British policemen on appointment swear an oath:
I [SAY YOUR NAME] do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen in the Office of Constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to the law.
This morning sees the opening for business of the new Serious Organised Crime Agency – though it officially began existence on April 1st, it is no joke – whose spokesman was interviewed on the Today programme this morning.
He proudly stated that because its personnel will not take the Police Oath they would therefore be able to adopt ‘new and exciting’ methods. So what is to be sacrificed?
The same interview made clear that ‘once you are on their books you will be watched for life’.
Agents of SOCA will be empowered to operate without marking or uniform anywhere in the world. They are to be regarded as an intelligence service, permitted and encouraged to do anything within the law to (in the Home Office’s favourite phrase) ‘bear down on’ their targets. But the intelligence services don’t have powers of arrest or to compel cooperation. They cannot direct other law enforcement agencies or commandeer their facilities. The SOCA-man can.
Agents may operate in secret. And they may exercise any of the the powers of police, customs officers, revenue inspectors (though not bound by their rigorous code of impartiality and confidentiality either), or immigration officials. SOCA officials have the capacity to demand information from a vast variety of sources without judicial warrant, under statutes ranging from the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to the Identity Cards Act 2006, and pass it on to whomsoever it chooses. It is a crime to fail to report to it a transaction you ought to have known was suspicious, even if you are a lawyer and asked to advise a client on a transaction. It can deputise – ‘designate’ – people freely to exercise its powers, and form ad hoc investigation teams it is an offence to obstruct. ‘Anything within the law’ is getting to be a very broad category indeed.
I saw a similar report on state TV this morning and just felt like screaming out “What organised crime ?” Its not like the UK is over run by Mafia or Triads. Yes there is serious crime (murder , kidnap and armed robberies) but when they catch those responsible in 9 out of 10 cases they turn out to be idiots , junkies or both let out of prison many years before they should and doing the evil that comes naturally to them. How will SOCA cut down on that kind of crime ? The trouble is that very soon our new Secret Police will have to justify its existance and you can be sure they will find some somebody to prosecute for something.
What can they do? Well it’s simple to see: reverse the oath.
I [SAY YOUR NAME] do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will badly serve the Queen in the Office of Constable, with unfairness, dishonesty, laziness and bias, ignoring fundamental human rights and according very litte respect to anyone; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be lost and broken and permit all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge ignore all the duties thereof faithlessly and in contempt of the law.
What happened to “Policing by consent of the community” ?
There is no telephone number or email contact address for the use of the public published on their new website http://www.soca.gov.uk. so they presumably somehow beleive that they can do without any tip offs or information from the public.
Unlike other police forces, there is no Police Authority to monitor the budgets and policies of SOCA, as it is controlled by the Home Secretary. Its officers do come under the remit of the Independnent Police Complaints Commission, for what that is worth.
The top priority for SOCA, after Class A drugs is , apparently Human Trafficking, yet the Labour Government has failed to sign or ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings
A casuality of the amalgamation of the National Crime Squad into SOCA appears to be the demise of the National High Tech Crime Unit, which has effectively shut down its website http://www.nhtcu.org
“As a result the NHTCU is no longer providing individual responses to enquiries either via this web site or direct email contacts.”
They have also withdrawn their useful advice to businesses on, say, forensic preservation of computer evidence so that it can actually be admissable in court.
Incredibly, it appears that Computer Crime, is no longer a priority for UK law enforcement.
It’s not true to say there’s no organised crime. There are plenty of organised prostitution, people and slave smuggling rackets, all made possible because of successive governments giving away the sovereignty of the British people to the EU and New Labour’s policy of encouraging mass immigration.
As for ‘serious organised crime’, I think I’ll give SOCA a bell and direct them to Parliament.
I think there IS organised crime that operates in such a way as to be pretty much “under the radar” of the current police force organisation. It slips between the low level street crime and national crime issues.
That said, why is this force not created under the Crown and operated by the Police? It is another wing of the State that is not accountable to the people. Community Support Officers are the same – not under the Police, but under the State.
It is a bad thing.
Of course one would say ‘organized prostitution’ is simply a normal business which could in a liberal state fill a market niche for a non-coercive service.
I think a young lady one do far better joining such a firm than SOCA. They sound like the real whores.
Pete – London its noticable they dont have E-mail address?
Phil – It has been pointed out on other blogs that along with not having an email address they don’t have a secure web form (such as MI5 have) for the public to report stuff either. Its almost as though they don’t want to be contacted 🙂 The recruitment page is weird as well as it doesn’t saying if they are recruiting or what skills they require just that you can’t have previous convictions. Mind you in true Blairite fashion they already have a diversity policy.
Phil
What a nasty, pernicious organisation this is.
It’s clearly political. The oath to the Monarch has been banished deliberately. Its officers are not uniformed and therefore invisible. The Home Secretary decides what SOCA will do, the Home Secretary appoints the Chairman, the Director General, the non-executive directors and the Home Secretary provides the funding. It’s officers will have powers far greater than those of the police have. Why?
Eh?
If you want to get in touch with SOCA you can only use a PO Box number.
SOCA is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
It claims that it will maintain a ‘large network’ of officers overseas. Taking orders direct from Brussels, by any chance?
Look, after the destruction of our time tested constitution, Civil Contingency Acts, Abolishment of Parliament Acts, record levels of theft by tax, pensions thieved into extinction, ID cards and databases, attempts to proscribe free speech, attempts to abolish habeus corpus, attempts to abolish trial by jury … blah … blah … blah … can I raise the black flag and start loading?
Thanks 1327, therfore disabled folk such as myself( I cannot talk very well) so much for inclusivness & diversity?. phil.
There’s one aspect of this metastasising of ‘Blair’s secret state’ that I’m rather enjoying.
It’s confronting people who voted for this pack of filthy little fascists and reminding them it was precisely what I had predicted would happen: because it always does in countries with Leftist governments.
It is a source of dark comfort in these hateful times to watch someone who use to despise “Thatcher” and the other socialist hate-objects be forced to admit that their side is a thousand times worse. As it always will be.
GCooper,
You mean you can get these people to admit their mistake? Not the ones I know.
Thatcher is such a hate object to them that they remain in denial about Blair.
Just watching the BBC lunchtime news.
The reporter tells us that SOCA will operate from 40 anonymous offices around the country, and that we will not know its agents, who will operate in the shadows.
It’s official: we now have a secret police.
Wahrscheinlich kann ich als Auswärtigeehrenwerterobersturmbannführer anmelden.
This will be embedded for the next 25 years or more. There is no one who would think this appalling on the horizon. Certainly not smug, remote toff Dave. The next prime minister will be hard Labour and he will strengthen this segment. Who would have thought, when I was a little girl, that Britain would have a Stazi?
I wouldn’t be surprised to see “race crimes” – that is when a white person looks at an immigrant the wrong way; not when black and Pakistani parolees, let out years before their sentence ends, murder indigenes – moved over into this sector.
Another good way of intimidating the public has been carefully nurtured by this government – “prison overcrowding” – as though this were a social ill and not the fault of perpetrators of violdent crimes. So murder and violent robbery soar as psychopaths are released “under supervision”.
It is such a weird thing to have witnessed the unpicking and destruction of an entire society. Who would have dreamt that societies are so fragile?
Watch for more and more individuals associated with Blair’s government becoming entitled to bullet-proof cars with tinted glass.
With replacement, as appropriate, of the word “Constable”, is there reason why such an oath should not be taken by any and every civil servant, local government officer, policeman, officer of the courts, quango employee, MP, councillor, member of our armed services, and everyone else paid by the taxpayer or whose authorithy is licenced by any organ of government?
