Random searches of Britons going about their business are now established features of life in this country. The old refrain – “It could not happen here”, no longer applies. On Saturday, while driving along the side of the Thames towards Westminster, passing by the Tate Gallery, I was flagged down by a policeman.
Officer: “Could you show me your driving licence? This is a section 41 search” (at least I think that is what he said).
Me: “Section 41 or whatever of what?”
Officer: “The Terrorism Act”
Me: “Why have you pulled me and my wife over?”
Officer: “We are doing searches of vehicles in the area.”
Me: “Well obviously you are. Is this a random thing?”
Officer: “Yes. Please hand over your driving licence and we want to search the car.”
They searched the car, called up the driving licence authority, and were able to their enormous satisfaction confirm that I was whom I said I was. I was then asked to sign a document stating that the search had been carried out as it should have been. The officer gave me his name, rank and police station number and address. When I signed the form, he asked me how I wanted to classify myself as there were about 15 options, including “White British”. He was polite. My treatment was fine. The officer and his colleagues told me they were on duty, searching vehicles, for the rest of the day and into the evening.
Now I will spare you a rant about the impertinence of this. You can, gentle reader, assume as a matter of course that I regard such random searches of members of the public as impertinent. What makes me wonder, though, is what on earth the supporters of such searches expect? Do they honestly, really believe that would-be terrorists will be deterred, frightened off or caught? Unless the police put up roadblocks across London, at god-knows what disruption and cost, I do not see how doing this on one of many major roads will cause a blind bit of difference.
This is what has been called “security theatre”: lots of action signifying little. Even the copper who carried out the search had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Update: One commenter has complained that I am getting all upset for no good reason and has used the argument that this sort of behaviour is okay as it can act as a “fishing” expedition to unearth potentially other crimes. It is hard to summon breath to deal with such a brazen argument in favour of abolishing the idea that one is presumed innocent until otherwise.
Update 2: a reader asked for further details on the search. From the time I was pulled over to being let on my way, the process lasted 15 minutes. The police officer’s colleague called up the driving licence authority to give them my licence registration number and the authority took about 10 minutes to get back. An officer opened the car boot, rummaged around some bags and luggage – I was travelling up to Cambridge with my wife – and had a look inside the car. They also inspected my clothes and checked my footwear. They did not ask me to open the glove compartment of the car. They also did not look under the car with a mirror or anything similar, or look under the bonnet.
My better half is a police officer, so I’m in a good position to comment on both sides of this argument.
Really Johnathan I cant see what the problem is, you appear to have been treated with professionalism and only incured a minor inconvenience. These stops (as I’m told) serve three purposes.
1. They act to reasure the public that something is being done. This may be seen as ‘security theatre’ but imagine the comments if the police did nothing towards preventing attacks.
2. They may discourage ‘stupid’ bombers from carrying out/planning an attack. Lets be honest, most wanna be jihadists in the UK are a bit all mouth no trousers. Random stops make them that little bit more paranoid and hopefully less likely to act.
3. Fishing, its amazing what you can find if you stop a car and the occupent appears to be a little ‘twitchy’. Give grounds for a further drugs/weapons search.
It may not be the best use of police time, but for reason 3. alone its not totally unproductive.
Well, matt, I’m damn well going to be “twitchy” when the cops stop me going about my legal business for no good reason. “Minor inconvenience” you say? Well I get to decide what’s a minor inconvenience to me and what isn’t, not you or your “better half”.
I demand to be left alone to go about my lawful business, and not have to prove I have “nothing to hide”.
I think Jonathan was amazingly calm under the circumstances. Apart from anything else, it’s bloody *rude* to rummage through other people’s stuff. I don’t know if I’d be able to contain my rage. And then what would become of me?
matt, are you being sarcastic?
I was not having a particular go at these officers – I pointed out that they were polite. But to argue that they are somehow reassuring the public by such efforts insults the intelligence. Oh, wait a minute…..
Reassure the public? WTF? I feel a great deal more threatened by the plod under such circumstances than I do from any Al Qaeda shites.
And no doubt as I have an obviously foreign wife, not to mention I would be saying “fuck you, you fucking fascist mother fuckers”, that would count as “twitchy”. Cunt.
Out of interest, what happens if you say no?
Surely if they pull you over for no apparent reason, and ask to search your property without warrant or reasonable suspicion you have the right to tell them to sod off?
JayN, from my understanding, you need to get a lawyer if you want to refuse. Plus they will make a big deal about it on any records that are kept and god knows how that works out.
Hey debate. Great to see, seriously.
Albion calling me a cunt……less nice to see. Is resorting to language like that really nessesary?
As I said I can see both sides of the arguement. But sometimes the constant police bashing is a little hard to bare hence my comment attempting to put forward an alternate view.
And what if they do pull you over and search your vehicle under the “terrorism act”, and then find drugs ? Or other naughty non-terrorism-related things ?
Surely they’ll ignore them, since they were found under the “terrorism act”.
I agree so far with all the comments which are abusing matt…
Matt,
I agree with you. Any debate regarding public order is in essence a trade-off between public benefit and the infringement of personal liberty. I think you make a reasonable case for why the trade-off is advantageous in this case.
Albion,
You sound and threaten to act like a sociopath. If stopped you would end up in jail, and so you should.
Let me modify my wording on my previous post from “abusing” to “disagreeing with”…
For all sorts of reasons it suits the police to harrass obviously respectable people. The habitually law-abiding are not likely to kick up a fuss and will behave with dignity and restraint. If the police were to target more obvious wrong-doers this would bring them into contact – proportionally – with more criminals.
Dealing with wrong-doers is much harder work, and potentially dangerous. So why do you think they harrass respectable people instead?
Oh yes, and the police recently cooperated with (and according to some, took instructions from) members of China’s People Liberation Army on the streets of London.
And they wonder why people have no faith in them. I despare.
Matt, you aren’t really gonna win friends by approving of:
If you approve of ‘positional’ searches (stopping cars in Westminster, the airport regions, near defence bases) then why not search houses located in similar scenarios? Once you’ve got that precedent established, why not then move on to searching houses in blighted areas where terrorists ‘are likely to live.’ And then you can search everyone (and their houses) in areas ‘where drugs are a concern.’ Then you can move onto searching all the houses in the whole country because after all, crime in general is a concern, and the precedent for ‘preventative policing’ is already established.
Twenty years ago that’d be seen as an unlikely scenario – personally I now see it as inevitable.
Matt,
There are not two sides to it, it is WRONG. It is of course the lead up to random breath tests, that is all. This was once a free country, now it is becoming (or has become) a police state. Funny though, they find it difficult to catch proper criminals, perhaps they’re too dangerous
Oh please. So in weighing the pros and cons of randomly searching people in just one road out of thousands, you naturally can see the supposed benefits of this piddling jobsworthyness as well as understand that we are supposed to live in a free country where this sort of impertinent stuff does not happen.
Both sides of the argument? Give me a break.
Adrian, Albion’s use of language is a bit salty, but then I prefer the taste of salt to slime. I managed to keep my temper on Saturday – just.
Matt,
There are not two sides to it, it is WRONG. It is of course the lead up to random breath tests, that is all. This was once a free country, now it is becoming (or has become) a police state. Funny though, they find it difficult to catch proper criminals, perhaps they’re too dangerous
“Is resorting to language like that really nessesary?”
Unquestionably.
matt,
And of those purposes 1 and 2 are absurdly wrong and 3 extremely dangerous and discreditable. Fishing expeditions should never be permitted, and permitting them (as undoubtedly happens) under what was enacted as specifically an anti-terrorism power illustrates how our law gets subverted.
Jonathan,
It is usually called a Section 44 search. It is covered by ss44-47 of the Terrorism Act 2000. (Note the date when ‘the rules of the game’ changed.)
The power is authorised by a chief police officer for a specific area for a specific time. It was sold to parliament on the grounds that it might be needed on specific information of an impending terrorist attack or in the aftermath of an actual one. That is not how it has in fact been used. There is no specification in the Act of how the authorisation is to be made, or that it must be published, or any limitation of the circumstances or extent of its use, save that the Home Secretary must affirm it within 48 hours or it expires. It emerged sometime in 2004 that the whole of London had been made in secret subject to such an authorisation indefinitely. This was a bit embarrassing so was cancelled, but seems to have been replaced by a rolling succession of such orders.
The original theory was:
So it could be random, but only if the purpose of the search is terrorism related. You should note that articles you normally have in your car could be used in connection with terrorism, so that’s not quite the high criterion you might guess. He can search you for a map or photograph of central London even if he has no reason to suppose you might have one.
There’s a useful discussion of the power itself with judicial authority here:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2003/2545.html
What’s interesting to know if you are searched is that the revised PACE code of practice B will apply. (The new version (pdf) has just been brought into effect, on February 1 2008 .) So regardless of the grounds (or lack of grounds) or purpose of the search:
i.e. they can take (and prosecute you for) anything they find on you regardless that this power is a ‘special’ terrorism power. The Act therefore enables random searches or targeted searches against individuals or descriptions of individuals that are indeed for all practical purposes fishing expeditions.
Ok, without resorting to out and out abuse like other commentators I’ll attempt another reasoned response.
Lets stop for a moment and consider what actually happened. Johnathon was pulled over in a car in the center of London. He was treated with profesionalism shortly sent on his way. Now while the actions of the police are not perfect and it may be argued the are unnessasary this type of work does serve a purpose.
Sat morning a MET officer knocked on my door and asked if I’d heard any noise overnight as there had been a shooting nearby. Would you make the case he had no right to knock on my door? After all he could see into my hallway…..
I was stopped in my youth in a car full of drunk people and one stone cold sobor new driver behind the wheel. The young lady driving was asked to produce her licence on the grounds she had made a hasty manouver and had 4 other rowdy teenages in the car. Again we was sent on our way afer a few minutes. Was this reasonable?
A couple of months after me moving to london someone put a car full of nails and gas outside a night club to murder innocent clubbers.
Searches of cars may not be ideal, but there are a number of good reasons why its done.
The police are not the enemy, they may work for a establishment thats often wrong and creates laws at the drop of a hat. But 99 times out of a 100 their actions are fairly reasonable. On the other 1 I will join in with the condemnation.
It’s amazing what can be got away with as long as it’s done politely and with the appropriate paperwork – from random searches to hyperspace bypasses.
Can imagine how much worse it would have felt if you were of Arabic appearance though? And in this country being Brazilian with light-coloured skin and no facial hair apparently qualifies in that regard.
Johnathan,
Do sympathise. I am as unlike an Islamic terrorist as they come. (White, FT reader, 6 ft 4, with the sort of accent that was around at the BBC circa 1930 and is loathed by the present BBC for being too “elitist” ; in work hours am suited in a crushingly Savile Row manner, BUT have a small rucksack). Result?: I got stopped and searched at Tower Hill tube station by the police under the Terrorism Act. Initially I laughed loudly, but they were serious. So I let them go through my satisfyingly grubby bag. Like you I was asked how to describe myself ethnically, to which I said “Shall I tick Afro-Carribean?”. The answer was “Sorry sir, but we cant make any assumptions”!
Conclusion I came to?: They have to show that they’re not discriminating, so as to appeal to the Politically Correct Police that is running down much of the West these days – absolutely NOTHING to do with security.
In Israel police is authorized to stop any driver , without motive, and check driving licence and insurance. It’s called a routine check, and it’s aim is mainly to catch drivers driving without a licence, but also car thieves. Sometimes, rarely, they do catch someone this way.
Doesn’t seem to me wrong.
Matt,
You totally miss part of JP’s point. His point was, at least partly, that this is “security theatre”. There is no benefit in terms of protecting JP, his wife or anyone else, not even the coppers. You admit that part of the reason is to reassure the public that something is being done. How patronizing is that? Do I want terrorists to be dealt with? Yes. Do I want the police I pay for to go fishing on my cheque or indulge in publicity stunts? No. I don’t think so.
What sort of purpose? There are, as I said, hundreds of roads in London. Unless the police lock all traffic down in a massive series of rolling searches, the chances of nabbing anyone is remote. The only purpose I can see is the sort of disgusting, illiberal “fishing” expeditions that you advocate, which go against what it means to live in a free society.
That is entirely different from randomly searching someone in the remote chance they might be guilty. The officer who called your flat was following up on an actual crime/event and was hoping for witnesses or anyone who could help. I have no problem with that; searching people at random is different.
But as I said, to be remotely effective, you would have to search and stop every car/van/lorry in London, not just on a random basis along one street out of hundreds. And as other commenters have said, if we take your “fishing” logic, then the Boys in Blue should be able to search people’s homes without warning, warrant or cause.
The checks and balances of a free society are indeed irksome to the police. Tough.
Matt, you really are a dickhead. There is no evidence that the action under discussion achieves any uselful purpose whatsoever. The police should not be allowed to randomly stop people. They should have reasonable suspicion of an offence before they take any form of action against a member of the public or should be investigating a specific crime, e.g. a shooting in the locality or a young lady in a car allegedly making an illegal manouvre.
My experience is that the police do not act reasonably in 99 out of 100 cases, far from it, they see their primary function as protecting the interests of the police and their secondary function as protecting their political masters. Any benefit the public get from actually paying their excessive wages is purely unintentional. If your better half is a copper, it doesn’t say much for you, Matt.
So objecting to the state searching my property for no fucking reason other than it want to go “fishing” makes me a sociopath eh? My my what a tame little product of Police State Schooling you must be. Pathetic.
“If your better half is a copper, it doesn’t say much for you, Matt”
Well, Fuck you! I can take personal attacks most of the time and as I’ve mentioned dont really want to resort to bad language, but thats too much. She wasnt a copper when we met and I’m not about to leave someone I love because of her job. But quite frankly its none of your fucking business.
