We are watching you!

If like this chap you attend a protest, then be prepared to be stopped and given lots of state harassment:

Another protester, an IT manager who only wants to be known as John for fear of police retribution, said he was stopped more than 25 times in two and half years after a “protester” marker was placed against his Mercedes SUV. 

He said police were giving him inconsistent explanations for the stops.

“I heard every excuse under the sun: ‘We’ve heard reports of suspicious vehicles in the area’ or ‘We’re keeping an eye on high value vehicles moving through the area,’” he said. “One or two officers would be a bit more honest and say: ‘Your number plate has flagged up on our system, we don’t know why.’ This was happening all over the country.”

He finally decided to complain after a police armed response unit stopped him during an evening out with his wife in March 2008.

Documents revealed a marker “requiring stop checks” had been placed on his car by Lancashire police in 2006 after he attended a protest, described by the local paper as “peaceful”, against duck and pheasant shoot near Preston.

Now far be from me to work out or question the police reasoning and logic for this, but he hardly seems like a threat to the state. He objects to shooting and go's about his lawful business in expressing his displeasure, no laws as far as I can see have been broken.


So why bother wasting both his time and that of the police in stopping him. Its not as if we are short of home grown jihadists/loons and organised criminals who are actually planning crimes and so deserving of a bit of police surveillance. 


Hat tip to NO2ID.

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