[Anonymouse]

When are these idiots going to stop calling the whole thing 'the War on Terror'? It is NOT a war. Wars are declared between two or more governments because there is no other way (allegedly) of settling a major dispute.

We are not at war with Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or any other bloody country from which these terrorist nutters come (not counting the nutters who come from this country, of course). The current hysteria is a result of a few - a few - extremists who are doing all this under the delusion that they're doing what Allah or whoever wants. Without a formal declaration of war, there is no war. These lunatics do not represent their country, or their alleged faith.

During WWII, yes, I suppose such measures as described in the article were necessary; there were German spies in the UK, and there was a war on. If we actually were at war now, people would accept such measures, in the certain knowledge that they would no longer be used once the war was over. But even then the police and/or military had to have reasonable suspicion that treasonous activity was going on, and relatively few people were stopped and searched.

If this change in the law goes through, it'll be happening every bloody day. Any prejudiced coppers (and if you don't believe they exist, you're living in cloud- cuckoo land) will have a field day; they'll be able to arrest someone just because they don't like the look of 'em.

For geniune policing, this will be a disaster - for every justifiable arrest, there'll be a hundred spurious he-looked-suspicious-to-me-Sarge cases.