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Terrorism Act


joeyconcrete

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A sign of things to come?- the terrorism act

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/s...1575532,00.html

 

The police decided that wearing a rain jacket, carrying a rucksack with a laptop inside, looking down at the steps while going into a tube station and checking your phone for messages just ticked too many boxes on their checklist and makes you a terrorist suspect
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That is a horrifying story! While it's possible - just - to understand the initial reaction of the police who have to be alert to the terrorist threat, the treatment of the individual once it was shown that they were wrong was absolutely unforgiveable.

There was a parody of an Animal Farm quotation at the end of the piece but, to be honest, the story reads more like an excerpt from 1984.

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The thing I find so disturbing about this story is that it is only because the person arrested was an articulate journalist that his story was publicized. How many other people have been arrested, fingerprinted and made to give a genetic sample which will be stored away. I guess thousands ... does anyone have any idea if you can get figures on this sort of thing ... how big is the police genetic database ... what percentage of it was forceably obtained? I think I'm right if the guy had refused to give a sample he could have been charged with an offence.

 

I find it very very disturbing. As has been said before when the state starts collecting info and having files on innocent people you have to start questioning why this info is being held.

 

Its the main reason I'm also unhappy about travelling to the US or getting a new passport. I don't think its being publicized that the new passport is basically the equivilent of getting every person who wants to travel abroad to hand their finger prints over to the government and to the government of any country they travel to. I just find it a huge invasion of my privacy and very very creepy ... anyone else agree?

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Yes, I agree. I wouldn't ever travel to the USA purely because of their fingerprint policy, and hadn't even realised until now that the UK are planning to fingerprint everyone applying for a new one.

 

Very, very scary where all this new legislation appears to be taking us. Biometric data of everybody collated, imprisonment without trial for up to 7 months, arrested for wearing a rucksack...all far more worrying than the threat of terrorism it's apparently designed to stop (IMHO).

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I ... hadn't even realised until now that the UK are planning to fingerprint everyone applying for a new one.

 

If its not finger prints its iris scans or some other biometric data ... I don't think its decided yet ... as I said its the equivilent of a finger print.

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does anyone have any idea if you can get figures on this sort of thing ... how big is the police genetic database ... what percentage of it was forceably obtained? I think I'm right if the guy had refused to give a sample he could have been charged with an offence.

 

No, no offence, simply it would of been taken by force using rooted hair from his head. He has no option.

 

Personally i think DNA should be taken from everyone at birth. Think of the amount of serial rapists and murderers who could have been stopped before going on to commit further crimes. For the sake of a minority group of paranoid people i think sight of a greater goal gets clouded.

 

As for that story i bet half is true and the other half bowlocks. Probably just some half rate journalist using a now routine event to fill a slot in his tawdry rag and have another pop at authority. If it was his mother, brother, dad or friend scooped into a bucket on the day of the bombings his thoughtsa would probably be very different.

 

yeah yeah, spelling mistakes a plenty

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If it was his mother, brother, dad or friend scooped into a bucket on the day of the bombings his thoughtsa would probably be very different.

 

Why would his thoughts be different? Care to explain how a comprehensive national database of genetic information corresponding to every inhabitant of the UK would prevent suicide bombings?

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I'm talking more about his negative attitude regarding the way he feels he was wrongly treated. In that context I'm sure he would be more forgiving if he had suffered the loss of loved ones.

 

On your point a DNA database may assist with preventing such bombingsm, it just has so many uses but pretty much all hypothetical. For example if the police recovered items from one of the the recent bombers they may find dna on that item relating to another individual. That well may provide a a link and direction where to use their resources. Maybe by doing so they may prevent a future bombing, you just wouldnt know.

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I wouldn't ever travel to the USA purely because of their fingerprint policy, and hadn't even realised until now that the UK are planning to fingerprint everyone applying for a new one.

Jeez.

We only got new passports last year. Does that mean we need to re-new them to the finger print type before we can travel to the U.S.A? and do the same rules apply to Canada?

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We only got new passports last year. Does that mean we need to re-new them to the finger print type before we can travel to the U.S.A? and do the same rules apply to Canada?

You will not need new passports. If your passport does not have biometrics, you will be photo'd and fingerprinted when you get to the U.S.

 

Don't know about Canada, sorry.

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