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Papers Please: Checkpoints in London ‘Because Terrorism’
Separate London Underground poster reads, “Electronic Surveillance is Essential”
Paul Joseph Watson
A photograph taken in London’s Park Lane underscores how authorities are randomly using dubious unspecified terror threats to set up ‘papers please’ checkpoints where innocent passers-by are searched by police.
The sign in the photo reads, “SECURITY OPERTION: Officers are conducting patrols in this area to deter and disrupt terrorist activity. There is not specific intelligence to suggest terrorist activity in this area but terrorists need to plan and prepare by observing possible targets or transporting equipment and material around.”
Paul Joseph Watson
A photograph taken in London’s Park Lane underscores how authorities are randomly using dubious unspecified terror threats to set up ‘papers please’ checkpoints where innocent passers-by are searched by police.
The sign in the photo reads, “SECURITY OPERTION: Officers are conducting patrols in this area to deter and disrupt terrorist activity. There is not specific intelligence to suggest terrorist activity in this area but terrorists need to plan and prepare by observing possible targets or transporting equipment and material around.”
“Police activities, including stop and search, will make it harder for terrorists to operate. Your co-operation and patience will help keep London safe.”
In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that stop and search procedures without grounds for suspicion were illegal.
Last year it was found that a quarter of of police stop and search procedures in the UK were being carried out without officers obeying the law.
If random checkpoints where citizens are interrogated and frisked is not ’1984′ enough for you then check out this advertisement currently being displayed at London Underground tube stations.
“ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE IS ESSENTIAL,” the sign reads above an image of a man in a balaclava with an AK-47 sat at a computer. The ad goes on to make the claim, proven false by numerous recent credible studies, that electronic snooping is useful in disrupting terrorist plots.
The poster is actually an ad for the Economist magazine but looks more like something you’d see in a dystopian thriller like Minority Report or The Running Man. Although it should appear next to a similar poster which takes the opposing view on mass surveillance, it didn’t in this instance.
