Civil liberties, justice, crime

David Cameron has unveiled new “emergency” legislation on data surveillance that would compel internet service providers and mobile operators to store information on their customers for up to twelve months so that the police can use it for criminal cases. The new measures are being rushed through parliament after the European Court of Justice ruled old UK surveillance laws illegal. The court stated they breached the right to privacy and the right to protection of personal date. Ironically, the new laws may formally legalise practices even more intrusive than the old ones. The civil rights...

A police crackdown on a long-running peaceful protest in South Yorkshire led to the arrest of two protesters on Monday 23 June. The “Freedom Riders”, Tony Nuttall, 65, and George Arthur, 64, have since been charged with fare evasion and obstructing a police officer. The Freedom Ride protests started in April following the decision by South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE)’s decision to make cuts to concessionary travel to make up a £234,000 budget shortfall. Free train travel for pensioners and disabled people was axed completely, with bus concessionary fares pushed back to 9...

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has bought three water cannons for the Metropolitan Police despite the use of these weapons not yet being authorised by the government. Johnson claims that the use of water cannons could prevent disorder such as the London riots of 2011; it will allow the Met to counter-act any rioting this summer. Water cannons are ill-suited for use on fast-moving groups of looters. Indeed, during the London riots, senior Met officers dismissed the usefulness of water cannon for preventing looting or vandalism. Water canons are only really effective against stationary crowds, as...

Ed Miliband has called for a “proper investigation” into police conduct during the bloody confrontation at Orgreave during the 1984-85 miners' strike. The 'Battle of Orgreave' saw thousands of police violently confront picketing miners in South Yorkshire, leading to many injuries. Almost a hundred pickets were then arrested and charged with riot, unlawful assembly and other offences. However, when the cases came to trial, all collapsed and were dropped, undermined by fabricated or non-existent evidence. Since then, campaigners have been waging a long fight for justice for the miners and their...

An indispensable contribution to the understanding of the role of the Negro in American history is a study of the period between 1830 and 1865. In this article we treat the subject up to 1860. The basic economic and social antagonisms of the period embraced the whole life of the country and were fairly clear then, far less today. The system of chattel slavery needed territorial expansion because of the soil exhaustion caused by the crude method of slave production. But as the North developed industrially and in population, the South found it ever more difficult to maintain its political...

For once the Guardian (on 7 June) contained a useful article which asked: what can a week sat in an inner London courtroom tell us about the condition of British society? A parade of poor people, many accused of micro-scale shoplifting or petty theft, passed through the court. Mamadu earns £200 a month as a cleaner. He was caught on camera taking a small amount of money from his employer’s office because he did not have the fare home. He is embarrassed and humiliated. Bshart admits stealing £6 worth of condoms. He is addicted to alcohol and heroin. Now he will have £5 a week deducted from his...

A report on “target culture” in the police by the Metropolitan Police Federation has exposed the extent to the use of target-setting is failing victims of sexual violence and has inflated the use of racist stop and search powers. The report speaks of “culture of fear” in the police, with one unnamed officer complaining that: “Every month we are named and shamed with a league table by our supervisors...” It also warns that “unhealthy and arguably unethical behaviour has become the norm in several boroughs... as the end is used to justify the means when it comes to meeting performance targets...

The Home Secretary Theresa May in considering letting police forces in England and Wales use water cannons against protestors. In January, Boris Johnson wrote to May in his capacity as the Mayor of London saying that he was “broadly convinced of the value of having water cannon available” in the capital. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) thinks “ongoing and potential future austerity measures” is an argument for arming police with water cannons. Though they have been used with impunity in Northern Ireland since 1969, water cannons have not been seen elsewhere. Two prototypes were...

Probation officers and criminal solicitors struck at the end of March, in a dual protest against the outsourcing of 70% of the probation service and a huge cut to the budget for legal aid. Probation officers struck on 31 March, while solicitors struck for two days to 1 April. Solicitors and barristers previously struck on 6 January and 7 March, massively disrupting the function of courts across the UK. The £215 million cuts to the legal aid budget will restrict barristers’ pay, and make it harder for anyone other than the rich to access top-quality legal representation or bring cases against...

Three G4S security guards are to be charged with the manslaughter of Jimmy Mubenga, an asylum seeker who was killed during attempts to deport him from the UK. Mubenga died in 2010 on a plane at Heathrow Airport. As the plane awaited take-off, Mubenga was physically restrained by the guards. He died of coronary-respiratory failure. Mubenga had lived in Britain for 16 years. He had fled here from Angola, where, as a student movement leader, he fell foul of the governing regime. In 2012, the Crown Prosecution Service decided against bringing charges against either the security company G4S, or...