"War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK

An anonymous reader writes "The board game The War On Terror is a satirical game in which George Bush's 'Axis of Evil' is reduced to a spinner in the middle of the board, which determines which player is designated a terrorist state. That person then has to wear a balaclava (included in the box set) with the word 'Evil' stitched onto it. Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava 'could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act.' Balaclavas are freely sold all over the place in the area." Schneier has blogged this stupidity, of course.

Comments

Police thugs

[mlwmohawk]

All too often Police confuse "fighting crime" and "protecting the peace" with authoritarian "because I said so and I have a gun" mentality.

I refrain from a rant, but the more police I meet, the more I hate the police.

Re:Police thugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Fredy Villanueva, Montreal.

yeah, moral of the story is if you're a teen don't play dice outside, or else expect to be shot dead by cops when they come to harass you for making the grave mistake of not being born white.

Re:Police thugs

[mlwmohawk]

it's just not a good enough reason to "hate the police."

I'm not going to go on my typical police rant, but this is not an isolated incident, but a general pattern of behavior seemingly for police everywhere.

I know a LOT of police. I have a step brother who is head of a police union. I have plenty of stories.

The police almost NEVER come to your door to "help" you. Even if they save your life, keep your mouth shut. In Boston the last few years we've had fairly peaceful celebrations after some sports wins, and the police are leading the homicide and injury count.

In dorchester and southie (Boston, MA) under-achievers became criminals or cops. The cops are worse.

Re:Police thugs

[Atheil]

I don't disagree with this, they should be policed more rigorously than the general public, and they usually are. If a cop comes under investigation for a crime, it is a lot more likely to make it to Court than if it is a private citizen, at least in Canada anyways. The best solution to this problem is to allocate more money to police budget so that you have more people wanting to become police officers (since now you'll have an actual benefit to the amount of work they have to do) and can be pickier with who you choose.

Re:Police thugs

[damburger]

Furthermore, some have suggested that the ridiculously gung-ho attitude displayed by the police on that day may in part be a result of having received counter-terrorism training from the Israelis, hardly renowned for respecting the civil rights of those they consider enemies of the state.

Of course, that hardly exonerates the officers in question, any more than 'we were obeying orders' exonerated Nazis.

Re:Police thugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Though, I do worry a bit about the highly trained specialist Firearms Unit shooting *eleven* dumdum bullets at the guy on a busy subway train. Three of the bullets actually missed at close range.

It doesn't sound like the work of a trained marksman, it's the sort of behaviour I would expect of a scared lunatic.

Re:Police thugs

[Anonymous Coward]

and can be pickier with who you choose.

And actually fire people when they abuse their power. If police were actually penalized for egregious abuses of power like this, we wouldn't have enough police officers to generate revenue for the city.

Re:Police thugs

[Sockatume]

Indeed, the lofty positions and training of all involved just makes it worse. They're supposed to be the anti-terrorist elite, and they stalk some random guy around London for an hour, let him onto a train, and shoot him to bits in front of the passengers? Begging their pardon, but even if he had been a terrorist, their reactions would've showed a staggering degree of ineptitude. From investigation to execution, it was just plain bad policing.

Re:Police thugs

[stbill79]

Like everything else touched by government, throwing more money at the problem is rarely the answer.

Besides, it appears that the government really isn't interested in hiring brighter police offers.

Re:Police thugs

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada recently a women's car was hit from behind by an off-duty cop in the wee hours of the morning, after being pulled over by an on duty cop.

The off duty cop was returning from a cop party, he was not given a sobriety test and all the cops who were asked to testify as to his soberness declared that they could not recall.

This is just one example from many.

I totally distrust the police. The only attitude to take is us vs them. We are expected to testify against offenders but the police will *never* testify against their own.

Re:Police thugs

[cayenne8]

FTFA: "George Bush's 'Axis of Evil' is reduced to a spinner in the middle of the board, which determines which player is designated a terrorist state. That person then has to wear a balaclava (included in the box set) with the word 'Evil' stitched onto it. Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava 'could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act.'

Ok...so, I gotta ask. In the UK, are costume shops and halloween masks against the law?

Can you be busted for wearing the fake nose attached to the eyeglasses thing?

It is against the law over there to use the Lil Bastard disquise kit, and alter your appearance? Hair dye a no-no?

Re:Police thugs

[Atheil]

A little of both. Cops know how the system works and they know that it's much better to get a lawyer and tough it out (because the state only has so much money). However, cops are pursued more vigorously by prosecuters and other cops because a) honest cops hate dirty cops, and b) the state loves a good, "look at us, we are stopping police corruption" headline.

Re:Police thugs

[i.r.id10t]

A domestic violence *arrest* will loose your gun rights... one of hte new federal laws. Of course, exempt for cops...

Re:Police thugs

[belmolis]

the Israelis, renowned for respecting the civil rights of those they consider enemies of the state.

Fixed that for you. For a country under continuous assault by the most vicious terrorists, who, along with their supporters, have no respect whatever for civil rights, Israel has been extraordinarily restrained. In what other country do terrorists not only have rapid access to the Supreme Court, but frequently win cases before the Supreme Court?

Re:Police thugs

[k1e0x]

I think the entire concept of police is wrong. I think we need peace officers not police officers.

Police's job should be to prevent people from hurting one another period. Maintain the peace long enough for individuals to file suit on one another. I think the war on drugs has gone a long way to militarizing the police and destroying people right to privacy, If you got rid of the vice crimes, I suspect citizens and police would get along a lot better.

