At last, a law to stop almost anyone from doing almost anything (UK)

[Joe Shlabotnik]

snip...

The existing rules are bad enough. Introduced by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, antisocial behaviour orders (asbos) have criminalised an apparently endless range of activities, subjecting thousands – mostly young and poor – to bespoke laws. They have been used to enforce a kind of caste prohibition: personalised rules which prevent the untouchables from intruding into the lives of others.

All this is about to get much worse. On Wednesday the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill reaches its report stage (close to the end of the process) in the House of Lords. It is remarkable how little fuss has been made about it, and how little we know of what is about to hit us.

The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.

The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.

More at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/06/law-to-stop-eveyone-everything

Unfuckingbelievable.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. It's gotten to the point that they can arrest you for virtually

anything these days. Arresting people should be a last resort, and certainly attacking people with tasers and shooting them should be as well. The police don't play the role of peacemaker anymore. When they show up, at least one person is going to jail, regardless of the situation. All these new laws and the adversarial cops have gotten way, way out of control.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

2. Indeed,

the parameters of what constitutes criminality are rapidly expanding everywhere it seems. I'm not familiar with British law, but I find it mind boggling how essentially punishing people for something that they may do, can be what we would consider constitutional. Moreover how can laws like this or the UK's recent internet censorship law just breeze into existence.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. I didn't know they had an internet censorship law now.

That's fucking scary; the people over there should raise hell about that. I'm sure if they did, though, they'd just be hauled off to jail. The 'Free World' is becoming more like China every day. I really think China is the model society for the wealthy and the politicians they control.

[Eleanors38]

11. Some have suggested Singapore.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Mostly because the people that matter have dropped any pretense of consent of the ruled,

oh, I meant to say governed. Silly me.

So, if it is right and I ave read it correctly, the Brits have actually passed a law to prevent being annoyed.

And I though all the Brit fascists were over here. Silly me, again.

[Shandris]

3. I think the day Frank Zappa spoke of is much, much closer than we think it is.

And I am not looking forward to that day.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. I feel the same way. We're getting there faster every day and no one has a clue.

They're going to wake up one day and say, "How did this happen?"

[LeftishBrit]

6. All TOO believable to anyone old enough to remember Maggie and the Sus Laws

-appropriately enough, around 1984.


Tories (including Blair) may speak piously of Freedom, but that's only for people like themselves to make money.

Ugh.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

8. I have a theory

that Thatcher/Reagan were punishment for the late 60's, intending to never allow such liberal thinking insubordination again. The police war on drugs started out as a war on poor black people, but then mutated to include any undesirables. The Patriot act, and similar acts around the world were more an excuse to prevent another WTO Battle of Seattle from happening again, and the increased communications spying/policing is to prevent Occupy and similar events, before they happen.

It would seem when people get a little bit too uppity towards the Establishment, the Establishment waits a bit, and then strikes back even harder.

[FatBuddy]

9. you are on the right track with that line of thinking

i concur.

[Eleanors38]

10. The FR's rise to power, engineered by Newt Gingrich, was and is

explicitly based on hatred of the counter-culture of the 60s. Promiscuity, abortion, queers, lack of patriotism, weird art, special interest politics, etc., all linked to the thing which symbolizes liberals:

A burning fatty.

This is the foundation of its highly successful culture war, and has lodged it into positions of power which the Democratic Party is loath to challenge.

ON EDIT: The estimates on regular pot-smokers had the number at around 1 million at the end of the 50s. At the end of the 60s it was 10 million. For the first time, the association of illicit drug use with a minority (pot=Mexicans & blacks; Cocaine=blacks; opiates=Chinese) was fundamentally expanded to include whites. It had to, the numbers were too big. Hence the culture war, and WOD as the model for social control through law enforcement.

Two glaring indicators of the rapidly approaching authoritatianism: GWB's neocons effecting the Unitary Presidency, and the near- success of erasing the Posse Comitatus Act circa Hurricane Katrina.

These boys mean bidness, and fast, too.

[LeftishBrit]

15. Indeed, they made no secret of it

Here is Tory-in-Labour-clothing Blunkett on the subject:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3911007.stm

[firsttimer]

12. Soon to be coming to a country near you

[lpbk2713]

13. Article 137

We think you're guilty. So that's that.

[Brickbat]

14. Reminds me of the "hooliganism" laws in the Soviet Union and Russia.

An excellent catch-all for You're Pissing Us Off So We're Going To Arrest You.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Security. Safety. Peace.