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JamesWhitehead Piffle Prospector Joined: 02 Aug 2001 Total posts: 5779 Location: Manchester, UK Gender: Male |
 Posted: 28-06-2013 12:20 Post subject: |
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I gather that TV Licencing - actually a number of companies tasked with policing the collection of licence fees - are also successfully pressuring Youtube to remove videos which show their inspectors ambushed by householders and - very recently - this satirical animation:
The animation is now hosted on Liveleak  |
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OneWingedBird Great Old One Joined: 19 Nov 2012 Total posts: 542 Location: Attice of blinkey lights Age: 44 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 28-06-2013 18:50 Post subject: |
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They forgot the bit where the householder speaks to the goon from the bathroom window and the goon refuses to identify himself and tries to trick them into coming down and opening the door.
Also the one where he threatens to go away and come back with the police and then starts going on about how serious an offense it is when they call bullshit on him.
That vid was pretty kind to the goon, really! |
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| Ronson8 Things can only get better.
Great Old One Joined: 31 Jul 2001 Total posts: 6061 Location: MK Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-06-2013 21:52 Post subject: |
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| Ok so has anyone actually seen a tv detector van? |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21362 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-06-2013 21:59 Post subject: |
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| Ronson8 wrote: | | Ok so has anyone actually seen a tv detector van? |
No!
They're painted with invisible paint.
But other drivers keep crashing into them, so there aren't many actually on the road!  |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 28-06-2013 22:09 Post subject: |
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| Ronson8 wrote: | | Ok so has anyone actually seen a tv detector van? |
Yes - probably seen about 3 in my entire life. They're as rare as rocking horse poop. |
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| JamesWhitehead Piffle Prospector Joined: 02 Aug 2001 Total posts: 5779 Location: Manchester, UK Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-06-2013 22:37 Post subject: |
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The Freedom of Information Act has been used to establish that detector-van evidence has never once been used in court. I heard a BBC twonk on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago claim that there was no growing movement of licence refusniks, which is counter-intuitive in the context of the proliferation of sites carrying information about the true extent of the powers inspectors have.
Chancers are likely to gobble all this down and still be stupid enough to actually watch the box! I suspect the inspectors pay merely token calls on me since I have no satellite dish or fibre-optic cable. If they bother to look, there isn't even a down-lead from the ancient aerial on the chimney stack! The nasty letters continue, however.  |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2734 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 11-07-2013 01:03 Post subject: |
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| TV Detector vans are actually a cover for the Men in Black. Their vans detect domestic transmissions entering and exiting our solar system on a stronger than usual basis. Ever seen a dish on a house that's far bigger than it needs to be? Hmmmmmmmmm. |
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| Urvogel Yeti Joined: 24 Dec 2012 Total posts: 87 Location: England Age: 28 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 11-07-2013 12:54 Post subject: |
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I once received a letter from the TV licensing people saying that I had to make sure I had a license. Since I didn't have a TV or anything else that could pick up TV signals I ignored it. A few weeks later they sent me an aggressive letter saying they were coming round my flat to take issue with the fact I didn't have a license. I sent them one back telling them, in rather less polite terms, that they could stick it up their arse.
They never sent me another letter after that. |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 12:30 Post subject: |
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More 'Summer madness'?
| Quote: | http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/19/detention-david-miranda-keith-vaz-glenn-greenwald
David Miranda's detention at Heathrow 'extraordinary', says Keith Vaz
Senior MP to seek explanation from police after detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner under the Terrorism Act
theguardian.com, Alexandra Topping and Guardian staff. 19 August 2013
The chairman of the home affairs select committee has said he will write to police after the partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
He was held for almost nine hours and officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
Keith Vaz called the detention of Miranda "extraordinary" and said he would be writing immediately to police to request information about why Miranda was held under anti-terrorism laws when there appeared to be little evidence that he was involved in terrorism.
"It is an extraordinary twist to a very complicated story," Vaz told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. "Of course it is right that the police and security services should question people if they have concerns or the basis of any concerns about what they are doing in the United Kingdom. What needs to happen pretty rapidly is we need to establish the full facts – now you have a complaint from Mr Greenwald and the Brazilian government. They indeed have said they are concerned at the use of terrorism legislation for something that does not appear to relate to terrorism, so it needs to be clarified, and clarified quickly."
