Slashdot Mirror

As someone in Europe (UK) it is depressing. As well as privacy destruction (yet to come ID cards - that are essentially compulsory as you will need to get one when you renew driving licence, passport etc). A ludicrous ban on protest anywhere near rge centre of government. See map: http://www.met.police.uk/publicorder/images/Sectio n_132_7_boundary.jpg (scale in metres - 1000 m approx 5/8 of a mile for those unfamilar with metric) This includes: New Scotland Yard, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, County Hall, Shell Centre, Downing Street, Cenotaph, Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards Parade, Thames House (MI5), Treasury, Foreign Office, DTI, Parliament. The definition of protest is extreme. The cenotaph is a war memorial. A woman was recently arrested for reciting the names of UK soldiers who had died in Iraq at the cenotaph - an act legitimately in keeping with a war memorial you would think - but no, an illegal protest.

It was reported in the news as the the Metropolitan police force as in this statement. They may recruit from SAS for their fast response teams and their operatives but they are as far as I know not an operative unit under the SAS. SAS is the military special forces in Great Britain.

The Metropolitan police is by far the largest policing force in the Greater London [Map] district and lately incorporated also The Royal Park Constabulary into their forces. But they are not a military branch, they are the civilian police though in certain cases they may definitely make joint operations.

The incident that lead to the unfortunate death of a most likely innocent Brazilian man is now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service Directorate of Professional Standards which would correspond to Bureau of Internal Affairs in some other countries.

The met police site (if you can get to it) confirms four:

There are four confirmed sites where police are dealing with reported explosions this morning. These are:

1) Russell Square and King's Cross underground
2) Moorgate, Aldgate, and Liverpool Street underground
3) Edgware Road underground
4) Tavistock Square, where there has been a confirmed explosion on a bus.

We cannot at this stage confirm the number of those injured, though casualties are multiple. There are believed fatalities but again numbers are not confirmed.We are also asking members of the public not to contact police at this stage
unless it is a genuine emergency.

The BBC is still reporting seven.

Just so long as the name isn't Doctor Clippen "You seem to be having a heart attack. Can I cut off your head?"

They tend to use the same assumption with other technologies too. From the Metropolitan Police Service: "Now the MPS Bureau has a database of 1.5 million fingerprints of people charged with offences and a collection of over 70,000 unidentified marks left at scenes of crimes."

Or, are you suggesting they form a national database and ID card scheme? ;)

> Basically a big blue phone box so police officers
> could contact their station before the advent of
> portable radios, they also had a phone on the
> outside for the use of the public in emergencies
>(behind the panel with text on it.)

I made a discovery recently... I always thought that the real Police Boxes were rather like normal telephone boxes: simple, light, wooden.

But most of them were actually serious concrete affairs, weighing over two tons (which became somewhat of a problem when they were decommissioned). They worked as miniature police stations, where an officer could imprison a suspect until help arrived. Here's a short history, and more details (PDF, sorry).

Was I the only person not to know this? Oh, ok.

I would suggest that anyone in the UK receiving such blackmail demands, should take them straight to the Police, or report them to the Computer Crimes Unit at New Scotland Yard.

But, you can't have it all!

One of the Nigerian spams (Give us your bank details so we can put these millions there for safe keeping, etc...) turned up here once.
If you get those, you are supposed to report them to the police, and your local law enforcement or embassy may be able to help. In London, the Metropolitan police have a web page about it, so we sent the mail and original headers to them.
Apparently, six people were recently arrested for this very crime! So things that are obviously major frauds are worth looking up in case you can shop them to the law!

Yeah... it's suggested they also use a suspicious looking old car with false number plates, an easy way to avoid the police with their ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras, the Square Mile is probably the worse place in the entire country you could pick for this!

If the cameras caught site of a geek entering the streets then they'd good fucking barmy... thieve, terrorist... no, geek! SO19 would be all over you in minutes.

Consequently, the famous "bobbies" are often packing heat now too.

Only armed response teams which are relatively rare...

The other reason I'm in favour is that Brixton (in South London) has a bad (but deserved) reputation for aggro between the police and the local black population, going back beyond the riots in 1981 (that's the London police's site, by the way - more realistic stuff here.) With CCTV, allegations of brutality can be more easily verified and rascist / thuggish cops thrown in jail, where they belong.

The only negative consequence I can think of is that it's going to increase the price of dope... :(
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles