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The Olympic pre-crime cover up

Some time ago, Big Brother Watch was contacted by a person who had just been visited by the police. Not because he was suspected of a crime or involved in one. The Police wanted to know what he was planning when the Olympic Torch Relay came to town. We’re told an 80 year old man was also visited.

This wasn’t based on any evidence something was being planned, nor had the individual been involved in anti-Olympic protests at other points on the torch relay. So we decided to find out how many others had been visited.

It turned out Devon and Cornwall visited 18 people, which seemed a surprisingly high number of people. So we decided to ask every other force in the country if they’d done the same.

On Monday this week we receieved six responses. Since then we’ve had a further ten. All the responses, with one exception, are  identical. We can only assume someone, somewhere has supplied the forces with the template response to our request, but the detail is quite remarkable for it’s tone and severity.

The forces claim that “Disclosure of the information requested would cause operational harm to [insert force name] and affect the force’s ability to fulfil the core function of law enforcement in the future”

Apparently it’s a secret that the police talk to people.

It goes on: “The release of information identifying the focus of policing activity in safeguarding public order and the prevention of terrorism could be used to the advantage of terrorists or criminal organisations.”

So anyone planning to protest during the Olympic torch relay is a terrorist now?

“To disclose intelligence, tactics and methods used to ensure the safety and security of the Olympic Torch Relay may make them ineffectual for future similar events and future Olympic Torch Relays which may pass through the United Kingdom.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking we’re making this up, but alas no.

The fact that police forces are devoting resources to pre-crime investigations about they Olympic torch relay demonstrates how utterly out of proportion the Olympic security operation has become. Rather than investigating crimes that have actually happened, the police are wasting their time questioning people about a potential protest, something that is neither a crime nor a security risk.

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Civil Liberties, Olympics, Police, Terrorism Legislation
  • http://twitter.com/lambtonwyrm Jeff Piper

    That is outrageous. Smacks of the thought police.

  • here we go again

    Why have these sorts of events if the police and others simply see them as terrorist opportunities? How additional money has been spent on security for the torch and these ‘visits’ from police?

  • Zanshin

    Absolutely outrageous – I would suggest that anyone visited by these idiots obtains details of who they are, and written details of WHY they are there – and then tell them to “Get lost”

  • Jool

    I am going to use hyperbole in this comment – but I am glad that I will be dead before George Owell’s 1984 becomes real in this country. We appear to be getting very close to “thought-crime” actually being a real crime

    I have no doubt that the supporters of the 9/11 terrorists rub their hands in glee every time they read about such things. They appear to have won.

    • Dervheid

      Unfortunately, unless you’re expecting to be dead within the next couple of years, I fear it’s already too late. We live in a society with almost Orwellian levels of surveillance already, and where Plod operates with almost total impunity already. We continue to have a scumvernment which has no regard for anyone’s privacy, except their own, of course. We have councils deploying ANPR systems for their own purposes, which may or may not be benign, and they’re not keen to give out the details either. Beginning to think that moving to China might be an improvement…

  • http://www.facebook.com/flutesalad Kanga Doris Spencer

    ‘intelligence’ came to visit me too! with half a story about yarnbombing! Intelligence – piss up – brewery :)

  • Plod.WTF?

    Fair enough, they need to keep the torch safe, because it’s an important event, and indeed could become a target for terrorism. But COME ON!
    From what I’ve read about this, it sounds like they’re just talking to random people in the area (who have maybe made a little trouble in the past – though I doubt there could be anything more than a tenuous link between then and now). Surely there are better ways to spend police resources, and if they MUST be spent on ‘pre-crime investigations’ then they could at least investigate people who have actually got a history?
    Still. It’s an invasion of privacy, and insulting for the people who have been ‘talked to’ – there is nothing to suggest that they have, or are going to, do anything, and yet they are still being questioned by the police!

    People thought things like the Thought Police were ridiculous, but wherever Orwell is now, I bet he knows that he was right.