Also the people need more power to be able to fire police officers who show a trend of abusing their powers. If they really do work for us.. and I'm skeptical.. I think they work for the state.. but if they work for us then we should be able to fire them, and it shouldn't be very hard to do. If they do serve us and we are there customers then we need some form or recourse, currently we don't really have any. Sites like ratemycop.com should NEVER be shut down.

Re:Police thugs

[Hatta]

However, I don't blame the cops who enforce the law. Their job is to enforce the law no matter their personal bias and I respect them for that.

"I was just doing my job" didn't fly at Nuremberg and it won't fly here. People who believe in justice should refuse to enforce and obey unjust laws, no matter what.

Re:Police thugs

[grahamd0]

You're begging the question by assuming the government has a legitimate jurisdiction over the country.

You were trolling about this anarchist fanastyland nonsense in another thread the other day. So here's your chance to defend you point of view.

Please tell us all, for the record, who does govern the Unites States, if not the United States government? Where does their authority come from, if not the constitution? And finally, regardless of who you believe does govern the US, who should?

Make a list

[FredFredrickson]

They better get started confiscating things because I've got a lot of identity concealing items around.

-Any article of clothing
-Towels
-Sheets
-Paper Bags
-Ski masks
-My Hands
...

Bloody pigs

[damburger]

The UK police are a serious threat to liberty, and I say this as someone who used to work for them.

They are monumentally petty, generally taking the view that who they arrest should be based on who they don't like the look of rather than who has done something wrong, and then sort out the crime they are to be charged with later.

A common method is to approach people whose appearance suggests poverty (normally written down as "looking suspicious), and intimidating them until they do something that could be construed as resisting arrest or assaulting the officer, then haul them away and throw them in a cell.

They then whinge about having to do loads of 'paperwork' which basically translates to 'its difficult to pin crimes on everybody we haul in'. Having been on the paperwork end of policing I can safely say that if someone has be caught for a specific crime (rather than hauled in for wearing a tracksuit and leaned on) then it isn't hard to get them convicted.

The majority of policing in the city I worked in (where I saw every file that went through the local magistrates court, albeit briefly in most cases) consisted of protecting the property of city businesses, banging up drunks, and bullying chavs.

Re:Ironic in so many ways...

[R_Dorothy]

Deserved publicity. I've played this several times and it's a great game. Never fails to cause humorous infighting with plenty of obvious parallels with current world politics. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with a sense of humour who likes Risk.

Re:Context

[mdwh2]

Here's the thing: a bunch of people were protesting by chaining themselves to gates and generally impeding operations at a power station.

Your citation for this? Climate Camp was a peaceful legal protest from everything I have read.

Yes, you are right that this is more an issue of the protest than the board game - the article is rather misleading to miss this out. But last time I looked, police confiscating things because they don't like what you are protesting about is just as worrying a thing, if not more so.

The actions of the police have been criticised by politicans (one MEP was at the event)

Also see:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405874.html

http://www.hippyshopper.com/2008/08/climate_camp_a_report_from_the_front_line.html

Unless you have evidence that the board game was seized as part of crimes committed, please refrain from spreading misinformation about "shutting down a power station", and making the "protester == illegal" assumption.

(Personally I don't have a strong opinion on the issues being protested either way, but I do have concerns about police action, and I was alerted to these events from a friend who was present as a Legal Observer and witnessed these events.)

Fascist state

[Anonymous Coward]

It really seems to me that Britain is becoming more fascist by the day. I thought the US was bad, but Britain seems to be worse. I don't mean to offend, I am just surprised, is all.

Video cameras everywhere, intrusive police, now this.

Flame me if I'm out of line, but does anybody see the same thing?

Re:Fascist state

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the UK is becoming more scary all the time but this is not necessarily fascism. Police state? Totalitarian? Corrupt? Perhaps so, but fascism is another thing all together. They may well be becoming more fascist than they were but police corruption and gov't monitoring is not what fascism is.

Re:Context, context

[nasalicio]

If the police seize a pack of ladies' stockings from your home, that's absurd. If they seize a crate of ladies' stockings, bank plans, and a toy gun from your car outside a bank, that's reasonable.

it couldnt possibly mean you're an engineer/architect working for that bank you're parked outside of who just happens to be driving your wifes car after she had been shopping, and the kid left his toys in the car....right? no, i wouldnt buy it either, but its still on the police to PROVE malicious intent.

imo i think them seizing anything would be UNreasonable without investigating first. this is why we have detectives. simply owning specific items, even when it looks terribly bad like a crime has and/or will happen, is not enough to justify searching or seizing anything. cops must do their homework to get the proper search warrant, and then they may seize whatever is specified.

Someone needs to tell the UK police

[franksands]

About the Streissand effect.

Re:They need another card.

[bigstrat2003]

If you think most other politicians wouldn't have infringed upon our freedoms just as much, given the same circumstances, you really should give up both voting and handling sharp objects.

Again, what's with the "signed tag"

[CambodiaSam]

Perhaps I missed the explanation on a previous thread, but the "signed" tag seems to be reoccuring. My only recourse is start counter tagging with "unsigned". Is this some sort of new slashdot meme or is the joke literally on just me.

Re:They need another card.

[bigstrat2003]

If you think that GWB is stupid and incompetent, that's more proof you shouldn't be trusted with voting, or sharp objects (to use your own punishment). He's neither. He's corrupt and power-hungry. Any appearance of stupidity and incompetence is because he doesn't give a damn what he does, apart from accomplishing his own goals. Also note: I never said we're in a bad spot. We're not. The people's stupidity, and willingness to believe the world is about to fucking end, is what has allowed our government to perpetrate their abuses since 9/11. And yes, almost any politician would have taken advantage of that situation. GWB isn't an exception, he's the rule. They're almost all corrupt and power-hungry.