On 2006-11-23, Sniper8052(L96A1) <
[email protected]> wrote:
> David Nutter wrote:
>
>> I think you are confusing two issues: the desire of police officers to do
>> their job without excessive bureaucracy and the desire of society to limit
>> police powers to reduce the impact of abuse, whether by individual
>> corruption or the invidious effects of particular laws (e.g. stop and
>> search).
>
> There is not now, nor has there ever been a general police power to stop
> and search. This power to search MUST be exercised on grounds that
> would be reasonable to an impartial third party.
Like this you mean?
http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html
This doesn't seem remotely reasonable to me, though maybe I'm not impartial
enough. For a more recent example see the knife scanner trials (Operation
Shield?) in stations - nominally voluntary but with the obvious effect that
anyone refusing to be scanned was likely deemed to be "acting suspiciously" and
searched, yielding plenty of stabbers and other nasty things. This shows two
things, firstly that the Shield trials showed more about the effects of a
decent police presence than the scanner technology and secondly that police
can usually find a reason to pass the time of day with any citizen should
they wish to do so.
While such powers are indeed necessary for efficient (as you put it)
policing, great care should be taken when exercising them and even more when
extending them. 'Sus' and similar practices in NI undoubtedly were a major
factor in the 80s riots and the Troubles respectively. The [ab]use of those
powers and the consequences thereof cannot be laid at the door of the
'civil liberties' brigade, since they argued against them.
*snip*
> The continued use of the term Stop and Search is misleading and
> devisive. It is used by the press and others who wish to raise distrust
> of the service by being deliberatly emotive and provocative.
Yet abuse and to a lesser extent mere use of such powers is divisive and
provocative all by itself. Interesting though it is, this discussion is
beside the main point that I was trying to make: when creating new powers
for the police or any other organ careful attention should be paid to what
happens when that power is abused and to the likelihood of any such abuse.
This is very difficult to do well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
>
> While these two concerns may overlap in some cases, they are not
>> the same. My facile interpretation: the police want certain laws largely for
>> their convenience (e.g. 90 days detention) whereas wider society wishes to
>> be safe from overbearing policing and both want to control criminality.
>
>
> Wider society?
>
> Do you mean Mr and Mrs Average?
No, I literally mean 'wider society' - that collection of different social
groups often with massively different social mores but with some shared
values. Mr and Mrs Average don't really exist in that context, if at all.
They perhaps typify one of those groups, no more.
>
> I can tell you, in my experience, what Mr+Mrs Average, with their two
> children and dog want. They want to be able to live their lives and
> raise their children in safety, with an efficient police, fire, health
> and social service and without the fear of being subjected to threats
> from groups of any faction. In my experience Mr+Mrs Average don't give
> a fig about how that comes about, just that it does.
>
> I agree that both parties, the public and criminal/suspects, must have
> adequate protection. I do not see that Mr+Mrs Average want the
> laws/powers that could protect the majority to be rendered ineffective
> or impossible to administer by the vocal minority of do-good activists
> who have their own, unelected, knife to grind. If they feel they are so
> right then they should get elected to parliament.
I take your point to a certain extent but find the idea that civic discourse
starts and ends at the ballot box every few years peculiar. Assuming for a
moment that 'Mr and Mrs Average' do exist, they may not care per se how
their lifestyle is kept safe but will certainly care if overzealous policing
either affects them directly or causes such disruption that their way of
life is affected by the fallout.
JOOI, have you taken a flight recently?
> We as a group decry BHit and their ilk as being unrepresentative of the
> majority cycling group. Why should Mr+Mrs Average be subject to a lobby
> group surplanting their elected groups authority to pass and administer
> legislature?
You are correct to point out the similarity between BHIT, who promote an
officious imposition by the state based on highly questionable evidence, and
elements of the police who promote...er...officious impositions by the state
based on highly questionable evidence (ID cards, 90 days and magical
fingerprint readers). Ultimately we're all still more-or-less free to argue
the point according to our personal lights, thank goodness.
>> In this case, the police apparently want a handy way to check drivers'
>> identities to save time and paperwork. Even assuming the fingerprinting
>> technology works properly a significant number of drivers will not be on the
>> fingerprint database (at least at first) and so will still need to be taken
>> to the station or trusted to produce their documents later. So, why not just
>> legislate to require the carrying of licence and insurance documents, as
>> happens in other European countries? That would solve the specific problem
>> here without requiring any gadgetry.
>
> I do not know but I would make a suggestion that once we have a national
> ID scheme the system will be used to help ensure that the person
> presenting the card is the person it proports to represent. Whilst not
> foolproof it makes copying the card more difficult.
That's a whole other argument. Nevertheless, even if the system works as
advertised (doubtful, for a whole host of reasons) it's still a decade away
and consequently doesn't help to solve the immediate problem that these
readers puport to solve (false driver details).
>>
>> No, I think the agenda here is something different. Given the history of the
>> DNA database, I think these devices are to be used as a convenient method of
>> snaffling lots of fingerprints into the database initially without explicit
>> legal authority. Such a collection is undoubtedly considered mighty useful
>> in some quarters but I personally believe the costs to be too high to
>> proceed, especially in such an underhand manner.
>
> I doubt that, a significant amount of information has to be entered into
> the database to have the prints acceptable. Also one fingerprint is not
> a large amount of use in abstract identification of offenders where as
> checking a residual fingerprint against a known set/subset is.
Yet exactly this situation occurred with the DNA database, legalised
retrospectively by the 2001 Criminal Justice and Police Act. Efficacy or
legality of the collection process or resultant data will carry little
weight with those who could sanction such an imposition.
> I have very strict views on policing and how it should be done. I have
> stated my view on many occasions but it boils down to,
>
> 'Keeping a straight bat and playing the game...'
>
> Justice is not always about punishing the offender. Justice, in its
> abstract form, is about the adminisration of the wishes of society to
> live free from fear of whatever criminal activity the offender has
> commited. It is the confusion between protecting society and punishing
> the offender that many do not grasp.
Nothing I disagree with there.
>
>>... our remaining liberties are the only thing we can use to protect
>> ourselves from being tyrannised, whether by criminals or an overbearing
>> state. All other desirable societal structures are built on these, whether
>> governance/policing by consent or any meaningful concept of equitable
>> justice. If you weaken them to facilitate vengeful chastisement of minor
>> wrongdoers you risk the very basis of the society you puport to protect.
>
> I do not advocate vengeful chastisement and I never have. Ever. I
> advocate a strong system of laws, administered fairly, governed by legal
> restraints and passed by our elected representatives.
You spoke of the 'pendulum of justice' which has been 'swung [...] away from
the victim' and I assumed that you were talking about Reid's "rebalancing"
act. This was careless of me and I apologise; your point of view is more
subtle than that and I fear we may actually be in violent agreement here!
> If you weaken the ability of the law to be administered then you harm
> society. In my book "...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the
> few" but the few must be legaly protected within that system.
Fair enough as a utilitarian philosophy, but surely you agree that this
ability to adminster the law is likewise weakened when excessive and easily
abusable powers are granted, or similarly when the police/security services
are seen to be above the law they profess to uphold?
Policing is all part of governance by consent.
> All to often though, in my opinion, the vocal few seek not to provide a
> legal safety but to destroy the purpose of the law and its
> administration for whatever reason.
>
> If I felt that I could not work freely and fairly I would not be a
> police officer. I did not spend 13 years of my life serving my country
> to supress the freedoms I risked my life to preserve.
Commendable, but there are plenty of stark lessons from history here:
briefly that in the right situation it's very easy for good men to do
extraordinary evil if that is what the system demands. It is easier for such
demands to become commonplace when the organs of the state have great
discretionary powers and little oversight from the governed. We're not there
(yet) but I and it would seem others become concerned everytime we (or our
elected representatives
) take us a step towards that sort of dystopia.
Regards,
-david
