Random Searches in the Name of Security
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By now, airport security has become part of the routine of air travel. People accept it as the price to pay for maintaining security in the air. Will people be as accepting if this security is taken to the streets?
In London, England, airport type security is taken to the streets to deter crime:
“Police are to use hundreds of airport-style and hand-held weapon detectors in the crackdown on knife crime.”
link: Airport-style scanners on the streets
Of course there is unanimous support from most people for efforts to keep the community safe. However, on closer inspection, “powers enable officers to stop people and search them without the need to have “reasonable suspicion” that they are engaged in wrong doing”. It is a subtle and significant paradigm shift. Now there is not the presumption of innocence. Everyone is suspect until proven otherwise. Security trumps civil liberties.
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/
Tags: privacy, security, search, suspect, civil liberties
One Comment
Chris
May 15th, 2008
at 2:52pm
The majority of UK people may support the stop and search of all persons without reasonable suspicion but this will never happen.
In the early 80’s there was something called the ’suss laws’ this in short meant that anyone could be stopped and searched. This all changed in 84 with the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidance Act(PACE), this also introduced the start of the paperwork that Police complain about today.
Whilst there may not be the return to stop everybody, there is provision contained within PACE to search anybody in a given area. This has to be based on intelligence and is time limited; auditable process.