Best regards
So finally faceless Whitehall minions now have the one thing they have always strived for – the full powers of arrest and detention without the bothersome need to undergo the full police training course. Even the security services don’t have this – MI5 usually have Scotland Yard’s own organised crime directorate (modern term for Special Branch) officers in attendance when they need to make an arrest. Now a junior civil servant with minimal training will be able to arrest anyone considered to be an ‘organised crime boss’ … such as those pesky No2ID chaps for their daring to organise opposition to the database state.
Presumably they will be issued with their own uniforms, motto, highly expensive logo (non-joined up lettering please, like the Met) and brand new offices with green glass, just like the MI6 HQ.
Just a thought. Verity reminded me. There was recently the case of an ex-para dying in police custody. not a good thing in anybody’s language & certainly deplorable The publication of this story immediately informed us that the dead man was black & was the victim of ‘unconcious racism’…I think the phrase was.
Earlier there was the case in which two girls suffered multiple rape, protracted torture, death (for one) & injury. Only when the animals were convicted are we allowed the knowledge of their provenance. What was that stupid phrase again?
In turn, permanent expat’s post reminded me of something. After McTwit – can’t remember his McName – dubbed the police “institutionally racist”, the Met immediately ceased stop and search on black men.
This government is so bloody insulting, treating black people as though they were too infantile to understand what stop and search was all about. [I hat to use the term ‘black community’ but] The black community was absolutely outraged that the police were putting them in danger in order to observe some fanciful notion of “fairness”. There were leaders in black newspapers demanding the return of stop and search, and I believe one newspaper editor started a campaign to get it re-instated.
Like every single other thing this Marx Brothers government has instituted, it was chaotic, badly thought through, was perpetrated for show because in Tony Blair’s world, show is everything, was utterly without substance and was dangerous. God, I hate them.
Out of interest, do American libertarians hate the FBI? Obviously the Timothy McVeigh types do, but what about American readers of Samizdata. Is there something about the FBI that British readers need to fear, now that we are getting our own version?
Another issue raised by Peter’s question: how do the legal powers enjoyed by SOCA compare to those of the FBI?
Another issue raised by Peter’s question: how do the legal powers enjoyed by SOCA compare to those of the FBI?
You think the Blair government’s going to tell you? If they told you, would you believe what they said?
Someone who knows his history – I’d like to ask, has any British government ever been held in greater contempt?
1327,
The trouble is that very soon our new Secret Police will have to justify its existance and you can be sure they will find some somebody to prosecute for something.
As far as I can tell, there is not actually a definition of “serious organised crime” in the Act. Do not worry though: –
And there’s always the informational role, the traditional province of a secret police. SOCA can pass any information to anyone as it sees fit, which makes the ‘safeguards’ of the dear old Identity Cards Bill 2006 pretty otiose, since under that Act,
Ah, the ‘Fingermen’.
I don’t know about the FBI as a whole, but I get the impression from reading American blogs that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is regarded with loathing by much of the mainstream right, as well as by libertarians.
The G-men (FBI) are not popular with American libertarians, but Simon is right that BATFE comes in for particular hate. They are notoriously out of control and thoroughly power-addled.
permanent expat,
was the victim of ‘unconcious racism’… which in the context one must assume means racism directed against someone unconscious.
What amazes me is that the Germans have, since 1989 & with much happy relief, managed to get rid of all this abominable shit. Even that Freedom is relative, it is becoming clearer & clearer that far too many in the Septic Isle are unaware that its value is realized only when it has been lost. Losing things is easy.
Yeaarrh……innit.
Well guys, It won’t be too long before blogs like this one are monitored…………..whoops! Given gumment’s addiction to specious secrecy over the decades….it probably already is.
The viewer’s question is: Would South Uist be a good site for a Gulag?
Guy: Whatever.
Julian Taylor – The worrying thing is that They (SOCA, and I think They merit the capital letter) will have 40 (as reported by Beeb, but expect there to be more than that.) offices across the country but you won’t find their addresses anywhere. They will have no uniform, logo or motto (except some phrase by which they identify each other.) They will be secret police in every sense of the world. You will not know who they are. I fully expect them to infiltrate neighbourhood watch schemes (covertly of course) and keep clandestine watch on every man woman and child in th country.
I thought we “won” the cold war.
Why then are we living in a soviet country?
At least I can hold my head high and say I never voted for these shitbags.
In fact shame on every person who ever did.
Yes, like folk are offgepissed with reading: Tick,tick,tick……
Peter asks:
Yes.
Permanent expat, blogs like this one are already automatically monitored and have been for some time. Google for the European Parliament’s report on Echelon for the Anglosphere’s monitoring project, and you can be pretty certain that every sufficiently technically developed nation will have something equivalent. There is also of course RIPA and it’s amendments.
A melancholy haiku:
As day turns to night
England inexorably slides
Into tyranny
What are the likely consequences of publicising these locations? They can’t stay secret long.
Next thing, computers will be fitted with webcams and microphones by default, that they can hack in to from spy central. They’ll be installing T-ray scanners at all Britain’s railway stations to see what has it got in its pocketses. All your money will be held on computer databases, that they can use to track where you go, what you spend your money on, and that they can wipe out at the touch of a button. Your mobile phone will be able to locate you anywhere in the country, and its microphone will be able to be turned on remotely.
I told them! I told them, I did! Spying on me with rays! If you don’t wear tinfoil underpants, they can look at you in the street! You can’t see them, they’re invisible. But they can see you!
They’re everywhere! Running in the moonlight, the dogs baying. Every door locked. Fear. No hiding place. Cameras in the sky, they can see everything. Google everything. They’ve caught your scent, now. No hiding place. They’ll know if you’re helped. You leave your fingerprints on everything you touch. The barking of the dogs in the moonlight. They’re coming!
It won’t be long, now.
great Haiku;
anyone fancy a bit of googlebombing the UK Secret Police? Also is it just me or does the crown on their logo look like a grasping claw?
And under the Official Richard Littlejohn You Could Not Make it up banner, Tony Blair’s “government” has now decided that people burgling commercial premises, making threats to kill, causing bodily harm, having sex with a girl aged 13 to 15 (if a “relationship” is in place) will no longer be dealt with by the courts. Perps will get “a caution”. (Link)
Opening floodgates of citizen helplessness, of course, but who cares? The prisons are too full and are in danger of “overcrowding”. As long as everyon in a cell has a mat and can lie down full out, I don’t consider it overcrowding.
Chris,
Great idea about the googlebombing, but I say lets aim higher and go for secret police.
I fully expect them to infiltrate neighbourhood watch schemes (covertly of course) and keep clandestine watch on every man woman and child in th country.
One of the NW folk in my area looks a little bit of a spook, but then there are a lot of em around in Pimlico, on the other side of the river from the M16 building.
Seriously, though, it is not this sort of stuff that bothers me but the fact that this outfit will offer a classic demonstration of Parkinson’s Law in action. The organisation will come up with all manner of initiatives and activities to justify its existence.
About 20 years ago, Libertarian Alliance director Sean Gabb, then writing in the heyday of Maggie, predicted the coming of a police state in this country. Some scoffed. They are not doing so now.
Chris: Thank you…..& of course.
I’ve always thought that crime is serious……that organized crime is serious. WTF is ‘serious’ organized crime?
I wonder if, in future, our keyboards will have a little SOCA rune, bottom left. Most helpful for secretaries of Party bonzes.
I do wish SOCA luck though.
I would recommend their first big attempt would be some very shady crime syndicates based in and around the Westminster area. One of them is run by a crime boss called ‘Slimy’ Tony with his sadistic henchman known only as ‘TwoJags’. The other one is run by an even more unpleasant Notting Hill crime boss called ‘Pink Davey’, known for doing odd things to people in his kitchen and who has a deputy known for his dalliance with hookers and cocaine. Both syndicates are heavily into money laundering, run extreme loan shark enterprises (rumoured to be into the millions of pounds) and have managed to corrupt both the police and judges at the very highest level. Their somewhat smaller sister syndicate run by an old godfather is into procuring very odd sexual favours and runs a bootlegging business on the side (believed to be linked to the famous Kennedy crime family) …
Pooter:
Meant to comment immediately but was diverted into the kitchen where the tinto resides. Great Haiku. More please when the spirit moves you.
