I came across this story and it is worrying on so many levels.
The scheme, funded by the Home Office, involves officers working alongside Muslim communities to identify impressionable children who are at risk of radicalisation or who have shown an interest in extremist material – on the internet or in books.
Once identified the children are subject to a "programme of intervention tailored to the needs of the individual". Sir Norman said this could involve discussions with family, outreach workers or the local imam, but he added that "a handful have had intervention directly by the police".
A Home Office spokesman said: "We are committed to stopping people becoming or supporting terrorists or violent extremists. The aim of the Channel project is to directly support vulnerable people by providing supportive interventions when families, communities and networks raise concerns about their behaviour."
http://www.independent.co.uk/...
Helping people change their own ideas via education is one thing, involving the State via its police in such activity is another level entirely.
I find this all extremely worrying, I don't care if the intentions are 'good' and the politically correct language makes this program sound reasonable even necessary.
This sets a precedent that a government can decide what we should think and enforce this with its police force.
"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out."
~George Orwell. 1984.
So call it a program of intervention, legitimise it with fear of some future possible danger posed by the individual concerned to make it all seem reasonable and needed.
Oppression never comes quickly, the final act may be like the fall of an axe but the conditions need to exist before it can become reality. Hitler didn't arrive overnight, many conditions in Germany had to align themselves before the Nazis could gain ascendency.
I have always fought against the brainwashing by religions and have regarded it as one of the great battles left before a free society can exist.
Now a Western Society is quite openly using the 'battle against extremism' to install its own method of indoctrination, this is not acceptable in a democracy.
In this climate of fear generated by one small organisation 'Al Qaeda' we appear to be allowing the State to control the way other people should think, we might even feel that this is right. Right, until we happen to be the ones the State wishes to reprogram.
Western Governments and the US is included in this have passed libraries full of anti-terrorist legislation that have undermined our liberties. We are culpable in that fear has prevented us from challenging the perceived wisdom of these Acts.
Now add this:
Nine out of ten people placed under surveillance by Town Hall 'Stasi' were found to be entirely innocent, it emerged yesterday.
The revelation intensified the controversy over local councils using anti-terror powers to spy on those suspected of 'crimes' such as putting their bins out on the wrong day.
The legislation, which allows secret filming and even the trailing of suspects by undercover officials, has been used by councils at least 10,333 times over the past five years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
The Mail maybe a right wing screech rag, but they are right this time, and this has been widely reported and I use the Mail to show that this is a concern on both sides.
There is one CCTV camera for every 14 people in the UK.
During the G20 in London you will see these 'anti-terror' laws used to quell opposition.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced a dramatic "terror crackdown" ahead of the G20 meeting of heads of state in London next month, claiming that the threat of an attack was "severe."
She insisted that "an attack could happen without warning.
"That's the reason for the approach we've taken, the additional police officers and new ways of tracking people with more emphasis on actually bringing them to justice and preventing people turning to violent extremism in the first place."
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/...
Morning Star just to show the other side is just as concerned.
Now another piece of British Government sponsored control:
Shopping centre and store managers will be among 60,000 British workers trained for action on a new frontline against terror.
The workers' army is at the centrepiece of a new government anti-terror strategy unveiled today by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, who said police, security and intelligence agencies could not be "solely" relied upon to tackle the threat.
The strategy will involve enlisting the "widest range" of people and making other citizens more vigilant about the threat of an attack, Ms Smith said in a round of broadcast interviews this morning. It could also see official funding withdrawn from organisations that flirt with extremism, even if they remain within the letter of the law.
"I don’t think tackling terrorism is something we can solely depend on the police and our security and intelligence agencies to do - brilliant though they are," she told BBC Breakfast.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
Turn the people upon themselves.
I fear that the Britain may be the first Western Democracy to fall in the face of a perceived an imaginary external threat, whereas the real threat is coming from within the Palace of Westminster.
The erosion of our liberties is a slow insidious act and we to have our own legislation in place to combat liberty.
The Patriot Act
The Military Commissions Act
FISA
Protect America Act.
NSPD/51 and HSPD/20.
All of which are still on the books.
I often wonder how 1984 would have been altered if George Orwell had been writing it now in the digital age.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
~George Orwell