Thames Stop and Search

Great pity though ....

that all the extra security that is now so much a part of our daily lives -when you buy a house or use a solicitor or travel by plane or leave the country - started after Lockerbie and multiplied since 9/11 and was triggered by terrorists ....who travel by public transport, carry crap holdalls and use cheap knives. Not guns, high speed cars, solictors, estate agents nor fake ID nor boats.

The swabs catch drugs, the passport controllers catch visa overstayers, the scanners catch nail scissors.

It remains the case that a terrorist with determination could still quite easily take control of a plane as the stewardesses nip in and out the flight deck and all pilots with whom I have spoken to say they will do just what anyone wants with a plastic knife at their throat, or if someone uses items from the onboard first aid kit, easily accessible.

There are tiny numbers of suicide bombers, and if they had less publicity there'd be fewer still.

If there are future bombings, i think there should be far more of a news blackout. No gory pages and pages of speculation and death lists in the paers or on the telly. If some remember the massive Baltic exchange bomb - which caused massive desrtruction and disruption in the city of London for years afterwards - like that. Yep, care and counselling and so on for victims but not huge publicity. Reading the papers and watching the TV with glee - that's the main buzz from terrorism and the attraction for new recruits. They don't really "get anywhere" - there's no "cause" other than having an effect and it's only tangible in the news media.

As far as i can see, terror by it's very nature can never be bullied away nor "fought" becaue it's merely a method of fighting. It's like suggesting that one should "debate issues with anarchists".

It can be made to show that terrorism won't work, won't affect our lives. The uk and US govts say they recognise this. But they are allowing over-zealous and badly-directed security forces at home and overseas to do the very opposite, and an uncontrolled media gives the glorious gory publicity that makes terrorism -for a few misguided individuals - ever more noteworthy.

all imho.
 
Re: Don\'t be so ruddy PC about it

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They may be taking surreptitious swabs and putting them through a mass spec, or using sniffers for explosives.

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But don't all boats carry explosives. We have explosives in three areas, including hidden in a waterproof bag and clipped to the door frame.

In fact, as I intend to fit explosives to our lifejackets, even though smaller, we might get shot as the sniffer might detect them about our bodies.

Sniffers would go nuts on leisure boats! Scary thought!
 
Re: Don\'t be so ruddy PC about it

all of which tightly packed away inside their canisters, so no traces will show on swabs from your fingers. They are looking for different types of explosives typically.

What explosives are you planning on fitting to your life jacket. Semtex enabled CO2 canisters?
 
Re: Great pity though ....

The swabs catch traces of explosives, not drugs, though they can do that too. Depends what the equipment is calibrated to catch.

There are all sorts of new regs. Basel II and Soxs for instance are aimed at fincancial community after Enron etc

The fact that higher levels of security have been introduced are less harmfull than speed cameras and London congestion charge with reg plate reading cameras everywhere.

The issue with most security issues is that they are not explained, so most don't understand the reasons why. For a good reason. If the security forces told everyone why and what they are doing, then the suicide bombers and others could easily avoid them.
 
Re: Great pity though ....

The problem is that there is a tendancy to go over the top and blame "security" and we're supposed to accept it like good sheep. I've had enormous hassle moving money around (completely legally, of course) - but been asked questions which are intrusive in the extreme and go beyond that which they need to collect to satisfy the law. Yet thats okay because its for "my security" is the bland excuse.

Same is happening at airports - why do the US ban lighters on a plane, but allow 3 books of matches? Why do they ban knives/screwdrives/anything sharp, yet never question my wife who takes on several syringes for medical reasons? In fact, in the past 8 year, the letter from her GP which she has to carry has never been inspected by any airline. Really makes you think just how effective all these "security" checks are - if any terrorist could checkin with several syringes of nasty stuff and just claim a medical condition....

Rick
 
Where does that stop? A quick look round your house at 3 am?
I've got nothing to hide but I don't ever want to have to prove my innocence. There is a difference & it goes back to magna carta.

Yes - it's awful and horrifying but people do find it easier to terrorise & bomb free democracies than they do fascist dictatorships. Doesn't mean I want to live in a dictatorship.
 
A high level of interference by the security services is a handy reminder to everyone that we still face some sort of threat and allows us to be kept in a relatively stable but useful state of fear. It allows the government to turn everyone's perceptions upside down and prevent them getting too comfortable in one particular mindset.

Not long ago, the apparently rightist view of the police was a bunch of lazy sods incapable of catching anyone nicking their cars and yet spectacularly able at installing speed cameras and collecting vast revenues, whilst flouting those laws themselves. Now, these same incompetents are the guardians of our liberty with a tough job, who should have every right to do what they want for the sake of "security", even if it means the odd casualty.

Those more towards the left on the other hand, after getting over the euphoria of the major political coup that was fox hunting, were just beginning to realise again that they had in a fact a US supporting, war mongering government that was beginning to struggle to keep a lid on it's corruption and greed. It's only justification being WMD's and a war on terror. With the liklehood of finding WMD's getting slimmer by the minute the terrorsits did everyone a favour by stepping up to the plate.

Yes, those good ole Muslim fundamentalists managed to turn a country from the point of questioning and seeing just how corrupt the establishment that "looks after" them is, into a jingoistic nation that now runs back into the arms of that very same establishment for safety and security, and all in the nick of time...Phew!
 
There is one chief constable who doesn't want to be seen as a government puppet.

Unfortunately, I think the man is totally mad anyway. I talk of Brunstrom the chief constable of North Wales Heddlu. He is the man who wants a Gatso on every street corner. Nothing wrong with Gatso's, by the way, as long as they are placed outside every school in the country and are able to discriminate between school hours and out of school hours.

Brunstrom has just announced that he is to investigate Tony Blair for allegedly saying "**** the Welsh" when they didn't vote his way.

What a great way of spending precious money.

If it gets to the stage when we are prosecuted for the merest thought or sudden reaction, we may as well rename the country GB1984.

I would love for Blair to be prosecuted (war crimes), but not for saying what he is alleged to have said.

Bloody raggies!

Ooops. Do I hear another knock at the door?
 
"Doesn't mean I want to live in a dictatorship"

You say that you live in Gloucestershire. Surely that is in the New Labour Dictatorship, Brownshirts and all, also called the UK?
 
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