Vaz said he was not aware that personal property could be confiscated under the laws. "What is extraordinary is they knew he was the partner [of Greenwald] and therefore it is clear not only people who are directly involved are being sought but also the partners of those involved," he said. "Bearing in mind it is a new use of terrorism legislation to detain someone in these circumstances [...] I'm certainly interested in knowing, so I will write to the police to ask for the justification of the use of terrorism legislation – they may have a perfectly reasonable explanation. But if we are going to use the act in this way ... then at least we need to know so everyone is prepared."
The Home Office has refused to comment on the detention of Miranda, stating that it was a matter for the police. In a brief statement, a Scotland Yard spokesperson said: "At 08:05 on Sunday, 18 August a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was not arrested. He was subsequently released at 17:00."
Scotland Yard refused to be drawn on why Miranda was stopped using powers that enable police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, controversially allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.
Miranda was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.
The government of Brazil issued a statement in which it expressed its "grave concern" over the detention of one of its citizens and the use of anti-terror legislation.
It said: "This measure is without justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today are not repeated."
Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director of international law and policy, said: "It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance.
"David's detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty, vindictive reasons.
"There is simply no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward Snowden."
Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain's GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.
While in Berlin, Miranda visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian. The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights.
"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," Greenwald said. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.
"But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively."
A spokesperson for the Guardian said: "We were dismayed that the partner of a Guardian journalist who has been writing about the security services was detained for nearly nine hours while passing through Heathrow airport. We are urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities."
Labour MP Tom Watson said he was shocked at the news and called for it to be made clear if any ministers were involved in authorising the detention.
He said: "It's almost impossible, even without full knowledge of the case, to conclude that Glenn Greenwald's partner was a terrorist suspect.
"I think that we need to know if any ministers knew about this decision, and exactly who authorised it."
"The clause in this act is not meant to be used as a catch-all that can be used in this way."
Those stopped under schedule 7 have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.
Last month, the UK government said it would reduce the maximum period of detention to six hours and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid concerns it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station. |
Beware invisible midgets. Even if they are only of the mental variety. |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5310 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 12:37 Post subject: |
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This is pretty awful stuff. I'm no fan of Greenwald - his anti-Western schtick and the way he bullies anyone who disagrees with him on the Guardian comment boards have made me dislike the man intently - but it's really quite shocking to use anti-terrorist provisions in this way.
Will be interesting to see what response if any those responsible give... |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 12:48 Post subject: |
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While we're at it. Maybe this should go on the Paedogeddon thread, but it seems just as apt, here.
A man and his son went for a walk one day:
| Quote: | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/questioned-for-taking-a-country-walk-with-his-son-even-will-self-couldnt-make-it-up-8773439.html
Questioned for taking a country walk with his son? Even Will Self couldn’t make it up
Dismayed author blames fear of paedophiles for warping attitudes
The Independent. Tom Foot. 18 August 2013
Striding through the fields and rich-green everglades of the Yorkshire countryside, his 11-year-old son revelling in the rural bliss and clasping his trusty walking staff, the writer Will Self was within his rights to feel free and at ease.
What was to his mind a “blameless pursuit” appeared far more sinister to a college security guard, however, who contacted the police fearing the child was being led astray.
Mr Self’s ramble was brought to an abrupt end when he was hauled over to the roadside for questioning after being stopped by convoy of police cars. A protective custody officer was waiting in the wings in case his son had to be taken in to care by the social services. Mr Self, 51, revealed the incident over the weekend, saying he had been “treated like a criminal for no reason whatsoever”. He lashed out at a national attitude in which “paedophile hysteria... seems to warp people’s reason”.
“Can there be a more disturbing parable of the Britain we have become?” asked Mr Self in an article for The Mail on Sunday.
A statement from the chief executive of the Bishop Burton College, Jeanette Dawson, has said the security guard acted out of “concern” because the two ramblers were “a long way from their intended destination”.
But Mr Self believes that he was marked out as a potential sexual predator by the guard after he asked for permission to cut through the grounds of the agricultural college during a 11-day ramble last month.
“Staring me straight in the face he said that it was out of the question. The insinuation that I might pose some sort of threat to young people – in a word, that I might be a paedophile – was underscored by his eyes then sliding to my son.”
Two hours later, Mr Self was picked up on the B1248 motorway and asked to step into one of the police cars for questioning. “I said we were walking all the way from London to Whitby... he said he understood, but that he still had to ask me some questions because they had been called by a ‘concerned member of the public’.”
