Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK Introduces Warrantless Detention

Posted by Unknown on from the cameras-are-for-hippies dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that the UK is introducing new laws tightening security around military bases, quoting the article "The Ministry of Defense is set to introduce "draconian" new powers to tighten security and limit access to US airbases in Britain implicated in mass surveillance and drone strikes, The Independent can reveal. ... Among the 20 activities to be banned within the controlled area are camping 'in tents, caravans, trees or otherwise,' digging, engaging in 'any trade or business' or grazing any animal. Also among the offenses, which can result in an individual being 'taken into custody without warrant,' is a failure to pick up dog waste or causing damage to 'any crops, turfs, plants, roots or trees'"

34 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Time for a new name by russotto · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let's just call the place Airstrip One and be done with it.

    1. Re:Time for a new name by noh8rz10 · · Score: 3, Funny

      TFS: Also among the offenses, which can result in an individual being 'taken into custody without warrant,' is a failure to pick up dog waste

      finally! an appropriate punishment for not cleaning up after your dog! Hopefully this migrates stateside.

  2. Article needs fixing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    s/introduce/impose/g

    1. Re:Article needs fixing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      s/Ministry of Defense/Ministry of Truth/g

  3. FUCK YOU SLASHDOT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    THIS NEW DESIGN IS DOG SHIT

    1. Re:FUCK YOU SLASHDOT by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep.. it is dog shit, it's really bad. I wanted to mod your comment up but apparently I don't have any now :(

    2. Re:FUCK YOU SLASHDOT by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Don't worry...DICE's focus groups tell them that all the teenagers find it kicks ass, and flows nicely. The only thing missing is automatic twitter and facebook integration...

      Ugh...

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  4. Failure to pick up dog waste by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can understand the part about penalizing failure to pick up dog waste. No sense arming the inevitable protesters gratuitously.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. confusion? by snakeplissken · · Score: 5, Interesting

    yes this is draconian but i don't think that 'taken into custody without warrant' means what i think the slashdot article implies it does. to me it means that these are now arrestable offences, obviously police can already arrest people without 'a warrant' otherwise no one could ever be arrested or detained on the street for any crime without a judge first being involved.

    officer: i saw you hit that woman
    scrote: fuck you
    officer: right sonny, just you wait here while i get a warrant so i can make you stay here,
    hey come back, i haven't got the warrant yet!...

    the problem here is that they shouldn't be arrestable offences not that police have the already existing power to arrest people

    snake

    1. Re:confusion? by holostarr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But why make not picking up after your dog an arrestable offence anyway? To me it would be reasonable if the penalty was a fine rather than a criminal record!

    2. Re:confusion? by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Up until this point you had the option to go to the fence and protest any new war, weapons system, double tap drone strikes, vast domestic surveillance operations...
      This would make an images, footage or interviews from the protest event very powerful.
      Think back to the UK and EU around the Pershing 2 nuclear missile. The optics of the protests was great for the press.
      A collection of people from a cross section of society at a base, next to the fence with surveillance hardware or weapons systems in the same frame.
      The new controlled area might allow for interviews with lanes, wooded areas, hills, roads or other nondescript buildings in the background.
      The protected area laws will basically herd protesters into vast "free speech zones" well away from the desired visual political statement.
      The court challenges will also be interesting. It is not base land, so the UK will have to allow people to walk dogs, protest on land near the base or fully restrict all use.
      The UK gov will have to expand warning signs, fences - an expensive land grab to widen the legal areas under direct 'base' control.
      If not the UK laws become legally arbitrary - if you look local or are known to be local you can walk a dog? If you don't look local or are known to be a protester your freedom of movement is gone?
      Why not just buy the land and move out the fences? Very legal and very simple.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:confusion? by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Informative

      But why make not picking up after your dog an arrestable offence anyway? To me it would be reasonable if the penalty was a fine rather than a criminal record!

      In the UK being arrested doesn't automatically get you a criminal record and employers don't check if you've ever been arrested before hiring you. Its not, yet, part of the USA.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    4. Re:confusion? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It may be a shock to some that the purpose of military bases are not simply to provide optics for protesters. They have an actual function that the protesters often desire to interfere with.

