Stop and Search - What Next?

Is something like this gonna be in place here in America too?

Part 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE),UK empowers any constable acting with reasonable grounds for suspicion to stop, detain and search you or your vehicle, or anything in or on your vehicle for certain items, which may be seized. The provisions of the Act are supplemented by a Code of Practice on stop and search. The contents of the Code must be observed by the police, although the remedy for failure to observe it is usually to make a police complaint - or if prosecuted to raise an objection in court - rather than to take legal proceedings against the police.

PACE also provides some safeguards for other well-used police powers of search. These might relate, for instance, to searches for drugs or firearms and so on. The safeguards also apply in a limited way to controversial powers of stop and search introduced by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 when it is feared that an incident involving serious violence may take place.

The police do not have general powers, apart from those specified in a statute, to stop and search you, unless you consent. You should ask the police officer to explain on what basis they are searching you. If no search power exists you should be told that you do not have to consent and if you do not, you should not be searched.

But even if I'am not stopped or searched,what happens to my fundamental rights? Do governments actually have to start behaving like it's the time of crises and Military be given aouthority to encroach on our movements? What's the definition of suspicious?

Here in Australia the police have the right to detain us without charge for 2 weeks if we are caught participating in 'terrorist related activities.' Now it just so happens that I like exploring the underground here, and so they can put me in jail for a fortnight because I was 'looking for locations to stash weapons/plant bomb/whatever other stupid charge they can come up with etc etc?

I read something about a Middle-Eastern family down here that was arrested for playing paintball. It was claimed that they were training to take down all us infidels!



[edit on 28/5/2007 by watch_the_rocks]

I read something about a Middle-Eastern family down here that was arrested for playing paintball. It was claimed that they were training to take down all us infidels

And that's exactly my point. How do you differentiate a suspecious person from a normal citizen?Where does this authority finally end? Will this mean that the police will have the authority to come into our homes in the middle of the night to search because they suspect our involvement of some kind?

These points may not seem too relevant currently. But they will become very important in the days to come.