David Cameron: Not Incompatible To Cut Police and Beef Up Policing.

[fatpie42]

UK riots: David Cameron defends police cuts in Commons sitting

PM says cuts programme will free up frontline police officers as he unveils post-riot security measures in emergency sitting

David Cameron has dismissed Labour calls for a rethink on government plans to impose cuts of 20% on the police as he addressed an emergency sitting of the House

Comments

[tartary_lamb]

I'll admit, I tend to be sympathetic toward law enforcement more often than not, but the idea that the government could shut down social networking at a whim scares the crap out of me.

That's... I mean, that's a nightmare scenario. When governments tried to pull that sort of stunt during the Arab Spring, there was an uproar heard round the world. How is this okay?!

[red_pill]

as far i as i can tell, its not shutting down socal networks, but cutting pertcueler people from socal networks. the same thing hit slash dot, and that was the consueses there.

[tartary_lamb]

That's a bit less unconscionable, but from a practical standpoint the decision of who qualifies as a "dangerous rioter" (or whatever metric they'd use) still lies in the hands of the government. If this were a less agreeable and trustworthy part of the world, you'd have to wonder about allowing them that sort of power to shut down dissent.

It all depends on the strength of the guidelines around using something like that, I guess.

[red_pill]

it might be navie of me, but as long as there is it is either a) done with a judges consent or b) must be reviewed by a judge at, say, 24 hours after cutting it, i would be fine with it. on the other hand, if the home sectery can just kill people shit, then its a whole diffrent ball game.

i tend to have rather alot of trust in judges in genrel.

[tartary_lamb]

I have enough potentially misplaced faith in the system that I can buy that, too. But to be honest, the concept still makes my skin crawl. :/