Julian Taylor – I didn’t know the “Tories” had a deputy leader. Who is he? Are the hookers male or female? As to the cocaine, Dave doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Gosh, I wonder if the cocaine had anything to do with this famously touted about disabled kid?
Who is Dave’s deputy?
Tough lot, folks.
On the bright side, the fact they haven’t sworn or signed an oath is an affirmative defense for shooting them, as you can argue that they are “impersonating a law enforcement officer”.
Another avenue you can take is something that’s been done with some success in various areas of the US: get one of your folks elected sheriff, and have him arrest any one of these fake cop. Here the sheriff requires all federal officials claiming police powers to register and be deputized for the specific task they wish to perform in his jurisdiction. If they don’t comply, they can be arrested for impersonating a law enforcement officer.
Where is “V” when you REALLY need him??
I’ll bet that this new agency will have much greater power than the FBI. You have to keep in mind U.S. federalism. Crimes like murder, rape, and robbery are generally not federal crimes, they are state matters. Here’s a link to what the Bureau investigates(Link).
The coolest thing I have read on Samizdata ever!
Takes me back to The Three Musketeers: We children adored the idea that you could walk around whacking people and then pull out a piece of paper saying “This is to certify that the bearer has done what he has done at my command and for the good of the state. Richelieu.”
Time to dig out those yellowing Uwe Johnson novels (like Conjectures About Jacob) that are full of that creepy Stasi atmosphere.
Gah.
I half expect to hear about the opening of the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments, next.
How long are you Britons going to put up with this?
On the bright side, the fact they haven’t sworn or signed an oath is an affirmative defense for shooting them, as you can argue that they are “impersonating a law enforcement officer”.
Shoot them? With what? This is the UK we’re talking about, remember?
Regarding US gov’t agencies- (B)ATF wishes they were as popular as the FBI, instead of giving the IRS competition for “Most loathed US Gov’t agency”.
De Doc,
I half expect to hear about the opening of the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments, next.
Nearly. Try this. Established 1999. Tonyism will always exceed your nightmares. ‘E wants to make your flesh creep.
Verity.
The youthful and inexperienced George Osborne is his deputy, Shadow Chancellor, deputy leader and only an MP since 2001; but he lives in W11 and that makes all the difference. There was a scandal involving false suggestions of Osborne sniffing cocaine with a prostitute, neatly countered by his accusing the photographer of being in league with Cameron’s opposition in the Tory party.
It wasn’t his coke, it was hers, he was just sitting next to her. He did not have sexual relations with that woman. And he didn’t inhale. I hope this clears that up.
My condolences on your new secret police. Here’s to hoping your tellys stay one-way and you’ll always be allowed to turn them off. I fear the worst, though.
Sorry folks, I’ve been rather slow off the mark about it, but had to do some edits on this thread where an obvious joke prompted some carelessly worded comments that might have been taken seriously.
Please, people, bear in mind that this is a UK-based blog and any untrue assertions about individuals, even in a jocular spirit, could be very bad for its health.
If they’re Scots (chances are they will be – see Blair, A, Broon, G, etc), invite them to York and take a crossbow.
Simon: or Chester apparently.
What are we doing to stop this?
Can anyone bring me up to date on campaigns to stop ID-card imposition? There must be some existing discussion areas focussed on just this people could refer me to.
Which are the most productive campaigns and discussions? Thanks.
Guy, I think you have a customer.
The F.B.I. started off unarmed and with virtually no powers at all.
As for the paramilitary wing of the F.B.I. (the ones with the dark blue helecopters so they can, truthfully, say “there are no black helecopters”, that was set up in 1974 – Hoover was dead by then).
