I’m concerned about the idea that most people in the country don’t realise these anti terror laws directly affect them and that they don’t know their rights if they’re stopped and searched. It bothers me that uneducated lower ranks of the police can use these laws to meet their arrest targets and generally pull rank on the general public because they know they’re unlikely to be met with much opposition.

If we don’t stand up for our rights in a peacable yet firm way they will be taken away from us without us even realising.

As I know from personal experience from the late 70’s onwards the old Bill, esp. in our nation’s capital, have never had a problem arresting people, infringing their civil rights, or inflicting violence on peaceful types, at demo’s, protests, etc., before the anti-terror laws were passed and I doubt much would cramp their style in the future. Trouble is middle England and the civil libertarians of the Right love the forces of law and order as they help maintain the gulf between the have’s and the have nots

People in this country need to realise that these anti-terrorism laws can be used against *them* as well as people *they* consider to be actual terrorists. That’s the real discussion here.

The point of this is that the police are working for the people, so to prevent the people from keeping a reasonable eye on them could lead to the bad police (of whom there are enough to be a problem) getting away with whatever they like with no-one able to legally record it (I’m talking about at protests etc, crowd control out of hand etc).

There are plenty of good police too, many of whom apparently back the campaign to overrule this new law because they understand that the public need to feel like nothing’s being hidden from them. I don’t think people will see a particular police officer in a video / photo, track them down by face alone and do bad things to them – this is not an episode of Dexter after all!

You’re a silly boy Simon

what if one among those your filming, turns out to be your mate Mikes dad. You show it to your mate Lisa, Your mate lisa knows Dave, who knows Phil, who knows Dean, who knows some nasty man who subsequently goes out and boshes your mate Mikes dad in, who was really just trying to keep a low profile whilst stopping peeps blowing shit up e.t.c!?!? Obviously exaggerated/exaggerate as appropriate.

food for thought? Two sides of a coin? Two cliffs of Peril? Two cheese starters? Two pots of noodle?

I am the firestarter, good to keep my cogs working.