Police stop/search 100 people a day-new anti-terror laws(I-UK)

[katty]

cont'd at:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article340820.ece

Police stop and search 100 people a day under new anti-terror laws
By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent
Published: 25 January 2006

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is facing an onslaught over the Government's anti-terror laws after figures showed nearly 36,000 people were stopped and searched under the emergency powers last year. The number of people stopped and searched each year has soared since the Act came into force in 2001, when 10,200 people were stopped. It rose to 33,800 in 2003-04.

Campaigners will mount a legal challenge in the House of Lords today, as they attempt to limit the laws giving police sweeping powers to stop people even if they have no grounds to suspect them of a crime.

The Home Office revealed that people were being stopped at the rate of nearly 100 a day under the powers used to detain a peace campaigner, Walter Wolfgang, at last year's Labour Party conference.

Figures in a Home Office report showed that 35,776 searches of vehicles and people were recorded under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which was passed six years ago. Despite the high number of people stopped, only 455 were arrested.

[Donkeykick]

1. This needs to be fought hard...

or eventually one will see it in the USA.:eyes:

[Tace]

4. Dang, Ever Heard Of Drunk Driving Stop Points?

This has been going on wholesale in the United States for more than 10 years.

[NYC]

2. So, nearly 99% of the people stopped were innocent.

36,000 stopped, 455 arrested. Fishing?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. And petty harrassment of people they don't like

such as Mr. Wolfgang who, after he had been thrown out, by private security, of the hall where the Labour Party conference was going on, tried to get back in and was stopped and searched under the act by a policeman. He had previously been searched to be allowed into the building, like everyone else, so they knew he wasn't a terrorist, but they searched him anyway. This gave security time to shut the door, without doing it in his face in front of the TV cameras.