Friday, March 19, 2010
Train Spies
My sympathies to Tom Shaw, a musician with the band the Magic Mushrooms, who had the misfortune to be travelling by South West Trains the other day.
Mr Shaw was writing a list of song titles which his band would play at a forthcoming gig. Included in the list was a band name The Killers and song titles Take Me Out and Cigarettes and Alcohol.
Oooh!!
Can you guess what happened next loyal readers?
Yes, that's right, two members of the train company's security staff approached Mr Shaw and asked him to leave the train at Fareham railway station. In the eyes of "security" Mr Shaw had been behaving "suspiciously".
Once out of the train, Mr Shaw was asked to show them the piece of paper that he had been writing on.
The "security" staff then made Mr Shaw explain song by song what the list was about.
It seems that there was something of a security flap on at the time, thus "justifying" the approach by "security", a number of arrests had been made in the area including a man who had murdered his wife.
A South West Trains spokeswoman gave this remarkably unsettling and worrying quote to MSN:
"We employ a team of highly professional rail community officers who work closely with the British Transport Police in protecting the security of passengers on the rail network. During a routine high-visibility patrol back in early March, they talked with a passenger on the platform at Fareham station.
The team clarified the nature of the individual's business, were satisfied with his explanation and the man went on his way.
We would like to thank the passenger for his co-operation and understanding of the need to be vigilant in the current environment."
"to be vigilant in the current environment"!!
What the hell is going on in these people's minds?
Is this to be the excuse used by jobsworths and train companies etc for every infringement of our personal freedoms?
I find this to be highly alarming!
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"rail community officers"
ReplyDeleteFFS!
Are these job titles produced by computer programs? Or do the people that invent these busy-body roles actually have no sense of the absurd whatsoever?
You need to be looking over your shoulder all the time in "Nannies" utopia....
ReplyDeleteOnce again....Too much percieved power given to people neither intelligent nor sophisticated enough to use it......A security guard's uniform appears to have a strange effect on their personality....The problem is, they become so obsessed with wrong doing, they feel everyone is up to something.....When these "security" guards do decide to "extend" their powers and role, I wonder just what legal position they are in...Is it legal to demand to see a piece of paper? Is it legal to demand someone explains what every song title is about?....I personally would tell them no but, I am not a young child and am not easily intimedated.
ReplyDeletePresumably, if the musician in question had merely been writing random words on a piece of paper, and therefore unable to explain them adequately, he would have been thrown in jail under the powers derived from RIPA.
ReplyDeletec.f. people imprisoned for refusing or being unable to hand encryption keys to authority.
Re. Anonymous and these job titles being produced by computer, maybe this is what the database might look like, first we take a word in one of the following four categories:
ReplyDeleteCommunity
Public
Health
Environment
Then optionally add 'Special' before the above category or at this point (must make them think they're special!)
Follow this with one of the following categories:
Enforcement
Support
Welfare
Security
And finally assign a level of power:
Officer
Assistant
Try it: Community welfare officer, special community security assistant, health enforcement officer etc.
And since when did it become illegal to write words down on a piece of paper on a train?
They are jobsworths in silly, made up roles. Their authority is an illusion. Their only power over people is that which is given by the individual to which they may be ‘investigating’.
ReplyDelete‘Can I see the piece of paper that you were writing on, Sir?’
‘No, you can fuck right off, because I have an absolute right to write, read, watch or listen to anything that I want. If you feel that you can abuse my rights then you can call a proper policeman and I, in turn, will make official complaints about your actions to anyone who will listen’.
An individual has to take some responsibility for giving these lunatics their ‘power rush’.
Tom Shaw should stop whinging and grow a pair of balls.
happen to like heavy metal music, fantasy and horror literature, and some of the titles are quite 'interesting' shall we say. I hope that doesn't mean that I am in line for 'a knock at the door'?
ReplyDeleteWhat I found even more disturbing is the way the spokesman for South West Trains 'justified' Mr Shaw's treatment, apart from the fact that they may have made Mr Shaw late for, or even miss, a very important appointment.
"We employ a team of highly professional rail community officers who work closely with the British Transport Police in protecting the security of passengers on the rail network."
