Because believe it or not we`re all in the same boat.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
WEll since the date on that item is 2003, that was some excellent fwd planning - probably yet another example of your 'conspiracy'.
Azrael - as with the Huxley thread, you seem to assume that you're talking to people who lack propaganda filters and are blind to the actions of those in power, and that none of have read ANYTHING EVER about this.
We have, and whether like L&L you're a tory, or like me you're neither left nor right and quite frankly sick of both, a serious situation here, one that goes to the absolute heart of legal rights. Your constant guff about black ops and the rest of it are not just a distraction, but also show you out to be some kind of little authoritarian yourself, with your presumption of guilt on the part of 'government' - which is actually made up of individial PEOPLE whom you are playing judge and a jury that's already made up it's mind about guilt.
There are things to be worried about - 'freedom fighters' and 'truth seekers' like you.
LMAO. Jee I never recognised that some people on here know exactly how to spot some propaganda or spin...
I feel very satisfied in playing judge and jury over criminal institutions like MI5 though, and the SAS. Murdering traitors. Shall I repeat that?
If you read my previous posts, I`m not accusing "government" per se, but criminal elements of.
Which as I was trying to point out, do actually (officially) exist. Why is it that trying to pass on information which is verfiably true...somehow makes me some wannabe "freedom fighter?"
You can just fuck off quite frankly.
I feel very satisfied in playing judge and jury over criminal institutions like MI5 though, and the SAS. Murdering traitors. Shall I repeat that?
If you read my previous posts, I`m not accusing "government" per se, but criminal elements of.
Which as I was trying to point out, do actually (officially) exist. Why is it that trying to pass on information which is verfiably true...somehow makes me some wannabe "freedom fighter?"
You can just fuck off quite frankly.
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