The Wardman Wire

This morning can I draw your attention to a policing self-caricature that – were it the 1980s – would allow Spitting Image to be combined with Crimewatch and turned into a live video-clip show.

It illustrates how ambiguous, ill-defined, badly thought-out and insufficiently scrutinised laws can build one on another to create a farce. This man was accused of something he hadn’t done – taking photographs of sealed sewer-gratings, no evidence was found – i.e., no photos were in the phone, but a “suspicion” was trumped up to hold him for 48 hours and – under a different law – his DNA is now on record permanently. “Stalker-state” seems to be an entirely apposite description. This is from BoingBoing:

Have a look at this news-video about Stephen Clarke, a man who was accused to taking pictures of sewer-gratings in Manchester and arrested. Though the police couldn’t find any photos of sewer-gratings on his phone (and even though “what a sewer grating looks like” isn’t a piece of specialized terrorist intelligence), he was held on suspicion of planning an act of terror, imprisoned for two days while the police searched his home, his phone and his computer. When they couldn’t find anything suspicious, they released him, but kept his DNA on file, as the biometric of someone who had been accused of plotting a terrorist act.

Retention of DNA Samples

The reporter in the clip asks what will happen to the DNA swabs taken, bearing in mind that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled much of the current practice to be illegal. That issue is not resolved yet. and will only be one battle in a long war.

In the past it has been virtually impossible to have DNA information deleted from the police records. If you wish to see just how heavily (and in my view cynically) the system is weighted against the possibility of removal and is exploited to that effect, read this exhaustive account written by David Mery about his own experience. It took the best part of four years (and at least 6 radio interviews) to have his DNA records destroyed, and the system is set up such that in the end it was a “grace and favour” decision. It is a tale of incompetence, public relations and bureaucratic bluster. This is the sort of work that demands the existence of blogs; quite simply no one else does it. That it is necessary to spend hundreds of hours fighting through the bureaucratic thickets to achieve a simple results speaks volumes about the situation in which we find ourselves.

[Update: 6/3/2009 h/t UK Liberty. David's account of Kevin Reynolds' experience is also worth reading (part 1, part 2).]

If somebody who still believes the concept exists wants to destroy Policing by Consent, this is how.

A Big Pile of Stinking New Labour Legislative Poo

[Note: To be clear - I don't like a lot of recent laws, but this section refers specifically to laws which have borne down upon individual freedom.]

We have ambiguous law piled on top of ambiguous law, many badly drafted, many introducing unnecessary, badly defined, powers without proper examination in Parliament. Many are insufficiently scrutinised due to the much tighter timetabling (”guillotine”) arrangements introduced by New Labour and the practice of introducing stacks of amendments too late in the lawmaking process to allow that process to work properly. Examples can be cited by the hundred – starting with the latest photography offence that was not even understood by the police themselves when it became active.

Is it any wonder that we are up legal and policing shit-creek without a paddle?

In practice that gives far more latitude for inappropriate (or, potentially, deliberate) abuse of powers. This case is an illustration. We can see that in the current case.

What had he done? Nothing that merited arrest.

Did they find any grounds for their actions? No

Did that make any difference? No, they found a reason to detain and DNA test him anyway.

Bear in mind, this was not even done under the latest “you can’t photograph policemen” measures – it was under previous laws. The situation is now worse.

One interesting aside is that arrest perhaps now carries far less of a stigma than previously – apart from in state databases, maybe – and is one of those things that just comes up with the rations like road accidents or toothache.

Wake up, O Refusenik

That, Tom and all those who would still defend this stack of laws, illustrates the problem. It is no good saying that powers are only meant to be used “in very rare circumstances”; we know that that isn’t what happens. This harrassment of photographers, to take just the current example, is happening all the time, every day, to all sorts of people, everywhere. That link is to a list started two weeks ago and there are dozens and dozens of documented examples available without even looking very hard. Go and ask the question of Journalism Students at your local university, and see what they say.

Time to simply assert liberal values?

I wonder if we are going to have to simply assert our rights and accept that we are potentially going to be stuck on the National DNA Database despite the fact that we are completely innocent of any crime. Eventually this tendency will be brought under control, and the DNA database reduced, due to sheer political reality expelling New Labour and its restrictions on the population into the dustbin of history. We need a reasonable security/freedom balance – closer to that in the rest of Europe – rather than an unnecessary and wasteful infrastructure of monitoring and control.

Looking to the Tories and Lib Dems?

At present we are going to have to look to the Tories and Lib Dems to tackle the problem.

There are some noises from the Conservatives (but I’m damned if I can find a link. added 6/3) about a review of the legislation which has circumscribed the autonomy of the individual over the last decade. The point I would insist on is that this be done before an Election and put in the manifesto. They won’t be getting my vote unless it is specified up front.

And the Lib Dems are probably mainly there already with their Freedom Bill initiative (but have they dumped the “Big Brother for Drivers” plan yet?). Nice SEO for Google though, Mark.

Labour may recover the non-authoritarian bits of its tradition, and I wish them luck, but I don’t think it will happen without an organisational revolution inside the party. For that to be achieved in time for the next election will be a miracle.

Wrapping Up

My hope is that the current period of our legal history will go down as a dystopian interlude – some sort of extended political fit of madness when the lunatics gained control of the asylum. But to make sure that we repair the damage, a lot more people need to pick up these questions and make sure they go up the political agenda.

As of now, we are one year from an election and it is time to become active and push these questions in all the parties.

I suggest that the blog of Kevin Reynolds, mentioned above, is a good place to start for patient, level-headed, long-term analysis on these questions.