MetaFilter posts tagged with UK and police

Gategate?

Jehan — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:51:52 -0800

Andrew Mitchell, Conservative Chief Whip, faces calls to resign after he reportedly said to police officers who refused to let him through the main gate of Downing Street: "Best you learn your fucking place. You don't run this fucking government. You're fucking plebs." Despite giving two apologies in which he denied using those exact words, both his sincerity and his accuracy, have been called into question. The use of the word "pleb" has also raised issues of class bigotry present in British society. Mitchell's remarks came little more than a day after two officers in Manchester were killed in the line of duty.

"a clear and written threat that they could storm our embassy."

dunkadunc — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:31:46 -0800

Following claims that Ecuador would accept Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's asylum application, Britain has threatened to raid the Ecuadorian embassy if Assange is not handed over.
Vans are gathered outside the London embassy, reports suggest British police have been seen entering the building. Live stream here.

UK Police to practice their own form of "phone hacking"

LondonYank — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:42:09 -0800

Met Police to extract suspects' mobile phone data [BBC] The Metropolitan Police, covering Greater London, are set to expand their search powers by making it standard practice to swipe contact details, call logs, and texts off of the mobile phones of anyone in custody - and retain that data - regardless of whether the suspect ends up charged with a crime or not. Clearly not everyone is over the moon about this, seeing it as the latest sign of the steady erosion of communications privacy in the UK and a potential breach of human rights law.

The News Corporation scandals

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:54:11 -0800

Murdoch's Scandal - Lowell Bergman (the journalist portrayed by Al Pacino in The Insider) has investigated News Corporation for PBS Frontline [transcript]. He depicts Rupert Murdoch's British operation as a criminal enterprise, routinely hacking the voicemail and computers of innocent people, and using bribery and coercion to infiltrate police and government over decades. Enemies are ruthlessly "monstered" by the tabloids. Bergman also spoke to NPR's Fresh Air [transcript]. But the hits keep coming: in recent days News Corp has been accused of hacking rival pay TV services and promoting pirated receiver cards in both the UK and Australia. With the looming possibility of prosecution under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, how long will shareholders consider Rupert Murdoch irreplaceable? [Previous 1 2 3 4]

Omni Consumer Products

ClanvidHorse — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 03:53:48 -0800

Welcome to Omni Consumer Products. "First they came for the NHS and I said nothing because I was not sick. Then they came for the disabled people and those on benefits and I said nothing because I had an income and didn’t care what the ‘scroungers’ said. Then they came for the schools and I said nothing because I had no kids. Then they came for the police force with private/public partnerships and for speaking up, I received a baton to the face. The private guards looked at their targets and smiled: dissent down 35% this month." Guardian link

The Fall of the House of Murdoch?

strangely stunted trees — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:32:36 -0800

Five senior journalists and editors at the News International tabloid the Sun were arrested on Saturday along with three public officials as Operation Elveden, the British investigation into bribery of police by News International papers, broadened to include corruption of officials in the armed forces and Ministry of Defence as well. The Guardian reports that the new arrests escalate the stakes of the ongoing US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation of News Corporation, which carries potential penalties of millions of dollars of fines and prison sentences for senior executives. The scandal originated with an investigation of the Sun's now-defunct sister tabloid, the News of the World, hacking into the voicemail accounts of figures at the center of news stories, including senior politicians, victims of crime and the survivors of British soldiers killed in combat, and a subsequent cover-up and whitewashed police inquiry. The Sun and the News of the World were the original acquisitions in Murdoch's 1969 expansion of News Limited outside of Australia. The New York Times reports that a central element of the investigation of the top echelons of News International will be a 2008 memo to James Murdoch laying out the extent of the phone-hacking, contradicting the the younger Murdoch's previous testimony before Parliament that he had been unaware of the scandal until 2010.

PDF-ed

unSane — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:25:38 -0800

A UK man who downloaded recipes on how to make explosive devices has been jailed under the controversial Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which makes it a crime to be "in possession of records of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Porter, head of the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit, said: "The materials we discovered on that pen drive were clear and viable instructions on how to make explosive devices [...] I also want to stress that this case is not about policing people's freedom to browse the Internet. The materials that were downloaded were not stumbled upon by chance - these had to be searched for and contained very dangerous information that could have led to an explosive device being built. That is why we had to take action."

The name Kevin is now illegal. Why not use Alan instead? It suits you.

The Whelk — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:49:27 -0800

"London Bridge is currently closed to the public and a section 60 in place due to the presence of a depressed swan." - The Metropolitan Police Twitter Feed: Giving you the lowdown on all the criminal shit that's going down in London town. (Note, not real)

UK London Met police proposed undemocratic refusal of bail to all arrested in London riots.

maiamaia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:05:45 -0800

London Metropolitan Police formulated policy of refusing bail to all arrested in London riots which might have influenced high remand in custody rate.

london students fight back

asymptotic — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:58:17 -0800

With kettling becoming a commonly deployed tactic by the London Met, students from the University College London are fighting back with Sukey, launched this morning. Sukey is a security-concious mashup of google maps (in order to effectively display real-time police and protest behaviour) and swiftriver (in order to efficiently collate data points from twitter, facebook, SMS, and RSS feeds, and automatically determine the veracity of information, amongst other features), and a smartphone application to allow anyone to volunteer information. Check it out now. Swiftriver is particularly interesting; here's a curated list of references that went into its development.