      As to the Pershing 2 issue, that is a splendid example of the bankruptcy of the so called "peace movement." Where were the protests over the Soviet SS-20s that the Pershing missiles were brought in to counter? It was hardly proportionate.

      A short history of NATO - The Cold War revived

      The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviet deployment of SS-20 Saber ballistic missiles in Europe led to the suspension of détente. To counter the Soviet deployment, Allies made the “dual track” decision to deploy nuclear-capable Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe while continuing negotiations with the Soviets. The deployment was not scheduled to begin until 1983. In the meantime, the Allies hoped to achieve an arms control agreement that would eliminate the need for the weapons.

      Lacking the hoped-for agreement with the Soviets, NATO members suffered internal discord when deployment began in 1983. Following the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet Premier in 1985, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, eliminating all nuclear and ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges. This is now regarded as an initial indication that the Cold War was coming to an end.

      Soviet influence on the peace movement

      Russian GRU defector Stanislav Lunev said in his autobiography that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad," and that during the Vietnam War the USSR gave $1 billion to American anti-war movements, more than it gave to the VietCong.[19] Lunev described this as a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost".[19] According to Time magazine, a US State Department official estimated that the KGB may have spent $600 million on the peace offensive up to 1983, channeling funds through national Communist parties or the World Peace Council "to a host of new antiwar organizations that would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source."[13] Richard Felix Staar in his book Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union says that non-communist peace movements without overt ties to the USSR were "virtually controlled" by it. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was giving the European peace movement £100 million a year. The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) alleged Soviet funding of CND.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re:confusion? by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Protesting on public land outside a fence is very legal freedom of expression Cold. To "interfere" you have to move beyond the fence.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:confusion? by fatphil · · Score: 2

      I doubt it, it's probably blocking a public thoroughfare, and quite likely a breach of the peace. "Public" doesn't mean "anyone can do anything here".

      However, it's time for someone to resurrect Mark Thomas. The kinds of stunts he used to pull were always fun. (This included deliberately dressing up and loitering suspiciously (including obligatory newspapers with cut-out slivers to peek through), but always hanging around on groups of only 3, no more.)

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    7. Re:confusion? by zAPPzAPP · · Score: 2

      'That close'?
      I skimmed the article and nowhere does it say how big this area would be.
      If it is supposed to counter listening in with spy antennas and drones, then it must be quite big.

    8. Re:confusion? by C0R1D4N · · Score: 2

      I think this is a great opportunity for some civil disobedience. All you brits should gather your dogs and head to the controlled zone.

    9. Re:confusion? by pr100 · · Score: 5, Informative

      There might be a record of your arrest, but that's not what is normally understood by a criminal record, which is a list of the offences of which you've been convicted or accepted a caution in respect of.

    10. Re:confusion? by Shimbo · · Score: 2

      But why make not picking up after your dog an arrestable offence anyway?

      The concept no longer exists in English law, all offences are arrestable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrestable_offence

    11. Re:confusion? by Ash+Vince · · Score: 2

      Any arrest gets you a criminal record (as does a caution, Section 27 dispersal notice, etc.) ....

      No, it does not. You simply have no idea what you are talking about.

      You only get a criminal record in the UK if you are found guilty of a criminal offence in court or if you accept (ie - admit guilt) a police caution. A simple arrest where you are released without charge or where you are given something like a dispersal notice or even where you are arrested, charged, but the charges are dropped before you go to court does not entail any sort of criminal record at all. Arrests such as these do not cause you to fail a CRB check.

      If you are arrested as part of something political then special branch might keep a record of this, but they probably keep a record of everyone who even attends any sort of political gathering anyway and they keep their records pretty private now, since they made such a balls up with the building workers blacklist a few years back.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_record#United_Kingdom

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
  6. Criteria too complicated by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just post a sign that says "No Trespassing" and be done with it.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Criteria too complicated by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The US has about 5% of the world's population. We also have about 25% of the world's prisoners.

      Land of the incarcerated, home of the feeble. Britain is our staunchest ally. Perhaps they're looking to us for incarceration performance, eh?

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    2. Re:Criteria too complicated by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      Just post a sign that says "No Trespassing" and be done with it.