I backing out of this debate because, quite simply I dont mind being told I’m wrong but the personal attacks are too much. I expected better of Samizdata.
I like it when people say: “oh, but it is for your own good, and it is ever so useful”.
Matt, get searched at your heart content for all I care, but I personally resent being treated as a potential suspect for that is what we all are now as soon as we set foot outside our homes (and you could probably argue that it is the case even within the latter).
That is thanks to people like you and I can’t say that I disagree much with Albion’s choice of terms.
The one thing that says terrorists have won is if they succeed in making us change our behaviour and customs, and still live in fear.
Lastly, even if your point of “fishing” was even remotely useful instead of proper police work, it just shows that the acts passed by parliament are being used for the wrong reasons.
I hope you’re not trying to get your kids to a school in the wrong catchment area…
Matt, you raised the issue; you did not have to mention what your other half does for a living. Personally, I have nothing against coppers on the whole, but I do have a problem with the sort of whining, authortarian “oh you must see both sides of the argument BS” you came out with. It’s contemptible.
Moving on from matt’s gobsmackingly awesome lack of understanding of civil liberties, I’ll just point out that this is nothing new and predates New Labour and the invention of “terrorism” in 2001. The Tories started this crap.
As a young chap in the 80s of a long haired appearance, I was stopped many times by plods on fishing expeditions. When asked, they’d come out with any number of spurious reasons “oh, there have been many burglaries in the area” being a regular one, as if Hawkwind fans are know for their burglary sprees. I remember one particular instance where I was sure I’d get hauled in as I had my pockets stuffed with £20 notes (this was the mid 80s when they were still quite speshul) as I’d just been paid a lot of overtime.
Anyway, it’s nothing new. New Labour have merely carried on the process of turning the police into the governing class’s enforcers started by Maggie. This follows a bit from the “freer/not freer since the 50’s” discussion, which I dropped out of because I’m a bit busy with moving home and stuff. There are large numbers of British libertarians or classical liberals whatever who have swallowed the salty guff that Thatcher was some kind of Hayekian liberal, because she abolished 90% tax and drumroll exchange controls. She was nothing of the sort. She was a pro-business big government statist, which is a quite different thing. It was she who turned the police into what we have today.
So let’s be clear here. Labour are a bunch of cunts, but so were the Tories and, no, we are not freer. We live in a police state of a sort, constructed by Thatcher, by Major, by Blair. There is a continuum.
And I’m still reeling from somebody on samizdata proclaiming police fishing expeditions as a good thing. Jesus H.
The police have mobile automated cameras to warn them of uninsured vehicles or those without Tax or MoT. I would have thought such a device could easily be used to ‘fish’, i.e. an uninsured vehicle is illegal and it is more likely that the driver is up to other things vs a car that is insured.
Johnathan’s car was not uninsured, was taxed and was fit for the road, so surely there is no Probable Cause to stop him unless the vehicle type or occupants fitted a description?
It could be they were twitchy because of the London Marathon.
As to politeness, surely that only goes so far – someone could drive a bulldozer through your house and bid you a good day with a tip of his hat as he does it. Politeness does not compensate for what has happened.
These type of random searches are about as useful as searching a field full of haystacks on the off chance that one of them might contain a needle. Reminds me of the stupidity of the keystone cops in Camden who ignore drug dealers outside the tube station and stop cyclists in Regents Park instead. Quite why police officers are not disciplined for wasting police time is beyond me.
I’d feel more reassured if I didn’t see the police wasting time on futile searches. I imagine potential terrorists would be far more worried if they thought that the police were doing their properly. They must be greatly relieved when police officers are pulled from surveillance duty but assigned to meaningless charades like this.
This operation, like so many “Police initiatives” sounds like one of the high vis operations that senior officers (more accurately: the government) like so much.
The background to this method of policing is that NuLab became increasingly irritated with the police detecting crime. This tended to militate against the working classes (few question the link between poverty and crime). Being so unutterably incompetent, NuLab were were unable to tackle poverty (unless by increasing it, they can claim to be tackling poverty). One solution to this was to make crime detection a more egalitarian process. By criminalising “anti-social” behavior that was more likely to committed by the middle classes (speeding, hunting etc), then issuing directives for police to ramp up their response to such infractions, the thinking was that this would highlight how criminality was not the preserve of the put upon working classes. On top of this, there existed a situation whereby the number crunchers claimed that the fear of being a victim of crime far outweighed the reality of being a victim of crime. Hence the emphasis shifted away from tackling crime i.e oppressing the working classes, to tackling the fear of crime. This had a cheap solution: high visibility policing. It is this thinking that lead to the introduction of those decaffeinated police officers known as “PCSOs”, along with the requirement for high visibility vests worn with officers. This type of thinking also results in situations such as the Forest Gate incident, whereby the number of officers present seems to far outweigh the threat and the inclusion of the press in high profile operations. All of these things are designed to tackle the FEAR of crime, not crime itself. My sense is that JP was caught up in a High Vis operation.
Unfortunately the prosaic explanation that this is another dopey and futile piece of government thinking is lost. The appearance of such operations can be construed as something more sinister than it actually is.
Notwithstanding that JP and other commentators are right to be indignant at these type of situations, I am concerned that there appears to be the mis-application of some heavy-duty legislation here, however I don’t think there was any dark grand plan behind that mis-application..the real worry for me is that it embodies the shallow and bankrupt ideas at the top. When you become intellectually bankrupt, these type of knee-jerky and ill-thought operations become the norm.
I worked rather closely with the police for over a decade, and one thing I will agree with Matt on, the average copper is a good guy who wants to nick villians.
It is the senior management that is the problem.
They have been politicised, indeed NuLabourised.
This is some PR initiative, no doubt with a fancy codename, that has been put in force by some ambitious Chief Super, who thinks it will look good on his record.
What is wrong with this random search thing, as everyone except Matt seems to get is that they are using legislation that is specifically designed to combat terrorism, that can never prevent terrorism, for other purposes i.e. fishing expeditions.
The likelyhood of actually catching a terrorist in these circumstances is akin to winning the Lottery.Very very remote.
Like the random searching of little old white ladies at airports. Done to seem fair, but missing the point spectacularly.
The upside of this piece of nastiness, is that the Met cannot sustain this level of interaction. It costs too much.
Much more worrying is the use of anti terrorist legislation by the likes of local Councils to spy on us for everything from littering and fly tipping to whether people are attemting to cheat in their application to their prefered school!!!!
Did you all see the story about the family who were followed for three weeks, because the Council suspected they were trying to get their kid into a good school not in their catchment area?
It was Terrorism Legislation they were using to justify this outrageous intrusion.
Matt your acting a little twitchy. You have to appreciate that these are different times we live in. The commenter’s here don’t normally use such language on random Samizdata readers, but their Freedoms are under attack by groups like Al-Nulabour-Ass-Brigade. It’s all for the common good you see, so stop kicking, roll over and take it.
