From: "John Hurst", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>If ACPO, the Police Federation etc., not to mention yourself
>know these laws are bad, why not do something about them?
>You can go and see your MP, you can make representations to
>your Federation rep. and so on.
It is not as easy as that. Constables are bound by the Discipline
code which is derived from the Police Acts. Involvement in "political
activities" is forbidden if it is likely to compromise impartial discharge
of duty. And it is senior officers who sit on discipline boards. They
however are not constables and are not bound by the same rules.
Going over the head of the management anonymously is also forbidden.
I have been a Fed Rep and have made representations to senior ones. The
current shower pick and choose common law rights to suit themselves. If an
individual wants funds from the insurance scheme to pursue a legal case
those senior Reps decide who gets them.
>If you are enforcing a bad law which harms members of the
>public, it may be different in magnitude but it is no
>different in concept with the local SS officer blindly
>following the orders of the Nazis.
True, but the SS were volunteers IIRC and unlikely to dissent.
I understand that many Whermacht ( spelling?) Officers refused
to condone breaches of the laws of war with impunity.
A closer analogy would be with German police officers who
were sent into Poland in the early stages of WW2 to impose
the new regime. From my reading of Hitlers Willing
Executioners, the entire German population in the pre war
period were conditioned to regard slavs as sub human. The
police as "representatives of their society" went along
with the new orders. A lot of people "agreed with the new
laws", to coin a phrase. German people that is, not slavs,
the disabled, etc. Professor Eisenk wrote a book called
"The Road to Serfdom" which describes how it happens.
>Police officers are not the servants of Parliament or
>the Home Office, they have autonomy and they are supposed
>to use discretion. That means that they bear the
>responsibility to a large degree for what they do.
True. But FAC holders are reluctant to make waves by
using the complaints system. Perhaps that is because
senior officers investigate complaints and the Police
Complaints Authority is composed of persons approved by the
Home Office.
PS. A police officer who was setting up a resistance
movement would not breach the first rule of operational
security by going public would he. I have always though
that the Swiss resistance manual, (Total Resistance by
Von Dach Bern, IIRC, was a good read) <g>.
Regards, John Hurst.
--
I've never been reluctant to make waves!<G>
And so what if senior officers ignore the Police Federation
rep., it is the Police Federation whose opinion we are
attempting to change, they are the ones who keep coming
out with these incredibly daft suggestions like deactivating
and licensing antiques.
It's just a cop out (sorry!) for an individual police officer
to say that he can't do anything about it.
Perhaps he can't do much, but as Edmund Burke said, "Nobody
makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because
he could only do a little."
If members of the Police Federation protested at L100
million being flushed down the toilet when it could have
been used to do some good, that would make a difference,
you only have to look at what is happening in Canada.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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