      Trespass is not genrally a criminal offense in the UK. I believe that there is an offense of "mass trespass" and there are bylaws that may make trespass a criminal offense in specific places (for example, military bases and railway lines).

      Or perhaps I just heard a "whooshing" sound?

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    3. Re:Criteria too complicated by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      Well, that's a statistic you "never" see flogged on Slashdot.

      One notable difference between the US and some of the disreputable states used for comparison (Soviet Union, Communist China) is the differing nature of the offenses. People held in American prisons are there for recognizable criminal offenses, not political offenses. You may find it disagreeable that low level drug use in the US is criminalized, but that is certainly a different question than throwing someone into the gulag for making a fat joke about the president, which is something that doesn't happen in the US.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    4. Re:Criteria too complicated by hawkinspeter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well that would seem to imply that the US must be one of the safest places in the world with such a tight grip on crime.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    5. Re:Criteria too complicated by mha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you have any numbers about "political" prisoners? It doesn't sounds like you actually *know* anything, except for some media headlines? Knowing Russia just a little (yes I also speak some Russian and have been there a few times, and in the Ukraine) I doubt there's any significant political movement behind bars. You have a WISISTI (What I See Is What There Is) perception - of course your news media don't report on "normal" cases in Russian, all they ever do (understandable and that's okay) is report a few very high profile (well, only that reporting makes them so) cases. Pussy? Khodorkovsky? Anyone else? Not to mention that Khodorkovsky never deserved all that attention.

      And don't think I want to defend Russia, it's a cold, hard country (in so more than just nature), but come up with intelligent criticism and not just some random opinion based on very little, no, more like no knowledge except a small number of headlines. Because it is such a f...-up tough country with severe poverty you can expect there to be crime, quite a bit of crime, with all those I-have-nothing-to-loose people. Better criticism would be the wealth distribution that contributes to crime. There isn't a big political movement to imprison ASAIK.

    6. Re:Criteria too complicated by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People held in American prisons are there for recognizable criminal offenses, not political offenses.

      "Criminal" offenses like smoking a joint. Most US prisoners are there for drugs. I'd call a drug arrest political.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    7. Re:Criteria too complicated by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      People who have actually been to Ukraine don't call it the Ukraine...

      Well, it's kind of hard to when your language doesn't include a definite article.

    8. Re:Criteria too complicated by gmuslera · · Score: 2

      Are you sure that there aren't prisoners for political "offenses"? And that not counting other ways of get rid of people making trouble

  7. This design is an aesthetic abortion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Whatever the actual intent, this redesign will do nothing other than accelerate the exodus to hacker news/reddit.

    1. Re:This design is an aesthetic abortion by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I get the point your making.. and if slashdot sticks with the the "beta" format I would rather spend my time on reddit. The reddit format is closer to my heart than what I'm seeing on the /. beta

    2. Re:This design is an aesthetic abortion by ElementOfDestruction · · Score: 5, Informative

      Feeble attempt to make the computer page look and feel the same as the mobile page. Stop. This madness has to stop.

  8. Re:UK introduces warrant less detention? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    You are identified and the police remove you from the site.
    For how long can they remove you and where to? 10 mins? 10 h? 1 day? A few days over a protest?
    You are placed in police van and removed to a police station...
    You will be entered into a computer as having arrived, who arrested you and the nice legal part: 'why'.
    What will you be held under? A wait for an interview over 1h~10h-24h+++ just to keep you away?
    You ask for your lawyer, the interview starts and then what?
    Only "you" get charged with many others walking around the area freely all been recored in HD?
    Sooner or later you, your lawyer and the correct police paperwork has to go before an open court or you are free re join the protest :)
    If not your unique been held under some "controlled area" case moves up the UK and EU legal system.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. Think about what this actually means. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Police have the powers to arrest for any offence. Although legally symbolic - i.e. the police don't legally need to be carrying one to carry out their duties - force procedure represents this power by constables in the UK being required to carry and show their warrant card.

    The meaning here of creating "warrantless offences" is that people without a warrant card, i.e. SOLDIERS, are given the power to arrest CIVILIANS on public land close to a military base.

    Is that clear enough for you? A soldier bored with watching you protest can just put you in a headlock and call the police.