Honestly thought, justifying terrorist laws to find 10 spots of hash – bravo.
your = you’re
honestly thought = honestly though
What the hull is wrung wit me? I loses mai Anglish
how long will it be before “in the interests of security”we are subject to “random” house searches?I know i wont be able to keep my cool when some goon squad knocks on my door at 6am.
You can make the case that s.44 can be abused by the police and does not contain sufficient provision for judicial oversight. It is not however “absurdly wrong”, nor “contemptible”, nor being a “cunt”, nor a “dickhead”, nor showing a “gobsmackingly awesome lack of understanding of civil liberties” to make the point that it is not fundamentally at odds with a fair legal system to allow enhanced powers of stop-and-search at a time of heightened security risk.
Like Jacob, I bet you’d all feel differently if you lived in Tel Aviv…
Ian B: “Labour are a bunch of cunts, but so were the Tories and, no, we are not freer. We live in a police state of a sort, constructed by Thatcher, by Major, by Blair. There is a continuum.”
I agree, with your sentiments about british politicians. One ought to ask what drives the change? I think it is the European Union.
It restricts british politicians from responding to the british people. It makes lying for the good of the European Union acceptable. It illustrates Goodwins law in regard of politics.
“I worked rather closely with the police for over a decade, and one thing I will agree with Matt on, the average copper is a good guy who wants to nick villians.”
Even if I stipulated to that as true — which is swiftly becoming outright impossible in the United States — my response is, “So fucking what? I don’t care.” Get this and get it good: no honorable person would go to work for the political establishment that the police are now. They don’t do nearly enough to expose and condemn the outright pigs in their midst, and that’s not to mention things like how they just bow their heads and execute orders that come down from on high.
Fuck ’em all. And Matt The Cunt, too. I’d rather take my chances with terrorists and creeps on the street.
Adrian, it may have taken you and the other supporters of random, no-just-cause policing by surprise at the sheer venom displayed on this thread, but believe me, if we were to adopt your meek, “Oh, so long as they ask nicely” approach, pretty soon the net will widen. It always does. And you continue to miss the point by a mile, which is that even if such approaches could be defended on their own stated grounds of defeating terror, they don’t work.
Ian B writes:
Up to a point. Arguably, the early signs can be dated back to WW2 and the introduction of ID cards, which, remember, were then abolished when the Tories got back in 1951. But it is true that the last 25 years have seen a slow, remorseless move away from the idea that policing requires an element of suspicion of wrongdoing to act; now we have a more preventative approach, which means greater and greater screening of the whole populace.
Terry Wrist writes:
Perhaps you’d like to enlighten us as to what this “ganging up” you had in mind. Oh, let me guess…..
It so is.
And even forgetting the civil liberties issues, which are profound and strike to the very heart of the relationship between citizen and administration, one has to just look at it probabilistically. The chances of a random search as Johnathan underwent actually catching a terrorist with his boot full of bombs is minute. The purpose of these searches is to make the police presence pervasive to non-terrorists- either to reassure or terrorise, depending on your point of view.
Also, of course, the hope of the boot being full of dope, gay hobbit porn, or maybe electrical accessories on their way to an illegal DIY home rewiring job. Anything will do to get matt’s wife’s arrest record up. So much is illegal.
TimC,
Johnathan’s car was not uninsured, was taxed and was fit for the road, so surely there is no Probable Cause to stop him unless the vehicle type or occupants fitted a description?
The whole point of s44(et seq.) is it dispenses with probable cause, or “reasonable suspicion” as we call it over here.
Adrian,
I didn’t say the law is absurdly wrong, but that justifications 1&2 for its use offered by matt in the first comment are. The law itself is very far from absurd, but very wrong. As someone who made efforts to oppose the Terrorism Bill when it was a bill (it probably marks the beginning of my thinking that ‘this is heading for a police-state and something must be done’) I think I’m entitled to a “told you so” aimed at my MP of the time (who was to be fair one of only six to vote against some of the worst bits) and at the opposition parties in general.
Like Jacob, I bet you’d all feel differently if you lived in Tel Aviv…
Possibly, but I wouldn’t draw from that the lesson that the same measures are necessary in London as in Tel Aviv, because I deny that London is in the same situation as Tel Aviv, which is the substance of my frequent disagreements with Jacob on the seriousness of the terrorist threat.
I’d readily concede that London is in grave danger of bombings compared with, say, Niue, Bratislava or even Halifax, Nova Scotia. But it is not much at hazard compared with Tel Aviv, and Tel Aviv is thoroughly safe compared with Baghdad. The manner of policing may not actually affect the actual risk very much.
the boot being full of dope, gay hobbit porn, or maybe electrical accessories on their way to an illegal DIY home rewiring job.
Busy weekend again then Ian? 😉
The very worst of this is in the first comment:
Dr. Fautus, you taught us well.
Ian scares me. At any one time, I have at least one of those three items he cites in the trunk of my car, as well as an iPod full of Hawkwind playing on ’11’.
Seriously, is there any hope for me?
“so long as they ask nicely”
I didn’t say that but you could infer “so long as appropriate legal safeguards are in place”. I concede that with s.44 they may not be.
“…they don’t work”
I don’t think either you or I are best positioned to make this judgment. As it happens, I do think security theatre has a value in providing reassurance to the public and in creating a climate of uncertainty for potential terrorists, so I disagree with you, but more importantly I think the police would be the best judges of what measures work. Actually what bothers me most about this thread is the consistent assumption of bad faith on the part of the police.
“Possibly, but I wouldn’t draw from that the lesson that the same measures are necessary in London as in Tel Aviv”
I agree with you but that makes my point – different situations require different measures. It isn’t an absolute principle at stake here. It is the messy process of finding the right response to the given circumstances.
Johnathan, I could do with a bit more detail here. How thorough a search was conducted? Did they look in the trunk? Glove compartment? Under seats, etc? Was your property subject to mere cursory glances or did the cops seem to really scrutinize any items?
Irrespective of your answers, the whole thing is just appalling. I’m surprised it’s legal and at the same time I’m wondering how much it really differs from what goes on here in the US.
Bod, there’s hope for anyone with an iPod full of Hawkwind.
My concern would be the idea of a “random” search if it is genuinely randomised, and to do with potential security threats – which I suppose is anything to do with weapons or bombs of some kind. Given that less than 3 per cent of this country’s population is muslim (who we may reasonably assume have the greatest interest in supporting an Islamist cause) then a random search of 100 people should not involve more than 3 muslims.
So, project this into a street search of vehicles. The police cannot, in order to be politically correct as required, stop vehicles solely with brown faces in them. If anything, having stopped say six muslims they must endeavour to stop 100 non-muslims to balance the books and stop accusations of bias. Accidentally stopping more muslims may require greater numbers of other religions and ethnic groups to be seen to be fair.
I recognise that being muslim is actually nothing do with the colour of people’s skin but, on balance, most muslims are non-white and have been known to dress in certain ways. So, while we wonder what else a random search of vehicles may turn up, is there a danger that we must be “balanced” in the random checking?
