[align=left]I'm tossing this out there to see if others either realise or think about Britain in the 21st Century.. Not sure if i was the only one who at the turn of the century hoped that the new century would bring about positive change for all..(maybe i was niave)... but it seems to me that far from progressing, we appear to be slipping back into the worse kind of excesses that characterised the worse periods of human history...

Today i wake up...to the news that the Uk goverment is NOW proposing new police powers to stop, search and question anyone without requiring a reason to do so...

This is already on top of the:

-New mini helicopter CCTV
-Extensive CCTV network in public places
-Traffic wardens fitted with CCTV in their hats.
-Microtechnology in refuse bins.
-enforced ID cards and the centralisation of personal data.
-removal of right to jury trial.
-Goverment policy that public offices like nurse, Social workers and Doctors will be made to tip of authorities about any they SUSPECT may commit a crime..
-New mental health laws..(community Treatment Orders) that effectively allows the state to control your life indefinately, with very little recourse..
-Dentention of people without trial in prison indefinately, the detention of men, women and children pending extradiction.
-Goverment policy that Social workers should remove children from parents refusing to leave the uk..
-Current law that allows the police to TAKE and KEEP DNA samples from anyone they arrest regardless of whether they are later convicted of a crime or not..


Am i the only one who feels that they woke up in a totaliterian state, yes i know we [Africans] are at war and it has always been thus. However laterly i feel that things are getting worse, much worse and that we are on the brink of returning to the very worse excesses of the 20th Century..Stalinism, aparthied etc.. This country feels likeb the conditions i read about in 1930's Germany in the infancy if the Third Reich... I still for example struggle to comprehend the fact that a man was virtually executed in Stockwell Stn, and yet no one has been held accountable and does not look likely to be held accountable for that execution.....The West invaded a country based on pure lies and got away with it....how can this be i keep asking myself.....Am i over reacting or does feel like its getting that bad....

For me Britain in the 21st Century, is mirroring all the thing they kept telling me as a child, were the foundations for Hitlers rise to power...what are your thoughts?
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http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...267646,00.html


New Police Stop And Question Powers
Updated: 06:33, Sunday May 27, 2007

Police could be given the power to stop and question anyone at random under new anti-terrorist laws being considered by the Government.

Tougher powers for policeOfficers would have the right to ask people about their identities and movements and failure to comply could lead to criminal charges or a hefty fine.

It has been reported that Tony Blair and the Home Secretary, John Reid, want to push the legislation through before Mr Blair stands down as PM.

Anyone who refused to co-operate could be charged with obstructing the police and fined up to £5,000, according to the Sunday Times which uncovered the proposal.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We are considering a range of measures for the Bill and 'stop and question' is one of them."

At present, officers may stop and search individuals on "reasonable grounds for suspicion" they have committed an offence but have no rights to ask for their identity and movements.

Stronger powers to remove vehicles and paperwork for examination are also believed to be part of the package.

The move has been attacked by civil rights campaigners.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: "The police should not have powers to run around questioning people willy-nilly, otherwise people feel hunted.

"This looks like political machismo, a legacy moment. Stopping and questioning anyone you like will backfire because people will be being criminalised."

Jane Winter, director of British-Irish Rights Watch, told the newspaper it represented "one of the most significant moves on civil liberties since the Second World War. A sledgehammer to crack a nut."



http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...267645,00.html



Blair Backs Stop And Question Powers
Updated: 07:06, Sunday May 27, 2007

Tony Blair has hit out at the "dangerous misjudgment" of putting civil liberties before fighting terror.
His comments comes as it emerged tough new 'stop and question' powers may be given to the police as part of a new anti-terror package.

'Misguided and wrong'He insisted the disappearance of three suspects under control orders was not the fault of the Home Office but society's "misguided and wrong" priorities.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: "The fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office.

"We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first.

"I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong."

He went on: "Over the past five or six years we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

"Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment."





It appears as if the sus laws are coming back in full effect as this new legislation will hit Africans the most. We're living in a totalitarian state that's only going to get worse.

I don't care about anyone else's wellbeing but Africans as people need to fight their own battles, however what this is saying in essence is this: Refuse to be harassed and picked on and you will pay the price. So now you will have the beast hassling people just for the hell of it. In fact this will be even worse than the sus laws of the 70s/80s because at least back then, those laws were abolished when it was discovered the police were illegally going about bullying African citizens. Now they're actually going to be given permission to use those same Babylonian tactics with impunity.

[align=left]Prince: this is definately worse than the 70's..ok back then people got fitted up and a beating by the police......but there was the state sanctioned terrorism than in today's society, now they don't have to lie to lock you up for 28 days... they can put in prison without every producing a shred of evidence... and worse you can be tortured and nobody is gonna question it..... Hell they can even shoot you dead and nobody will be held to account..
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Kunjufu

I picked up this report on the news this morning and shook my head. Not in disbelief but in pity for all of us living in this country. I remember (a while back on these very boards) saying that Britain will follow suit with the US with their Patriot Acts and 'Home Security' laws, so that we, like the American public, will hardly be able to p*ss without the proper clearance. They had 9/11 and we had the 'July bombings'. Those two events serving to provide never-ending justification for putting every man, woman, child and dog on lock down.

Two 'terrorist' events, a program of indoctrination to ensure the public 'fear factor' is kept onlevelMac5, and hey presto we have- gradual-to-totalerosion of civil liberties.

