This week I was notified of a forthcoming convention, at which I see that Sunder is one of the many speakers.
I was thinking of going to this before the Damien Green episode arose. I am now convinced of the need to attend a convention where there will be a debate by eminent lawyers and others on the erosion of our civil liberties. A concerted campaign across party lines is vital.

This is the site for the convention:-

http://www.modernliberty.net/

oh please!

Just as a qucik addendum; What I am saying is that if you have a check like that it does not force you into criminal behaviour unless previously you had committed a crime which is obviously compltely irrelevant to that check (unless youd falsify it for the hell of it, which would be a bit odd lol). I’m just trying to drive at a difference in how the two things impact differently…if you cannot enter this country legally because of immigration controls then the only route you have left is the illegal one.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said the arrest was made without any ministerial influence.

They said: “The investigation into the alleged leak of confidential government material followed the receipt by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) of a complaint from the Cabinet Office.

“The decision to make today’s arrest was taken solely by the MPS without any ministerial knowledge or approval.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7753763.stm

Unless the police then are lying, and they don’t often tend to lie for the sake of the government, they did do this of their own volition.

I think you are generalising my position a bit too far; The controls you talk about do not criminalise you because they do not force you to hitch rides in the backs of cramped lorries or resort to criminal gangs as your only mehtod of entry into a country or profession…if you are innocent your record comes back as clean no harm no fowl so we are talking about different things in reality.

Interestingly, if you are thinking about the terrorism issue then there is also a point that alot of terrorist attacks are by people who are citizens of the country they carry out the attack in (who get their ‘training’ from travelling outside that country) so I dont think the ‘controls make us more secure’ argument holds water there either.

And is fascist. Slavery happened for a long time, it was still slavery. But again, I wasn’t stating this inicdent shows Labour is creeping towards Fascism, I was stating that in the wider picture of all of Labour’s actions it’s hardly shocking to see them being called fascists, even if it is the right that is doing so. It might be hypocritical for the right to be doing so, but it’s no less true.

It’s just that labelling them as ‘fascism’ shows total historical ignorance. The occasional use of the police against leakers and the people they leak to is a consistent, ongoing feature of 19th, 20th and 21st century British democracy.

The fact that a government continues to use such measures is not a sign of creeping fascism, it’s just a sign that it’s continuing with the status quo rather than making things more liberal.

There doesn’t need to be direct political influence for the police to act in a political manner, I’m afraid.

It was a terrible day for UK freedom when Margaret Thatcher sent the police into the BBC against Duncan Campbell’s documentary. Just because previous governments have used these tactics does not mean that anyone is “gibberingly mad” to see these events as steps towards fascism. All the events you quite are aimed at silencing dissent and are the exact opposite that any liberal should want. Even if the information leaked in the current Tory case is to be used to grandstand in an illiberal way against immigrants, the methods used to silence dissent are surely more towards the direction of fascism than liberalism. Yes, Guido is “gibberingly mad” to compare the U.K. to Zimbabwe etc. etc. but that does not mean that the comparison of these events to fascism is not apt.

I don’t know why the police would abuse their powers in this way but I can think of a number of reasons why they might do so without coming under political pressure. The blame remains with them until any political connection is demonstrated.

If the counter-terrorism unit is going to pick up all the mps who’ve leaked information to the press then the chamber would be half-empty. Let’s not forget that Gordon Brown made his name in the eighties by leaking highly sensitive information from the MoD.

Sir Ian Blair steps down from his position as Met Commissioner today – coincidence?

Yep, it seems to be an unfortunate side effect of getting power in Great Britain, doesn’t it?

To me, the only reason that they would arrest someone for a crime that they are clearly nowhere near committing is because of a political pressure…now this doesn’t mean it’s necessarily overt and directly tied to this government….but these are political arrests, they have to be because they are arrests conducted despite no law being broken, only ideologies over how information is dealt with, conversed and transfered between different parties.

They’ve arrested and bailed this MP. Why do they need to put him on bail rather than just release him, do they honestly believe there is something out there that will suddenly bring his actions in line with the law they’ve arrested him for? Whether it’s just non-direct pressure or otherwise, there is a clear political angle to the actions of the police here, is there now?

Controls on immigrants means controls on us all…I am a United Kingdom citizen and I still have to prove who I am at time of work and my eligibility for a role so it is not just a control on ‘illegals’ is it; it’s a control on me too…also, immigration controls do not make our borders ’secure’ if anything they make it less so because they criminialise people who are not criminals….

Aye, but if you’re taking that definition, then the Blair, Major, Thatcher and Callahan governments were all fascists.

I disagree with the thinkpiece in the sense that this simply doesn’t seem political to me, let alone Political – it seems to be the police over-interpreting their brief.

I suppose you could say that this is an example of this government’s tendency to draft laws rather loosely in such a way as to permit their use for purposes other than those intended (see the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill or any piece of Counter-terrorism legislation you care to name) but, it would appear that Damien Green and his co-conspiritor are off the hook. Looking up the offense on Wikicrimeline tells us that:

The elements of the offence of misconduct in a public office are:

* 1. A public officer acting as such (paragraph 54).

* 2. Wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself (paragraphs 28, 30, 45 and 55).

* 3. To such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder (paragraphs 46 and 56 to 59).

* 4. Without reasonable excuse or justification (paragraph 60).

http://www.wikicrimeline.co.uk/index.php?title=Misconduct_in_public_office

Notice that the public interest test doesn’t come into it because this is not a law specifically about leaks. So, does telling an opposition spokesman that the government is employing illegal immigrants in potentially sensitive positions meet these tests. Emphatically not.

And I say this despite the fact that I think UK asylum policy is cock-eyed. If you need a public interest here, it need not be about immigration – you could argue that, given the Government’s determination to make huge quantities of personal information available to “properly vetted individuals,” the inability of such checks to determine fairly basic information about those vetted is immensely important information. “Excuse or justification” established – case dismissed, surely.

The matter should immediately be referred to the Police Complaints commission, not to Phil Woolas nor the Prime Minister. Only if one of the officers claims that Jacqui Smith told him to do it does this land back in the Government’s lap. I like blaming the government for stuff, I really do but this one isn’t their problem. Yet

Aside from it being a fascist practice in itself for a government to use heavy handed measures to stop whistleblowers from leaking absolutely safe (if not uncomfortable) information in to the public realm, UKLiberty is correct…I’m talking about the wider picture of the New Labour years, and how it’s certainly not surprising nor off the mark that it should now be the righties that shout fascist at the “lefties” of Labour, that’s how the political landscape has changed for the worse, unfortunately.

But that depends on your political stance on wider issues does it not; whether you feel this information was in the public interest?? Thats my whole point; thats why I dont like Camerons grandstanding, he makes a value judgement not based on civil liberties narrowly but on his and his parties stance on a wider social issue.

Ironically, if tighter immigration controls were in place the civil liberties situation would be worse…(something Green and Cameron should consider the irony of)….

… the arrest and rough-housing of Green was patently wrong and is indeed an abuse of government power.