The police officer checked Mr Self’s name on the police computer before recalling he had seen Mr Self on the comedy TV series Shooting Stars. The officers quickly left after receiving an emergency call to a nearby pub.
Mr Self said: “Far from acting as some sort of local hero, the guard had abused a child himself, in particular by exposing my son to the spectacle of his father – who was guilty of nothing – being grilled by the police on the roadside.”
In a letter to Mr Self, the college’s human resources director Kate Calvert wrote: “I understand that the guard observed you in a village north of Bishop Burton. It was now around 7.30pm to 8.00pm and you had also told the guard you were from London and clearly did not know the area. He is adamant that in alerting the police he acted in good faith and out of concern for both of your safety.” |
Original Will Self article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396222/Branded-paedophile-hiking-son-WILL-SELF-reveals-nightmare.html |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5310 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 13:02 Post subject: |
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In fairness we only have Self's word for it that he was suspected of being a paedophile, a belief he apparently bases on the way the guard's eyes appeared to him.
The security guard says he called the police because Self and his son were a long way from their destination and seemed unfamiliar with the area. He may well have been concerned for the child's welfare, especially if he appeared tired or ill - he was only 11 after all. The policeman checked everything was okay and went on his way.
Not sure this is "police state" territory TBH. |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 13:13 Post subject: |
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| Quake42 wrote: | In fairness we only have Self's word for it that he was suspected of being a paedophile, a belief he apparently bases on the way the guard's eyes appeared to him.
The security guard says he called the police because Self and his son were a long way from their destination and seemed unfamiliar with the area. He may well have been concerned for the child's welfare, especially if he appeared tired or ill - he was only 11 after all. The policeman checked everything was okay and went on his way.
Not sure this is "police state" territory TBH. |
Self made the mistake of asking a college renta-cop if he and his son could take a short cut across college grounds that was marked on the map. According to the fuller Daily Mail article:
| Quote: | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396222/Branded-paedophile-hiking-son-WILL-SELF-reveals-nightmare.html
...
We approached the security guard on the main gate, and while my 11-year-old hung back – the rain had cleared by now, it was a hot afternoon and he was understandably tired – I explained the situation.
The guard was entirely unsympathetic. He said it was private property and there was no public right of way.
I said this was fair enough, but I could see from the map that there was a track leading right across the grounds, it would help us a lot, and obviously we weren’t the sort of people – being long-distance walkers – to bother any livestock.
But the guard stuck to his guns, and staring me straight in the face said that it was out of the question: There were under 18-year-olds at the college. The insinuation that I might pose some sort of threat to young people – in a word, that I might be a paedophile – was underscored by his eyes then sliding to my drooping son. He was being absurd and offensive.
I began to remonstrate, saying I was with my own child, and moreover I also teach at a university. But when I saw another guard coming over to back up his beleaguered colleague I thought: life’s too short to argue with jobsworths in high-vis jackets. And so my son and I went on.
... |
The Independent article isn't very clear on that point.
Self reckons that when the police later stopped them, they kept them at the side of the road and questioned them for about half an hour. So yes, ultimately, should we believe Will Self, or the jobsworth renta-cop? |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 13:31 Post subject: |
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I think when the police get a call from a 'concerned member of the public', they now feel obliged to follow it up in this manner (in case it turns out to have some subtance to it).
This means that any Thomas, Richard or Harold who wants to cause trouble for someone can do so by simply calling the police. |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5310 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-08-2013 13:35 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Self reckons that when the police later stopped them, they kept them at the side of the road and questioned them for about half an hour. So yes, ultimately, should we believe Will Self, or the jobsworth renta-cop? |
Well you've clearly already made up your mind, as your use of the phrase "jobsworth renta-cop" makes clear. An equally valid counter argument might be something like:
"The security guard reckons that the young boy appeared exhausted and his father had no idea where they were or how to get to their destination which was many miles away. So yes, ultimately, should we believe the self-important media luvvie or the minimum wage worker concerned about a child's welfare?"
And the answer is, of course, that we don't know. Self has one version of events, the security guard another very different one. I wouldn't automatically believe the well-connected wealthy media commentator over the poor sap doing a badly paid job. He may be a jobsworth or he may have been genuinely worried about the welfare of a child. The media is quick to excoriate those who do not report such concerns when those concerns turn out to be well-founded.
Either way, not a police state as far as I can tell. |
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