UK Introduces Warrantless Detention

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'"

Comments

Time for a new name

[russotto]

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

FUCK YOU SLASHDOT

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS NEW DESIGN IS DOG SHIT

Failure to pick up dog waste

[cold fjord]

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

confusion?

[snakeplissken]

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

Re:confusion?

[AHuxley]

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.

Re:confusion?

[myowntrueself]

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.

Re:confusion?

[cold fjord]

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.

Re:confusion?

[AHuxley]

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

Re:confusion?

[pr100]

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.

Re:Criteria too complicated

[fyngyrz]

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?

Re:Article needs fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

s/Ministry of Defense/Ministry of Truth/g

Think about what this actually means.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This design is an aesthetic abortion

[ElementOfDestruction]

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