Colin D Gordon

In a speech in east London on March 31^st, Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared that immigrants “who are unwilling to honour British values” or intend to “take advantage of the freedoms offered here” are not welcome in the country. Many journalists and civil rights organizations , however,  feel that the personal liberties which the PM appears so keen to defend have in practice been steadily diminished by the Labour Government during its thirteen years in power. The previous day, the outspoken commentator George Monbiot wrote in the “Guardian” newspaper that: “The police trample on our legal rights to peaceful assembly. They cause trouble where none existed before. Cobble together evidence against the people they want to stop. Deny responsibility for their actions and treat peaceful citizens like enemies of the state”. He made explicit reference to the police treatment of the London G20 protesters in April 2009 .The Territorial Support Group (TSG) sergeant accused of assaulting a female G20 demonstrator asserted in court that he had thought the “carton of orange juice and the digital camera she was carrying were weapons”. This was accepted by the judge as an “honest belief” and he was acquitted on March 31^st.

Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been strongly criticised by the media, politicians and lawyers for failing – a year after the event – to complete its inquiries into the death of a newspaper seller, Ian Tomlinson, who died after being knocked down by a masked member of the TSG during the G20. “The police”, concluded Monbiot,  “ believe that they should exercise unchallenged control over public space. Any gathering is a threat to their hegemony”. Their powers have been massively increased by the 4,300 new crimes created by the Government since 1997 . Isabella Sankey, director of policy for the ‘Liberty’ campaign group, considers some of these laws  “laughable”. Examples are: “Disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer;  Keeping a dog on a lead longer than the maximum prescribed length; Not having a licence for a church concert”. Most absurd of all: “Knowingly causing a nuclear explosion”. She believes that many of the other new regulations have, however, ” seriously eroded our rights and freedoms, but few have made us safer”. Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the police can ( and often do) stop & search whoever they wish, including tourists taking innocent photos in Trafalgar Square or outside Parliament. Even journalists are not exempted. The NUJ (National Union of Journalists) compiled a dossier of complaints after two of its members ( with official UK press cards) were seriously injured during the G20.

Britain’s forces of law & order have, of course, other ways of checking what’s happening on the nation’s streets. They don’t have to be physically present. The UK has an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras: One for every 14 people, 20% of the global total for just 1% of the world’s population. According to the ‘Norris & Armstrong’ report on “The Social Structuring of Surveillance”, in a single day anyone in London could potentially be “ filmed by over three hundred cameras on more than thirty separate CCTV systems”. Among the capital’s 32 boroughs, Hackney has the highest number of cameras: approximately 1,484, followed by Wandsworth with about 1,113 – which is more than those in Dublin, San Francisco, Johannesburg and Boston combined. Westminster Council’s 100 new digital “spy cameras” – activated on March 8^th to “monitor traffic, parking offences and anti-social behaviour” – cost an initial £15 million plus an extra £825,000 to resolve “technical problems”. In the opinion of former shadow Home Secretary David Davis MP: ” CCTV leads to massive expense (£200 million in London, £500 million across the UK) and minimum effectiveness. It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security”. The Metropolitan Police themselves have conceded that , in one month last year, cameras “helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers”, although their  spokesman also contended that 70% of murder investigations had been  “solved with the assistance of CCTV retrievals”. A Salford University survey has revealed that most of Britain’s secondary schools have at least 20 cameras (some with micro-phones) and that their pupils “are as frequently observed via CCTV as inmates in prisons and passengers in airports”.

The authorities these days have a wide range of additional means at their disposal for keeping track of people’s movements and activities – such as accessing mobile phone details, Facebook entries, websites and patients’ NHS (National Health Service) files. “People.co.uk” (‘Big Brother Is Watching You’) states that police requests for data from Oyster Cards  ( used by 6 million London commuters daily for tube, bus and train journeys) to pursue suspects has “ shot up by 300% in one year”. Meanwhile, local authorities around the country have installed the “Voice Risk Analysis (VRA)” system in order to reduce benefit fraud. This ( so they say) enables them to assess  from the pitch & tone of a caller’s voice whether or not they are telling the truth. Bad news for anyone thinking of taking a day off work by claiming they have “ a cold & a sore throat”: Employers are also beginning to operate VRA.

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