Comments on: Photography, Not Terrorism

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:08:01 +0000

HappyMarx – as a civil servant, I’m going to bow out here (and I must stress that any points I make are my opinion alone…). It’ll be very interesting to see what happens in practice though, and I’m always glad to see people take note and not just accept things!

By: HarpyMarx

HarpyMarx — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:50:01 +0000

Thanks Mark for the initial link to the SU post which I wrote.

The point about that specific Section is that the onus is on you to prove you are not a terrorist. Usually when it comes to criminal activity it is up to the prosecution to prove their case.

Kate, why is there a burden shift? And why is this section so loosely drawn?

This Section will help stop holding public officials to account, and this is utterly odious. And it has the stench of tyranny through it.

By: Mark C Newton

Mark C Newton — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:51:50 +0000

I think the real beef will be over this though:

a)
elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—
(i)
a member of Her Majesty’s forces,
(ii)
a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii)
a constable,
which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b)
publishes or communicates any such information.

I’m also trying to find the articles on train-spotters being stopped for being terrorists because they take pictures of trains. Here’s one link.

By: Mark C Newton

Mark C Newton — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:45:40 +0000

Thanks for the link. Makes for an interesting debate, and I'm sure something like this will be fought out in a court of law sometime. I'd love to trust the government on this, but of course we all know how they've abused terror laws in the past.