In which case, Johnathan may have been stopped to “equalise” the numbers and types, which is hardly effective policing. Unless you take the view that as everyone is guilty of something sometime it is worth stopping and checking everyone. Car, home, personal relationships, reading matter, internet use, social events…
You are going to need a bigger police force, folks.
I agree with you but that makes my point – different situations require different measures.
Not really. Different situations may require different measures; but more likely they may radically alter the political or emotional acceptability of different measures. I was agreeing that, possibly, I would feel differently if I lived in Tel Aviv.
It is entirely plausible that policing by consent as is supposedly traditional in this country is equally or more effective than policing by arbitrary power and fear as is common in other parts of the world. The evidence is lacking because the external situations aren’t comparable, but the historical correlation of mad nihilist bombers and repressive police states is quite persuasive.
Police had, in Israel, many years ago, roadblocks aimed against terrorists. They wouldn’t stop every car, just make it crawl past, and peek inside. They would stop only suspect cars (hardly any). This caused traffic jams, and after some time the practice was abandoned. It was also ineffective.
Now they errect roadblocks only when there is specific information about a threat, maybe two or three times a year, and only in the relevant area.
I was speaking about routine car checks, where they check the driver’s license and insurance, and also that the car isn’t stolen. Nothing to do with terrorism. I don’t see how you can check the driver and his driving licence by cameras. In my opinion, these checks are ok., but then, I’m probably not as good a libertarian as you all.
Are you obliged to carry your driving license with you? I thought you didn’t. What would the copper have done to you if you weren’t carrying it?
Thanks Jacob,
Sounds like the Israeli police actually have saner policies than the Met. Which might not be surprising given that they are handling a more measurable risk.
Rob,
You don’t have to carry your driving licence. The s.44 power gives no particular authorisation to request a driving licence, which would have been examined I suppose under the general power to search anything carried by the passengers of the vehicle. If it were an ordinary Road Traffic stop for cause he could have been required to present the license at a police station within a set period, if he didn’t have it and would have been issued with a document known in the job as “a presenter”.
I’m far from clear that a presenter could have been issued under the circumstances. But refusing to cooperate with a s44 search is quite definitely an offence.
.
I am positioned to make a judgement, Adrian, on the basis of basic common sense and a bit of statistical reasoning. There are about 9 million people in London; millions commute and travel through it. Stopping traffic on just one road and pulling over random numbers of people is like searching for needles in a massive haystack. As for the deterrence value, I doubt a determined, skillfull terrorist is going to be very bothered. I also think the general public are intelligent enough to figure out that this random search activity is largely pointless. Give the public a bit more credit.
As for the hostile attitudes towards the police on this blog, frankly, it is a hostility born out of watching the checks and balances of a free country be slowly, remorselessly, chipped away. As I said on another thread, some freedoms have expanded in this country, but others have gone and will take a long hard struggle to get back.
Jacob writes:
Indeed. Unfortunately, it is the “reasonable” types who imagine that “only the innocent have anything to fear” who are the fuel for this stuff.
2. They may discourage ‘stupid’ bombers from carrying out/planning an attack. Lets be honest, most wanna be jihadists in the UK are a bit all mouth no trousers. Random stops make them that little bit more paranoid and hopefully less likely to act.”
No in fact,extremely foolhardy and dangerous.Real terrorists,two dead police officers and perhaps two dead terrorists.
This is a very illiberal procedure.A journalist was stopped,last year IIRC a multifunction pocket knife was found in his car.He was arrested and put through hell.
We all know where this has come from.
Mind how you go and don’t look Brazilian.
Were the Police who conducted this Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 stop and search (“whether or not the constable has grounds for suspecting”) actually armed Police with a bomb disposal unit nearby ?
If not, then what exactly could they have done if, by some slim chance, they had actually discovered some “articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism” ?
One of the Kafkaesque Police State aspects of such stops and searches is that the section 44 legal power is not a general one, it is supposed to be strictly time and location limited, with the Designation of a particular area, and the time period during which it is in force, having to be signed off by the Home Secretary.
However, even the approximate Geographical Locations and the Dates and Times of these Section 44 Authorisations are being kept secret , even though they may as vague as “the whole of Northern Ireland” or “all of London within the M25”.
How exactly are terrorists meant to be deterred by such legal powers if they do not know if they are actually in force or not ?
How is the public meant to be “extra vigilant” in a particular area, if they do not know where that area extends to ?
How can the public possibly avoid wasting Police time (and perhaps letting real terrorists sneak past) by accidentally transporting potentially suspicious, but innocent items like, say, paintball guns or ammonium nitrate fertiliser, through such a checkpoint ?
See this refused Freedom of Information Act request
If the Police are actually running any sort of investigation, and stop some suspect people or vehicles, then they have plenty of other stop and search powers available to them, because they can then claim that they do have “reasonable suspicion”.
Despite the literally tens of thousands of such Section 44 stops and searches, no actual terrorist weapons or bombs etc. have ever been discovered a result.
Is the section 41 thing particualrly relevant? It creates the impression that random searching is some new tyranny. But like I said before, they were making me turn my pockets out in the street over 20 years ago for no good reason whatsoever. This kind of policing really isn’t something new.
I wouldn’t call it security-theatre: it’s more like security-pantomime.
Reminds of Northumbria Police fishing for a paedophile/terrorist when I was subjected to a similar stop and search tactic, simple for taking photographs of dodgem cars.
Just what sort of
police statecountry are we becoming when so little evidence (despite the proliferation of CCTV spy cams) can add up to not even a ‘reasonable suspicion’?The presumption of innocence for the majority of law abiding citizens has all but disappeared.
I just stand in horror and shock, looking at this insanity from red state America.
How can sane people put up with this?
In my day a ‘presenter’ was John Craven or Lesley Judd. If the police wanted to see your driving documents they gave you a ‘producer’.
To me the issue here is that the police think that their job is to manage public perception of crime and be seen on the streets to be doing their job.
Their actual job should be to enforce the laws that the public regard as most important. PR be damned, it is explicitly not their job to prop up politicians.
Kristopher, your shock and horror is justified. I must say that for all its other problems, America does seen – just – to have enough people who are not prepared to take this shit.
Here’s a question for our US readers: who is worse on civil liberties: Obama, Clinton or McCain?
Doesn’t look that way, they’re on the same slide around the U-bend. Only their constitutional arrangements add a little friction, that’s all. But the direction is entirely the same. The opposition in the US is noisier, but just as impotent as in Europe (the obvious demonstration being the choice for president between Moonbats Three- Clinton, Obama or McCain).
For instance (and following on from Curly’s comment), in Maine it’s about to become illegal to allow photons which have been reflected by children to become incident on your retina.
Police always had, and will always have the power to stop cars and people and check them or investigate them. There is no way they can do their job (fighting crime) without such power. It’s an integral part of their job.
The test is indeed if they do it in a polite and fast manner, and let innocents go without harassment, if they don’t abuse people unnecessarily, or if they don’t abuse them intentionally.