Really? In my opinion, their behaviour seems more akin to the tactics of the Gestapo or KGB!
"During a routine high-visibility patrol back in early March, they talked with a passenger on the platform at Fareham station."
After forcing him to leave the train and thus subjecting him to delay. What if he had a ticket specifying that particular train?
"The team clarified the nature of the individual's business, were satisfied with his explanation and the man went on his way."
What f*****g business was it of theirs?
"We would like to thank the passenger for his co-operation and understanding of the need to be vigilant in the current environment."
Suppose he had declined to 'cooperate'? Presumably he would have been forcibly removed, thrown into a cell, and had his fingerprints and DNA taken, with or without his consent?
"Is this to be the excuse used by jobsworths and train companies etc for every infringement of our personal freedoms?"
And do they still insist'if you are innocent you have nothing to fear?'
"I find this to be highly alarming!"
Me too, Ken!
Anonymous said...
"‘Can I see the piece of paper that you were writing on, Sir?’
‘No, you can fuck right off, because I have an absolute right to write, read, watch or listen to anything that I want. If you feel that you can abuse my rights then you can call a proper policeman and I, in turn, will make official complaints about your actions to anyone who will listen’.
An individual has to take some responsibility for giving these lunatics their ‘power rush’.
Tom Shaw should stop whinging and grow a pair of balls."
It isn't as simple as that, as I suggested further up my comment. If he had follwed this advive, and don't misunderstand me, in my opinion he was quite entitled to do so, I have no doubt he would have been forcibly removed from the train, thrown into a cell, and had his fingerprints and DNA taken, with or without his consent, and held under anti-terrorism legislation, following which he would also probably have been charged with obstruction or some other trumped up charge, and the full weight of the law would have been used against him. Even if he was found 'not guilty' the authorities would have retained his fingerprints, DNA and other details.
Be afraid....be VERY afraid!
LOA, it is as simple as that.
ReplyDeletePeople have to stand up for themselves instead of sticking their thumbs up their arses and hoping that someone else will come along to change policy and make everything better.
It’s little wonder that the Great British public are so easy to push around.
This guy had done absolutely nothing wrong, but if you refuse to stand up for what little rights you have for fear of being arrested then you really deserve everything that you get.
How pathetic that people should allow themselves to be intimidated in such a way.
I think it's the word 'officers' that gets to me.
ReplyDeleteBeing an 'officer' used to mean something in terms of training, experience and knowledge.
Now it seems that any oik in a hi-viz jacket can claim the position.
So many ways to devalue levels of society and achieve a one-ness of social interaction.
A question.
Once we all have to wear a hi-viz jacket as soon as we leave the house how will that help us stand out and be seen?
Back in the 60s day-glo colours were an interesting new fad. Now they are normal life. Am I becoming too old to 'get it'?
I like the idea of an "all hi-viz" day whwre every intern, sorry, citizen, of the UK dons a hi-viz jacket and some fake ID constructed off the internet for the day.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the sweat now, all the hivizzies panicking around not knowing who to obstruct in case they obstruct one of their own...
I'd love a hiviz to have a go at me, before we went anywhere I'd want him/her to prove who they were, and then dis-believe them, so they'd call a "superior" and I wouldn't accept who they were...oh, the circles we would go round.
'Spring is in the air …. Ooh be, do be, do be do'.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I do get a bit carried away and off topic sometimes when I go out into the countryside and find it's like the first day of spring today.
Crocuses were out.
Buttercups were out.
I nearly ran over one rabbit and one grouse (although, in my book, anyone who makes a death-defying leap out into the road in front of an on-coming cyclist, deserves all that's coming to them).
Then there was the opportunity to cogitate on life, the universe, and whether or not karma really exists - a few miles after nearly running down the rabbit, a woman in a red car came round a corner, way over on the wrong side of the road, and nearly ran me down.
But that's life. Venturing into the countryside nowadays, all life will be encountered “red in tooth and claw”.
If this is the country we are living in then my T-shirt collection alone is enough to get my collar felt in the "current environment."
ReplyDelete"Tom Shaw should stop whinging and grow a pair of balls."
Too true, they only abuse power because we let them, learn your rights and stand up for them.
Excellent Speenzman, love it! :)
ReplyDelete