New crimes, future crime, future freedom ?

I took the following picture on his mobile phone last week, as I had a few minutes to kill before a meeting. It shows the defunct Woolworths and soon to be defunct Marks and Spencers above in Woking.

But what I wasn't expecting was to be challenged by a security guard and told that you couldn't take pictures inside the shopping centre ( though pictures of shop windows were OK ), but I was.

He was very polite, friendly and even apologetic so I thought there was no point in giving the messenger a hard time.

But this is where things are going. Because you could carry out a crime you are now being prevented from certain actions. The business of photographing police officers is another example. (This will provide an almost universal clause for harassment to be justified of photographers when ever law enforcement want to).

However, it would be churlish not to admit their are future problems. What if people uploaded pictures of police officers on the Web - future face recognition software could provide instant identification and cross referenced the home addresses of such people, leading them wide open to intimidation.

The only problem with this line is that it applies to all of us, and the most likely organisation to do it is the state. Access to state information is being ever increased and we have to assume that criminal or other illegal organisations would find it little trouble to access this information.

The surveillance society isn't going to go away. What we need is a new way of living with it and keeping our freedom. The luddite refusal to accept change isn't working, so what we need is a better legal and dare I say it consitutional frame work.

"Its all Damian Green's fault for getting arrested"

Jaqui Smith ( your best mates Mum who Gordon Brown has pretending to be Home Sec right now ) is trying to make the best she can out of her retreat on local accountability for the police.

The debating scheme she's using is to blame "the Tories" ( when is it ever anyone else ) for politicising the issue of the police. Thoughts of pots and name calling of kettles spring to mind here.

The examples Jaqui rolls out are:

1. Boris pulling the rug from under Sir Ian "Labour's favourite Policeman" Blair. ( In the mayor new role which Labour created - thinking their man would be running the Met and Town hall ).
   
2. Damian Green getting himself arrested for trying to hold the government to account for key security information it has tried to suppress for, um, political reasons.

But the Guardian states that its really certain police officers and senior Labour council leaders.

Back in the real world there has been some concern about the politicisation of the police for some time. Officers with right on views about the community and diversity seem to do very well. The police have now turned on the middle classes ( easier to fill up their political targets to get Labour minister re-elected that way than catch hardened criminals ).

Who can remember how the police treated the country side march early in Labour's reign ?

The truth is that the police are already politicised, very politicised. Its too late to reverse it.

Labour have just woken up to how much political control they have over the police and the only result of democratic control would be the lose of the Labour party's control.

One political party has undue influence over the police and its developing culture.

That's why we need elected local police boards.

That's why we now need a Conservative government to deliver them - because labour daren't do it as they now realise what they stand to lose.

So what is Smith saying ?

Jacqui Smith ( your mates Mum who Gordon Brown thought would be a good woman - ie not Harriet Harman - to be Home Sec ) is trying to smear Damian Green - suggesting darkly that there is more to this than the media are reporting ( hey does that prejudice any subsequent legal action just to provide political cover for herself ? ) and talk about systemic leaks. That is to suggest a plot to let the public know what their government is doing.

Given that this level of leaks is not unprecedented and that her boss was at the receiving end of many of them before 1997 this is a bit rich.

What's the argument for the police informing Boris Johnson and David Cameron - but leaving the hands of the Home Sec clean from any actual knowledge ?

Perhaps it was a political trap by Labour to try and get senior Conservative people warning Damian Green ?

It is certain that the attack on Parliament is unprecedented, except back to the days before the English civil war ( which was fought and won to stop exactly this sort of thing ).

I personally believe Mrs Smith is not being straight with us.

Update: Iain Dale has a good point about if the Home Sec has authorised a bug on Damian Green's phone by signing the warrant. This is going to run and run.

This is very serious - the arrest of Damian Green

Its appears Damian Green was arrested but not charged by police and his parliamentary office searched by the police in connection with leaks from the government. ( There will be questions about search warrants and parliamentary privilege to answer here ).

This is potentially explosive stuff.

The police will have to explain and justify their actions and any links to serving Labour minster ordering this without due cause should result in the fall of the government.

The suspicion has to fall on Labour's dirty tricks brigade, but more worrying is the direct deployment of the police by the executive powers against parliament.

Can it be that the Home Secretary was not asked about this before it happened ?

Given the behaviour of Labour before 1997 with leaks from civil servants and its supposed desires to protect whistle blowers this look very strange.

Update: I had planned to write a new post about the very deniability of the arrest and the strangeness of Boris Johnston and David Cameron being informed, but the government trying to give the impression it didn't know. But quite frankly "The Mole" over at the First Post makes a first rate job of the same task, Whiff of deniability at No 10 over Damian Green’s arrest. So I forward you there.

Let me only add that this move, which will have the affect of intimidating civil servants who know of wrong doing and government actions against the national interest. Fits in with the recent crack down on descenting Labour MPs carried out by Gordon Brown's right hand commissar Nick Brown.

As has been mentioned elsewhere the immediate reaction of the Telegraph to ring up the possibility of Damian Green's resignation begs some very serious and sinister questions about whats happening there under its new management.

Other blog reactions:

Damian Green’s arrest is an affront to British liberty - Cranmer
The Consequences of the Arrest of the Ashford One - Iain Dale
Clunking Fists Strike Opponents - Guido
Green by name, green by nature? - The Daily Pundit ( who sees this as just a knee kerk response )
The arrest of Damian Green MP - Tony Sharp, The Waendal Journal