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purplecthulhu: (Scream)
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Arrested for carrying a rucksack in a built up area during the hours of darkness...

posted by [personal profile] purplecthulhu at 02:46pm on 22/09/2005
[Pointed to by [livejournal.com profile] flickgc...]

You can now be arrested for carrying a rucksack in a tube station and, essentially, nothing else. This includes spending a night in the cells, having your home searched, having items removed, to be returned at an indefinite future time, and having your DNA, fingerprints and the fact you were arrested for this placed on file in perpetuity.

If this isn't abuse of police power I don't know what is. And the ID card database state will just make it worse.

More info. here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1575411,00.html
Mood:: 'angry' angry
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There are 15 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] del-c.livejournal.com at 02:08pm on 22/09/2005
I guess it's an improvement on "shot". In a "hooray for the increase in chocolate ration! We love Big Brother!" sort of way.
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posted by [identity profile] sbisson.livejournal.com at 02:46pm on 22/09/2005
David's an old aquaintance of mine. I'm glad he's now told his story.

I've known about it for some time now, but we were all asked not to talk about it until he'd put it in print.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] orangemike.livejournal.com at 03:17pm on 22/09/2005
cue middle-class bleat
...but surely only terrorist sympathisers would object to having the police know things about them...
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 03:21pm on 22/09/2005
Maybe, if they don't think about it.

But they'd surely object to having their possessions locked away in a police station for a lengthy period.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] orangemike.livejournal.com at 03:26pm on 22/09/2005
But that's part of being a mindless bourgeois twit: the smug certainty that this kind of thing only happens to other people!
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 03:29pm on 22/09/2005
You don't get much more bourgeois than a Guardian journo!
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] del-c.livejournal.com at 07:31pm on 22/09/2005
I think [livejournal.com profile] orangemike has a badly-calibrated sense of British stereotypes. As you know, in Britain the "middle class" is more likely to be the object of right-wing scorn for their bleating about civil rights and other such wishy-washy liberal concerns.
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muninnhuginn: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] muninnhuginn at 03:38pm on 22/09/2005
Well, I'm looking forward to a spate of accidents as folk fall down the stairs in the underground due to studiously not looking at the ground in a suspicious manner.

I'd like to say the story is incredible, but it isn't :-(
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] smofbabe.livejournal.com at 04:31pm on 22/09/2005
Wow! I thought stuff like that only happened in the US!
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posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 04:31pm on 22/09/2005
Sadly we seem to have caught the disease.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] mireille21.livejournal.com at 08:45pm on 22/09/2005
Puts head into hands and cries. I am stunned. Now makes me think twice about all those French military who were watching me as I walked through the train station today with 2 backpacks (one on the front and one on the back). I was thinking why are they watching me? Are they just astounded that one small girl can carry so much or do they seriously think I might have something more lethal than dirty laundry in one of these bags. Now I know.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 09:20pm on 22/09/2005
The French have a habit of assigning their least diplomatic soliders to that kind of duty. When I lived in Paris from 96-98 they'd had a lot of Algerian terrorist activity, and put the Foreign Legion onto the metro. One American lady asked a soldier for directions, it was reported, and he replied 'I'm not here to answer questions, I'm here to kill!"... I almost expect this of the French, but not of our police.
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posted by [identity profile] handslive.livejournal.com at 01:23am on 23/09/2005
When I first read about this, I thought about the time [livejournal.com profile] purplejavatroll and I came and visited and all the times the three of us got on the trains together, each with their own bag.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 07:15am on 23/09/2005
Quite - we were clearly on a dry run for something nasty...

I still carry a laptop rucksack daily, so am rather worried about this development.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] canadian-worm.livejournal.com at 03:56pm on 24/09/2005
I was detained at US customs for having "some kind of metal" in my coat pocket. Being young and stupid at the time, I went to pull out the tiny lapel pin sporting a Canadian flag from my pocket, when the armed officer barked at me to keep my hands where he could see them.

Now a days, I'd probably have been shot.
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