Pulling over people randomly isn’t a bright idea, or a good utilization of police resources, but I don’t see how this is a terrible infringement of human rights. We delegated the power to fight crime to the police, they do the dirty job for us. Being stopped and checked by police maybe once or twice in a decade isn’t such a terrible sacrifice.
“Here’s a question for our US readers: who is worse on civil liberties: Obama, Clinton or McCain?”
Mark my words, as I’ve written them before: this next election is going to be a disaster, no matter who gets elected.
A great big part of that is that there can be no hope that any of them would — or even could — start re-claiming what’s been lost in civil liberties. Some people like to laud the prospects of “gridlock”, which is some dense hope that things won’t get worse while bi-polar parties eat each other in the legislatures. It’s horseshit. It never accounts for things like huge administrative apparats rolling over the countryside with the inertia peculiar to bureaucracies. Not to mention the ideological sewage from which they spring. (Look: tell me who is going to spike “zero tolerance” lunacy through its mentally-retarded heart.)
“Obama, Clinton or McCain”?
}spit{
It’s like Bidinotto said lately: all we need is one more horseman and we’ve got a whole apocalypse.
BillyBeck is 100% correct, as was Davidncl about two weeks ago, during the comments of some pathetic pig who wished to know when to quit the force. No policeman has ever been a friend of the free.
The State needs numbers to justify their police budgets. DEA, ATFE, FBI, State and local – they all have discovered how easily they can manipulate incident reports to make it appear they are really stopping bad-ass motherfuckers instead of the law-abiding.
Dr Kill
You have maligned
a distant friend of mine.
I wish he were closer
I would feel safer
So be afraid
Very Afraid!
ian b – April 14 @ 04:35 PM
On behalf of a certain celebrated B Baggins, Esq, I feel compelled to point out that there is not a D in *any* of his names, and, as such, he is not the origin of the name of the prosthetic device which ian b is starting to resemble, in his (ian b’s) preoccupation with “gay hobbit porn” …
RAB,
I didn’t say I’m not afraid of you and your friend and others who think like you- I am. You prove my very point.
It’s not fear I lack, it’s respect.
Sat morning a MET officer knocked on my door and asked if I’d heard any noise overnight as there had been a shooting nearby. Would you make the case he had no right to knock on my door? After all he could see into my hallway…..
Your analogy fails because the officer who pulled Jonathan over admitted there was no probable cause whatsoever, the search was entirely random.
A more accurate analogy would be “A MET officer knocked on your door and asked to search the premises for firearms, with no warrant, probable cause, or any other reason beyond ‘I need to do X firearm searches to make my daily quota, and I was in front of your place’.”
—–
Here’s a question for our US readers: who is worse on civil liberties: Obama, Clinton or McCain?
Hard call, none of them are particularly good.
McCain is willing to weaken the 1st Amendment in an attempt to reduce public corruption (McCain-Feingold, aka the Incumbent Protection Act). He is noted for being particularly prone to the Law of Unintended Consequences.
I don’t trust Clinton on civil liberties, one of the reasons is because of what happened with the Branch Davidians. I don’t know if she had any involvement whatsoever in what happened there, but I know she’d be getting advice from the guy who was, and 76 dead people means that there’s plenty of blame to go around. Well-intentioned but incompetent law enforcement can be just as lethal as any other kind.
Obama is a different kind of horrible, being on record as wanting to ban firearms- not a big deal by British standards, but American culture is a little different. And he supports the Incumbent Protection Act…
This election will be won or lost on other issues.
others who think like you?
Bit thin on the ground Dr…
Nobody thinks like me.
That’s why I suprise people!
But you are unsurprising in spades
for an anarchist aint cha?
Stopping cars, I do all the time. Stopping cars when I don’t have a specific violation at hand, often enough. (Blacked out and occupied, behind a closed business at 2AM? That’s a driver I’d like to talk to. If there’s nothing going on I can be out of his life pretty quickly.) But without even a good reason, just because some needled**k is worried about terrorists?
I got nothing. I was downright speechless when I first read this.
Johnathan:
I don’t think it matters between those three. The next four years are going to be a train wreck no matter what.
Matt:
If you’re going to be butt-sore about three morons on teh internetz, you’re going to have a short and stressful life. Lesson One on the first day of the academy back in 1990-something was, “if you want people to like you or value you, be a firefighter instead.”
Don’t make it personal. You’ll make yourself crazy, and not in a good “beer and gay hobbit porn” way.
BritSwedeGuy:
I don’t know what you’re bitching about. The plans for the bypass were on display in the town hall for the last two years.
Reading this, I’m thinking about what the reaction would be if this took place in the US. In short, there’d be lawyers screaming and suing, politicians making speeches and in general an uproar across the political spectrum. As Tom Wolf noted, fascism is forever descending in America, but it always manages to land in Europe (and Great Britain).
And if I was unclear…
I’m about 100% on board with Johnathan, Albion, and what I’m guessing is the consensus. Fishing expeditions not supported by some sort of evidence are IMHO not okay.
“If you’re not doing anything wrong…” if I’m not doing anything wrong, then what I am doing is none of anyone’s damn business. Some intrusion by police is justified, when there’s actually a legitimate reason to intrude. And a requirement that an independent court have a power of review over these…yeah, I like that too.
But a detention and search, just because? Not cool at all.
dr kill,
If by some bizarre misalignment of the planets you were to show up in my area, cross my path, and say that to my face, you would have nothing to fear from me. Not that I expect you to either believe it or care.
Here’s a question for our US readers: who is worse on civil liberties: Obama, Clinton or McCain?
I think a.sommer has it about right; they’re all bad choices. At the moment (and my opinion changes from day to day), my thinking is that Hillary would be the least bad choice in terms of civil liberties. That’s not to say that she wouldn’t be really bad in other areas, of course.
[Rumor has it that former GA congressman Bob Barr (who is now a born-again Libertarian) is planning to seek the Libertarian nomination for president. I’ve never been a big fan of Barr, but he does seem to have improved over time and he’s clearly light-years ahead of all the other announced LP candidates. If he gets the nomination I could vote for him (which is more than I can say for any of those other losers). So I might not have to sit out this election after all!]
Well, now it seems that perhaps you Brits should do as we colonials did way back then. If the police may stop you Brits for any reason, because they can, then the UK is toast. Of course, it could be worse and your police may in fact become the VolksPolizei and your foreheads stamped for easy identification.
However, it’s sad to see the old country going potty since that might foretell our future over here in the new world.
Yes, it could get much worse in the UK for you Brits but how might be the issue or the concern. Pray and enjoy what little freedom Brits you have left. Or, do what my ancestors did and sail on over to the USA and live like a free person.
Dr. Kill: you, of course, are entitled to your feelings (or lack of other), but you show a clear misunderstanding of some of the terms you use to describe them.
I get the impression that some people on these threads had at one time a run-in with the system over some controlled substance or other. Sigh.
Sunfish-we need more like you.
McCain is just stupid-the other two are really into telling you how to live your life.
My guess is that you were pulled over for ‘statistical’ reasons.
