"They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
England is already a police state and this will just put another nail in the coffin of freedom in that country. Big brother's tv cameras watching your every move, judges being able to arbritrarily put you in jail because you *might* break the law, and now military as law enforcement. Is this what the gun-control weenies ultimately want?
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Bill could turn MoD police into a paramilitary force, Tories warn
Special report: Tories in opposition
Special report: human rights in the UK
Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday April 2, 2001
The Guardian
A bill expected to be passed by the Commons today will give the Ministry of Defence police
extensive powers allowing officers to arrest civilians anywhere in the country - akin,
opponents say, to a national paramilitary force.
The move, prompted in part by the force's inability under existing law to intervene in last
year's fuel protests, is also opposed by MPs because the force is significantly less
accountable than local police forces.
"There may be a role for an armed gendarmerie but this is not what the government is
saying," said Robert Key MP, a Conservative defence spokesman. The government simply
describes the armed forces bill, which contains provisions giving the MoD police more power,
as a "tidying up process", he said.
The MoD argues that the bill is merely designed to allow its police to act in public order
situations, or when a serious crime is being committed, without first having to get the
permission of the local police.
However, opponents believe the government wants to use the 3,700 officers in the MoD
police to help make up the shortfall in local police forces and deploy them, in particular,
during demonstrations.
Up to now, the authority of the MoD police is restricted to MoD property and bases and
military or civilian personnel living or working there. All MoD police can carry firearms.
Despite assurances given to MPs by Geoff Honn, the defence secretary, during the
committee stage of the bill, the MoD police are not formally subject to police complaints
authority investigations, to the inspectorate of constabulary, or to the same disciplinary
procedures as civilian police.
Nor is the force accountable to an elected police authority. It is an MoD agency controlled by
a senior civil servant and the defence secretary without outside scrutiny.
The MoD recently agreed to appoint three civilians to its police board but its police officers
will still not be democratically accountable, Mr Key said.