S.O.C.A. (sounds like the name for Association Football – New Labour loves that game and the culture that goes with it) can have any powers that the government feels like giving it – even if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill does not get on to the Statute book (there are plenty of other Acts).
The Human Rights Act is a joke – really more of an excuse for government power rather than a limitation upon these powers.
One will not find such things as the right to keep firearms in the European Convention on Human Rights, or in the International (U.N. one).
Just a lot of positive (welfare) rights and things (like freedom of speech) that sound like they are restrictions on government – but when one studies them turn out not to be.
SOCA’s website says that they will not employ somebody who has been convicted of an offense which will never become “spent.” I think that amounts to a lower standard than would apply to the normal police force. It means they could employ somebody who has been convicted of e.g. burglary.
If they are really going to make going after Class A drugs a priority they will just become a bottomless pit into which politicians pour money trying to buck market forces.
The spent offence is a dead letter under our present moralistic regime, RA. A vast range of jobs – particularly in the public sector, of course – now involve ‘enhanced disclosure’ and a Criminal Records Bureau certificate.
I would argue that since they swear no oath to the crown, they have no legal authority. So if you find one trying to enter your house, you can treat them as a common thief!
I would argue that since they swear no oath then if you find one say trying to enter your house they are nothing more than a common thief. So you can treat them as such!
Why is Blair formalising what has been a reality all along? Ministers have always written their own permits, but now the Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill will establish it as a statutory right. The police and other agencies do whatever they want because they don’t get prosecuted, much less convicted, so why SOCA? The compulsory biometric ID cards? Well, they do already snoop (as I know from experience) if only to frighten you off. I guess the ID card will make that easier, both in terms of snooping and frightening. My guess is that Blair and his dodgy henchpersons understand at some level that they have no moral authority to carry on these loathesome activities, so they are shoring up what they do with statutory law. “Normalising” their abuses of power.
hi
intresting website, a lot of you guys sound like right wing nutters, doesn’t mean you haven’t got a point. I voted for TB as i didn’t want the whole country to be sold to the highest bidder but wasn’t banking on George Orwell being wrong by only 20 years . When i talk to my friends they all just repeate the mantra ‘if you’ve done nothing wrong whats the matter’. It forces me to give them a good lesson in the basic meaning of the word liberty and gently remind themm that hitler only needed to win one election
In response to the first post I would like to add that the post must have been written by someone very uninformed indeed. Currently UK organised crime groups generate 20 billion pounds a year from illegal activities with over 8.5 billion pounds being generated from drugs trafficking alone. This therefore means that should SOCA perform effectively this heinous amount of money will be significantly reduced. Ignorance is painfully irritating.
A pittance compared to the amount appropriated by that supreme organised crime group headquartered in Westminster.
So for God sake LEGALISE it.
This secret police arrested my friend and broke his door and my door down. I had gone to Thailand , where I am still a year later and will not return.
They arrested my friend on suspicion of class A drugs, then changed to money laundering, then changed to paying the wrong tax!! All he did was supply body building supplements and I delivered these for £30 + fuel..pocket money..
They frightened my 86 year old blind and disabled mother, saying he got 8 years and if I did not come back I would be extradited. She was in tears for days.
I spoke with these evil people by email and they denied saying these things and my mother and sister misheard. I will be in trouble if not come home. I said I don’t trust them and will not come back. Needless to say my whole life now as been ruined by these people who try to make their theories fit the crime.
They have eventually coerced an ex girlfriend of his to spill the beans…to save her skin they said. So she signed their letter implicating him…What as the UK become…once it was innocent till proved guilty..now guilty, and you must disprove their lies…not easy..
I am here scraping by on little money because of this!!! They said I would be deported…I don’t know if can or not, as I have committed no crime…But no one will help…even so called friends are scared to help with money!!
If it wasn’t for my old Mum and daughters I wouldn’t care..