They needed enough stops of ‘non-perp’ ethnicities to avoid potential Human Rights Law charges of racial profiling.
We all know the ethnicities of any likely terrorist perps but we all have to suffer this charade along with all the resulting loss of fundamental legal rights just so our ruling class can indulge their pontificating hypocrisies.
Do you have no lammposts in Britain? No rope?
The American left continually brays about “fascism”, claiming that Boooosh has taken us there piecemeal. As evidence they offer paranoid films such as the latest Bourne movie. In it the the CIA are portrayed as being utterly malign and omni-present. Trouble is, their alleged omnipresence is largely due to their ability to track Bourne all over the…UK…thanks to its Orwellian “CCTV state”.
America hasn’t gone that route yet, thank you very much, and we won’t allow it to happen without a huge fight in state and federal legislative bodies. Brits have seemingly become supine about asserting their civil rights that they just let “fishing expeditions” and other unwarranted intrusions on their liberty go unchallenged. Do the British people no longer believe in “liberty”? Doesn’t anyone have the sand, the onions, the ‘nads to push back against these assaults on your freedoms?
Jacob:
In some quarters — and in a particularly quaint formulation derived from British law — it would be considered unreasonable search, which violates a person’s right to be secure in his person, house, papers, and effects.
As infringements go, it really isn’t as terrible as, say, stealing one’s child and sacrificing her to the volcano god, but it is still a no-no.
And my guess is that was utter tripe, verging on racist bilge. Jonathan was driving down the Emabankment near the Tate on a Saturday. He’s an entirely typical passer by there, even if he didn’t live in Pimlico. I don’t think in anything he writes above he mentions what colour he is.
What is peculiar about that position is the road is a main artery just approaching or leaving the Whitehall area and stands between Dolphin Sq, where many MPs and other establishment types live, and Thames House, the HQ of the Security Service, JTAC, and various other bits and pieces. (I would have been in my office on the other bank, and would have waved if I’d known.)
The roadblock would have been part of the ever expanding neurotic fortifcation and refortification of Whitehall and the Parliamentary Estate. When the IRA was at its height there were some rocket-screens at the Westminster Hall end of the Commons policemen checking bags at the St Stephen’s entrance, and, er … that’s it. In the three years I’ve been lobbying from immediately across the river from where Jonathan was stopped, I have watched the fortifications and armed guards spread and grow to become the main feature of Parliament Square. We have our own little Green Zone, the inhabitants of which cower in terror of the ‘dangerous’ world outside. We’re all the enemy, no matter what colour we are.
Readers who recall the story of Nicky Samengo-Turner’s penknife will recall it was in the same area that he was stopped with less nugatory results.
Jonathan: Yep … it’s getting closer to Claire Wolfe time over here.
I just hope that enough people here feel the same way … otherwise we are going to see a few personal Alamos, and a lot of knuckling under.
And thus passes the golden thread that runs through the English Justice System, one of the greatest things gifted upon the world. Rumpole would not be pleased.
Personally, I don’t care if it takes 15 seconds. It is too long and a total waste of tax dollars/pounds. When I see cops doing random pull-overs in the US, I take the very first alternate route. I would rather waste a gallon of petrol than go up in a puff of fury over the cheek of such BS. It is so easy to terrorize the common citizen and so hard to do something real and substantive about crime.
Just more anarcho-tyranny.
An excellent and valued colleague is an officer. It has nothing to do with the value of the institution or the men who serve. They should refuse to serve the law when the law becomes an ass.
So according to some of the commenters above, the police could arbitrarily imprison say 1% of all doctors like myself, given that at some future time another doctor would have planted a car bomb and a life will be saved.
And to all the people above saying “so he was delayed 15 minutes then everything was OK, big deal”, there are costs involved here. The policeman could have been doing something more valuable. Well, at all valuable. 15 minutes times hundreds of thousands of people is destroying human capital. And some of us do things where a fifteen minute delay can result in a death. Do the cops exempt you if you say you have something important to get to?
So they do these “unreasonable searches” in the US too…
10 or 15 minutes is definitively not reasonable, it’s too much. The pull-overs I experienced didn’t take more than 2-3 minutes.
Johnathan – how many times have you been pulled-over in your life time ?
Jacob, it is the randomness and open-endedness of random searches that make them unreasonable, not the amount of time they may take or the frequency with which one is subjected to them. The cops admit they have no particular reason to suspect you of any wrongdoing, they’re just out doing searches and you happen to be at hand. They rummage through whatever happens to be in the car you’re driving, pulling out, should they care to, anything that may strike them as evidence of any sort of behavior that might be illegal. How in the world could that be reasonable even if it happened only once and took only 2 minutes?
In the US, for as long as I remember, drivers have been subject to random license checks, set up as impromptu roadblocks that snag all passing cars. I typically get stopped like this three or four times a year and spend a few seconds each time showing the cop my license, which gives him the opportunity to glance in the car and, presumably, sniff for alcohol or reefer. I’ve never been waived over for additional searching and don’t really know exactly what would happen if I were.
I haven’t heard about the precise thing Johnathan describes happening in the US, but I’m sorry to say I won’t be surprised when I do. Really, it does break down to just a slightly more thorough and time-consuming version of the license check I’ve just described, with the difference that you’re pulled out of moving traffic and you’re pressed right off the bat to permit the rummaging about.
Linda, darthlaurel, and Jacob,
Forgive the length. 4th-Amendment discussions do not lend themselves to brevity.
Were these “random” traffic stops truly random, or were they based on violations or RAS that you didn’t see for yourselves? The former is actually illegal, generally. My bet is on the latter.
Also, checkpoints for license/registration/insurance were ruled illegal by the Nine Worthies some time ago. DUI checkpoints are still (arguably[1]) legal. I’m hazy on DUI checkpoint case law, since my department doesn’t use them. I do regularly make stops for traffic violations that cause me to think DUI, but if I don’t see any signs of impairment when I actually contact the driver, I’ll typically abandon the DUI investigation part of the stop, not mention that, and instead give a verbal warning for whatever violation actually justified the stop.[2]
As far as a search of a vehicle, there are only a few circumstances in which they may be done under US law:
1) Supported by a warrant, “..supported by oath or affirmation…particularly describing the place to be searched and the items to be seized..”
2) On probable cause to believe that it contains contraband or evidence. Basically, that means that I would have the evidence required to support a warrant but, due to some exigent circumstances, I don’t have time to get one.
3) On consent by the owner or person in control of the vehicle. Consent generally requires that a reasonable person would feel free to refuse, in order to be valid. Who controls in a case where the driver and registered owner disagree, or when there are two registered owners, is still unsettled but the trend is towards the consent being invalid in those cases.
4) International border crossings.
5) “Plain View/Plain Smell.” The officer may act on anything that he hears, sees, smells or otherwise observes, provided that at the time of observation he is in a place that he has a legal right to be. Standing outside a car and smelling booze or marijuana is a classic example. Or, the officer serves a warrant for one thing and sees something else in the process. The best example that I can think of is an arrest warrant. Those generally allow the officer to enter the named subject’s residence to search for the subject. While inside, an officer might see evidence or contraband. He’s legally able to be inside due to the first warrant, and so he can act on his observations.
