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More folk given hassle over taking snaps in a public place.

The latest trick is something called "Stop and Account", as detailed by Philip Johnson in the Telegraph, where you are stopped and asked questions by an officer rather than the stop and search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This one saves the officer a whole raft of form filling and so is starting to take over from use of Section 44.

By using this you can still question the plebs but save hours of typing up forms, I will point out that the police do not have the legal power to force photographers to supply their personal details if they are stopped while taking pictures.

Police have the power to stop a photographer under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, but have been told to scale back their use of anti-terrorism stop and search powers after complaints that Section 44 was being abused.

A police officer is required by law to complete a stop and account form if they ask a member of the public to provide personal details. However, the police officer is not legally required to tell the person that they do not have to supply this information, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

ACPO spokesman Craig Mackey, who is the Chief Constable of Cumbria Police, said: It [stop and account] is not a Terrorism Act power. It is very clear. A member of the public can say 'thank you officer, I've explained why I am here. I don't want to give any details."'

There you go from the piggys, er horses mouth so to speak... More at Big Brother Watch
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2 people have spoken:

Anonymous said...

Are they going after tourists lined up to take snapshots of the family on tour around various locations too?

If so, then that's always good for the tourist industry - you know, new slogan, "Travel to UK Where You Can Be Arrested for Taking Family Photographs".

That's always good for business during an economic downturn - that plus the smoking ban plus the 4000 other prohibitions and bans for which tourists can be bullied and arrested.

Maybe they could capitalize on it as a way of showing people from other countries what it was like living in East Germany - could put up a duplicate of the Berlin Wall, things like that.

banned said...

"ACPO spokesman Craig Mackey, who is the Chief Constable of Cumbria Police, said: It [stop and account] is not a Terrorism Act power. It is very clear. A member of the public can say 'thank you officer, I've explained why I am here. I don't want to give any details."'

Thank you, I will remember that.