Your right to protest is under threat

rubyrudy — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:35:05 -0800

"The message to [t]his generation is very clear: don’t get any fancy ideas about being an engaged citizen. Go back to your X-Box and X-Factor, and leave politics to the millionaires in charge." - Johann Hari of the Independent reporting on an unnerving trend in the UK. Current austerity measures enacted in the UK has caused a revival of public activism especially amongst the younger generation. One week ago, 12 year old Nicky Wishart tried to organise a protest over the closure of his local youth club and was subsequently threatened with arrest. Three days ago Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson said he was considering to ask the Home Secretary to enforce a total ban on student protests all across the UK. Meanwhile the law enforcement relationship between the police and the general public appears to be a one-way street.

Greater Manchester Police posting 24 hours of incidents to Twitter

chorltonmeateater — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:49:31 -0800

Greater Manchester Police are posting every single incident they deal with over a 24-hour period to Twitter. Due to the high volume of incidents, they're posting them over three different Twitter accounts: one two three. My favourite so far is call no. 384:

report of man holding baby over bridge - police immediately attended and it was man carrying dog that doesn't like bridges

No realistic prospect of conviction

reynir — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:29:39 -0800

On 1st April 2009, a newspaper seller called Ian Tomlinson was returning to his home, through the middle of the G20 protests. He was not part of those protests. He was struck from behind, by a masked policeman who had covered up his identity numbers, and fell to the ground. A few minutes later, Ian Tomlinson was dead (previously on mefi) Today, the Crown Prosecution Service (motto 'Fair, Fearless and Effective') announced that there would be no criminal charges against the policeman (CPS statement , Guardian coverage). At first the police reported that he died of a heart attack. This was not true. Then they reported that he had not come into contact with any of their officers. This was not true. Then they reported that he had come into contact with their officers, when they tried to help him amidst a hail of bottles from protesters. This was not true. An American fund manager on a visit to the UK realised that he had captured the assault on Ian Tomlinson on camera, and the video was seen around the world. The police officer did not come forward immediately, but was eventually suspended, and the Crown Prosecution Service started its consideration. Today, Keir Starmer (director of the CPS and previous winner of Justice/Liberty's human rights lawyer of the year award), announced that no charges could be brought. The main reason was the conflicting pathologists' reports meant that there was no reasonable chance of mounting a prosecution. The first pathologist backed the police story that Tomlinson had died of a heart attack. A second pathologist found that he had actually died from internal bleeding. A third, appointed on behalf of the police officer, supported the second finding. The first pathologist is today in front of a General Medical Council hearing, accused of arriving at questionable verdicts on four deaths. In another case, not included in the GMC hearing due to procedural errors, he determined that a woman found naked and dead in a man's house had died of natural causes. The man later went on to murder two other women, and confessed to the killing of the first woman. The CPS state that there was one that could have been pursued successfully - common assault. This charge, however, can only be made within six months of the incident. The CPS (motto, Fair, Fearless and Effective) took sixteen months to reach this decision.

Weaponizing Mozart

nthdegx — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:05:28 -0800

Weaponizing Mozart - "How Britain is using classical music as a form of social control".

It's hard to be more cynical than this.

dash_slot- — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:08:49 -0800

Investigation reveals British Police knowingly employed serial killers as informers. Or should that be "knowingly employed informers as serial killers"? Film at 11.

"Do you mind if I write down that website?"

greycap — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:57:00 -0800

"The thing is, we're in Central London and we have to be really careful these days. I like your shots though... very nice." Dave Gorman's ever-so-slightly surreal Flickr adventure.

w00t

Pretty_Generic — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:19:49 -0800

Blair loses in the Commons for the first time since his election in 1997. MPs refused to pass laws allowing terrorist suspects to be jailed without trial for 90 days, and Blair's parliamentary majority of 66 turned into a minority of 31. The government has been holding back on the vote for months in an attempt to persuade their party to back the Prime Minister - they failed.

Wasting the emergency services' time

Mwongozi — Sat, 03 May 2003 13:37:45 -0800

Communications operator : "Hello police"
Caller: "My wife's left me two salmon sandwiches which was left over from last night... and I'm a sat in the chair here and she's out there decorating. She won't put any food on or anything for anybody, I don't know what...."
Communications operator: "I'm sorry but I really can't take this. It's not an emergency because your wife won't give you anything to eat."

Badthoughts

kablam — Wed, 13 Nov 2002 16:41:58 -0800

Hate crime police raid 150 homes 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

NDb -(60% x Nc/Nt +40% x Dc/Dt) x 17,585

badstone — Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:28:21 -0800

NDb -(60% x Nc/Nt +40% x Dc/Dt) x 17,585
"Mathematicians called in by the Metropolitan Police think they have worked out the best way to beat crime in the capital."
Are there any UK mathematician/cops out there that know what the variables actually are?

Naughty Children to Be Registered as Potential Criminals in the UK

Jubey — Mon, 26 Nov 2001 03:06:38 -0800

Naughty Children to Be Registered as Potential Criminals in the UK UK police are to set up a secret database of children as young as three who they fear might grow up to become criminals. What next, DNA testing on embryos to find out if they have a genetic leaning towards criminal behaviour? Link courtesy of Backwash.