As for how long it takes…that’ll never be definitively settled. A traffic stop can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes, depending, without a vehicle search, a call for a dog, or DUI roadsides. The courts have said that we can take whatever time is “reasonable” for us to identify the driver, do whatever paperwork is required, and make whatever radio checks are needed. We get more time if there’s additional investigation, so long as we act “dilligently” and “without undue delay.” In other words, if I call for a dog to sniff the car and it takes the dog 45 minutes to get there, that generally will not constitute undue delay unless I wasted time before calling. Or, if I need to remove and restrain driver or passengers because of a safety concern, so long as my actions were reasonable then so will be the time needed to perform them.
I’ll post some case law cites in the next day or so, if my dog hasn’t eaten the book.
[1] The USSC said yes, subject to a stack of conditions. Some state courts have ruled that their state laws impose greater restrictions on police powers and that DUI checkpoints violate state laws.
[2] Weaving and driving in the oncoming lane are the big ones.
Sunfish, thanks for all the information.
I guess I should stop referring to those floating, occasional checkpoints as “license checks” since those would be illegal. Generally, though, the officers manning those things do take my proffered licence and look at it even if they appear to do nothing else. I’m not about to tell them they can’t.
Linda,
I just re-read the “random stop” decision. What happened in your case may not have been 100% illegal after all.
The “random stop” case is called Delaware vs. Prouse, and the US Supreme Court handed it down in 1979. In it, they held that random traffic stops to check for license and registration are unconstitutional when not supported by some reason to believe that a specific driver or vehicle is in violation. However, they left open the door to roadblocks where every car, or every Nth car is chosen, or other means that remove the officer’s discretion as to which cars get checked.
In his dissent, Justice Rehnquist said that the Court was ruling that the fact that “misery loves company” made roadblocks okay when individual stops were not.
What they’d do with it today, I don’t know. I’ve never actually seen or even heard of a license roadblock in Colorado and I can only imagine our court’s response.
As for the question of incorporating searches into such checkpoints…there would need to be a radical change in law for that to wash. Entry into a place where a person retains a reasonable expectation of privacy[1] without specific justification is pretty much out of bounds.
Was your experience an established roadblock or one cop pulling people over? Also, what did the officer actually say about why he stopped you and what he was doing?
What state was this in, anyway? This sounds like something that would never fly in my state, but our courts are among the 5 most defendant-friendly on 4th-Amendment issues. (Actually, that’s why I live here. The other contenders have either lousy gun laws or worse taxes.)
[1] That’s the exact wording of a US Supreme Court decision from the 1960’s, in which they decided where the 4th does or does not constrain searches. Any intrusion into a place where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy must be reasonable, and the question of what constitutes ‘reasonable’ has a huge body of case law behind it.
Sunfish,
Yeah, they’ve been used for so long and occur so frequently, that I pretty much assume the legality of roadblock-type checkpoints here in North Carolina. I’ve always heard them called “license checks” – and they invariably do involve flashing one’s license, which may or may not be actually taken and scrutinized by the officer. They’re usually very quick and casual and I’ve never asked what’s being looked for on a given occasion, though I assume any detectable violation from expired inspection sticker to non-use of seatbelts to DUI could result in a ticket. I also assume that if anything about a given driver or vehicle raised the cops’ suspicion, they could quickly get a warrant to search. And I know from seeing it happen that drivers trying to turn around or otherwise evade the checkpoint are subject to be chased down.
And just to make clear, these checkpoints appear without warning, for maybe and hour or two here or an afternoon there. I encounter several a year at least and sometimes they seem to pop up more frequently than other times.
This sort of set-up does differ from cops just plucking cars out of traffic, willy-nilly, to be checked at close range for compliance with various laws. That’s something I’ve never experienced or heard about around here. (Which is to say, the officer gives you a reason for having pulled you and it isn’t ever “random check”.) The scrutiny, of most of the drivers netted at a checkpoint, is less intrusive than what Johnathan was expected to – and did – permit. Most of the cars and drivers are being “checked” from outside rather than searched, and those that end up being searched aren’t (sub)selected at random, but rather on the basis, presumably, of some plausible suspicion of violation of law.
While I’ve thought them irksome, I’ve always just accepted license checks and never really considered them unreasonable.
But they are being imposed by the state on persons going peaceably about their business and showing no signs of breaking any laws. The police set up the roadblock wherever they will and stop all who pass to see if they can find someone in violation of any of an assortment of unspecified laws and regulations.
It’s definitely a point on the same continuum that includes the event Johnathan wrote this post about. Do the checkpoints I encounter enhance public safety here in NC any more than the sort of random search he submitted to enhances security there in the UK? If not, should I consider them less noxious just because they entail – for me, so far, at least, knock wood – no intrusion into the less readily visible areas of the car, where I might have a “reasonable expectation of privacy”?
These are questions raised for me by this discussion, and I don’t bring them up in contemplation of challenging the next cop at the next license check I happen upon. That I won’t be doing, but it is interesting to consider these ideas.
Sadly examining the Constitution does not really help J.P. – because he lives in Britain, and we have an “unwritten” Constitution (i.e. we do not have a Constitution).
There is the “Human Rights Act” but that does not defend many aspects of liberty as a libertarian would understand the matter.
It, and the Declaration it is based upon, are drafted in such a way so that they do not defend many aspects of basic liberty as a libertarian would understand liberty.
Well, I must say I’m extremely disappointed. Nobody quoted William Pitt and the castle doctrine.
Are we really past the point where that is relevant already? I’m an American and I remember it…
As a recently retired Peace Officer not far from Sunfish, I second his posts. I just found this thread today on April 19th. I have to comment on one irony that our Brit cousins may have missed. Today in the US is “Patriot Day”, a holiday commemorating what happened at Concord and Lexington Massachussetts in 1775. Wherein the military forces of the Crown attempted to engage in a massive case of Unreasonable Search and Seizure, attempting to find and seize the equipment and supplies of the legally constituted local militias.
HM forces won at Lexington, inflicting more casualties on the Patriot Militia. They were able to effect unsuccessful searches at Concord, but took far more casualties. On the road back from Merriam’s Corner, it was all in favor of the Patriots. One can argue that it was at Merriam’s Corner that we became a nation. What had been a conflict between the forces of Empire against a few locals became a national conflict when the surrounding militias arrived at Merriam’s Corner. Something about the concept that if you attack one of us, you’re attacking all of us.
One wonders if there exists somewhere a Brit with the cojones of Captain Parker at Lexington. I believe he was reported to have said to his Minutemen [and this may be words invented after the fact], “Stand your ground …. If they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”.
You may need to find someone of that ilk soon, for Britain seems to be fast approaching the choice of ‘fight or flight’.
Subotai Bahadur
[whose flagpole outside today flies US colors over our First Navy Jack over the Liberty Tree flag]