I guess there is not much point in suggesting that the reason given for the adoption lawseroding civil liberties (i.e.the 'to ensure wider public safety' line) is all a ruse? There is another reason why Western governments are starting to put in place mechanisms to ensure that control of the people can be achieved with relative ease. That reason is linked tothe more unpalatable (to the general public that is) actions governmentswill be taking in future as we lurch nearer to the big one.......the'War of TheResources' (world energy).

There will come a time when the people will want to revolt (those who haven't been completely comatose in a sheep-like mentality that is), but alas they will have no 'legitimate rights' under which to do so.

Respect

[align=left]Stop and rethink

Leader
Monday May 28, 2007
The Guardian

Most hardened lags coming to the end of their stretch inside would be minded to keep their heads down. Not Tony Blair. Ten years into his term, the prime minister yesterday came up with some fresh ideas for tackling the threat of terrorism. They include giving police officers in the UK the power to stop and interrogate individuals about their identity and their movements. Those questioned need not be suspected of any crime, yet failure to comply could land them with a criminal conviction and a fine of £5,000.New powers they may be, but the thinking behind them is well-worn. For Mr Blair further erosion of individual freedoms is a fair trade for greater security against the threat of terrorism.
[/align][align=left]
[/align][align=left]"We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect ... first," he wrote yesterday and warned: "This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal." Few dispute that the terrorist threat in this country is formidable: the Crevice trial, which concluded last month, gave us more evidence of that. What is doubtful is the efficacy of Mr Blair's prescription. The Crevice investigation was intelligence-led; giving police arbitrary powers to stop whoever they want, without even the fig leaf of "reasonable suspicion" they currently require, could poison community relations and so choke off crucial sources of intelligence. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 already allows for widespread use of stop and search. These powers have been useful in shaking down youths with knives and disrupting anti-war demos - even in getting 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang ejected from a Labour party conference. But they have not resulted in a single terrorist conviction. Extending them further, so that police can ask whoever they want to prove their identity, dovetails all too well with the introduction of ID cards further down the tracks and looks the very definition of draconian.[/align][align=left]
[/align][align=left] Mr Blair's argument for extending police powers echoes Dick Cheney's One Per Cent doctrine: the US vice-president's epigram that, if there's even a 1% probability of the unimaginable coming to pass, act as if it is a certainty. This assertion ignores the effect of getting it wrong the other 99% of the time. With stop and search, the risk is that a minority is targeted and alienated. In the 1980s, under the old "sus laws", which this new proposal closely resembles, that was young black men; this time, it will be British Asians. That is already happening under section 44, which is why the Metropolitan Police Authority told a select committee of MPs in 2005: "It has increased the level of distrust in our police. It has trampled on the rights of too many Londoners. It has cut off valuable sources of community information and intelligence." On existing evidence, therefore, stop and search not only fails to achieve its objective in battling terrorism; it is counterproductive, driving a wedge between the forces of law and order and a community they need to keep tabs on. No wonder that, as we report today, neither Scotland Yard, nor the Association of Chief Police Officers officially asked ministers for this extension.
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[/align][align=left]Indeed, police and counterterrorism experts are increasingly worried about the scope for abuse of existing powers. These concerns may resonate with Gordon Brown, who spoke this weekend of the need for terrorism to be defeated by engaging the public.
Tony McNulty, the police minister, maintained yesterday that these proposals would be fully consulted on so that they could be got right. A shame, then, they first saw the light of day in a Sunday newspaper, before even cabinet ministers had been fully briefed. This smacks of kite-flying by two demob-happy men, Tony Blair and John Reid, who step down in a month. Mr Brown should not be bounced into following their lead.
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Kunjufu wrote:
You are lying right? so what if you get arrested and the charges dropped they still keep your blood sample

what how can the people who reveiw laws allow that surely it infinges on civil liberties damn, how come no said nothing when this law was being made we managed to get rid of the suss law, we can do away with this law

Agape wrote: As far as I am aware the powers-at-be never talked about using DNA samples...they just did it. No consultation with the public, no dialogue, nothing. They just did it! Watch how this new stop and searchbill will just waltz on through to become law, unchallenged.

I was having a debate on another forum about who would get stopped and more importantly, who would not get stopped. the middle class grey or the ethnic minority - there was no argument as we all knew the answer. So ifI amstopped and the police isn't happy with the answers to the questions can he arrest me unde the prevention of terrorism act? confused3

Actually, if you recall the original 'dialogue' on taking DNA, it was supposed to be the case that the DNA of those not subsequently charged (i.e. innocent Joe Public) was supposed to be distroyed. It was subsequently found out that this wasn't being done and outrage and disguss ensued.

But hey, guess what? It is pretty standard practice now to take DNA under any pretence and maintain it on the database. In fact it is probably easier to get the DNA of people who are not involved in criminal activity than those who are. Criminals tend to be annoying hard to catch so the Police find solice in picking up people who are no threat to society whatsoever - just wait, it will only be a matter of time before you have to give a sample when caught dropping litter or doing 35 in a 30 mph zone.

You know what worries me most? How easy it will be to get someone convicted by 'claiming' their DNA was found at the scene - whether it was or not. Because courts tend to look on DNA 'evidence' as certainty of guilt.

But then again 'planting of DNA evidence' could never happen here could it? Sleep tight!

Respect

Quote:

For me Britain in the 21st Century, is mirroring all the thing they kept telling me as a child, were the foundations for Hitlers rise to power...

I totally agree with that statement. The Nazis lacked the technology that we have today.

It's scary to see where this country is going with this.

And scarer to know that there is very little opposition to what is going on. People blame the Germans for what went on during the Nazi era, but I think that we too need to stand up and take a look at our nonchalence, in what is happening in our society today.