because there is no such offence as "refusing to give fingerprints".
I won't be surprised if there was. I was stopped by the BT Police at Liverpool Street Station a couple of years ago. He asked to see in my bag. I said no. He said tough luck, under Section 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000 I am going to do it anyway. And that bit of the Act even says:
The officer does not have to have reasonable grounds to suspect the individual stopped or searched of carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons or of involvement in anticipated violence or terrorism.
It was about a year after the bombings (when I was also at Liverpool Street) and I would like to see someone get a bomb that was dangerous to anything more than a frog in my satchel. I would also suggest random bag searches are a pretty poor way to stop potential bombings.
However, my point was more that in the olden days the police had to have a good reason for searching you, fingerprinting you, etc whereas now (as evidenced by the ad campaign) everyone is a potential terrorist, all the time, and must be treated as such.
I don't think we are living in a police state either. However I can't see why we need new legislation or emergency powers. Maybe you right and they do actually prevent terrorism and are only used in specific circumstances. I'm not convinced though.
Things like randomly searching members of the public and publicity campaigns like this strike me as at best useless and waste of resources and at worst divisive and fearmongering.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 02:47 pm (UTC)I won't be surprised if there was. I was stopped by the BT Police at Liverpool Street Station a couple of years ago. He asked to see in my bag. I said no. He said tough luck, under Section 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000 I am going to do it anyway. And that bit of the Act even says:
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 04:06 pm (UTC)However, my point was more that in the olden days the police had to have a good reason for searching you, fingerprinting you, etc whereas now (as evidenced by the ad campaign) everyone is a potential terrorist, all the time, and must be treated as such.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:40 pm (UTC)Things like randomly searching members of the public and publicity campaigns like this strike me as at best useless and waste of resources and at worst divisive and fearmongering.