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"War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK

Posted by kdawson on from the security-theater-as-low-comedy dept.

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.

14 of 598 comments (clear)

  1. Police thugs by mlwmohawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Police thugs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Police thugs by mlwmohawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Police thugs by Atheil · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Police thugs by damburger · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    5. Re:Police thugs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    6. Re:Police thugs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    7. Re:Police thugs by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    8. Re:Police thugs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    9. Re:Police thugs by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. Bloody pigs by damburger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  3. Re:Ironic in so many ways... by R_Dorothy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Stupid flounders!
  4. Re:Context by mdwh2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.)

  5. Re:They need another card. by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard