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Directions for questions 38 to 40: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions.
Choose the most appropriate answer to each question. The development underlines the great dange' we face from the extension of anti-terrorist measures and .ethods into normal life - the policing of our streets, for example, and the hounding of football fans and climate change protestors.
Just as disturbing is the line of questioning by the police of those who made freedom of information requests before the alleged hacking of computers last year. In a letter to the Financial Times, Sebastian Nokes, a climate change sceptic and businessman, said he was interviewed by an officer who “wanted to know what computer I used, my internet service provider, and also to which political parties I have belonged, what I feel about climate change and what my qualifications in climate science are. He questioned me at length about my political and scientific opinions".
The police have a duty to investigate the alleged crime, but this kind of questioning smacks of something far more sinister because a person s political and scientific views are being weighed to assess his likely criminality in the eyes of the police officer
Now you might ask how else the police are going to establish who is a suspect. After all, you would certainly ask people about their views if you investigating a string of racist attacks. But this is not a violent crime or a terrorist matter: moreover, Nokes had simply sent "an FOI request to the university’s climate unit asking whether scientists had received training in the disclosure rules and asking for copies of any emails in which they suggested ducking their obligations to disclose data".
On that basis the police felt entitled to examine Nokes on his views. These days it’s surprising that they haven’t found a way to seize his computer and mobile phone, which is what routinely happens to those involved in climate change protests. Limits need to be set in the policing and investigation of people’s legitimate beliefs. Any future government must take a grip on the tendency of the police to watch, search, categorise and retain the personal details of those who express the political, religious or scientific beliefs.
We should never forget that under this government the police have used forward intelligence teams to photograph people emerging from a climate change meeting in a cafe in Brighton: have used the AN PR system to track the movement of vehicles belonging to people travelling to demonstrations; have prevented press photographers from carrying out their lawful nght to cover news events; and have combed the computers and searched the premises of an MP legitimately engaged in the business of opposition and holding the government to account.
What this adds up to is a failure of understanding in the police force that one of its primary duties is to protect the various and sometimes inconvenient manifestations of a democracy, not to suppress them. That is why they have to be ultra-careful deploying specialist terrorist intelligence units and treating people’s opinions as evidence.
Choose the most appropriate answer to each question. The development underlines the great dange' we face from the extension of anti-terrorist measures and .ethods into normal life - the policing of our streets, for example, and the hounding of football fans and climate change protestors.
Just as disturbing is the line of questioning by the police of those who made freedom of information requests before the alleged hacking of computers last year. In a letter to the Financial Times, Sebastian Nokes, a climate change sceptic and businessman, said he was interviewed by an officer who “wanted to know what computer I used, my internet service provider, and also to which political parties I have belonged, what I feel about climate change and what my qualifications in climate science are. He questioned me at length about my political and scientific opinions".
The police have a duty to investigate the alleged crime, but this kind of questioning smacks of something far more sinister because a person s political and scientific views are being weighed to assess his likely criminality in the eyes of the police officer
Now you might ask how else the police are going to establish who is a suspect. After all, you would certainly ask people about their views if you investigating a string of racist attacks. But this is not a violent crime or a terrorist matter: moreover, Nokes had simply sent "an FOI request to the university’s climate unit asking whether scientists had received training in the disclosure rules and asking for copies of any emails in which they suggested ducking their obligations to disclose data".
On that basis the police felt entitled to examine Nokes on his views. These days it’s surprising that they haven’t found a way to seize his computer and mobile phone, which is what routinely happens to those involved in climate change protests. Limits need to be set in the policing and investigation of people’s legitimate beliefs. Any future government must take a grip on the tendency of the police to watch, search, categorise and retain the personal details of those who express the political, religious or scientific beliefs.
We should never forget that under this government the police have used forward intelligence teams to photograph people emerging from a climate change meeting in a cafe in Brighton: have used the AN PR system to track the movement of vehicles belonging to people travelling to demonstrations; have prevented press photographers from carrying out their lawful nght to cover news events; and have combed the computers and searched the premises of an MP legitimately engaged in the business of opposition and holding the government to account.
What this adds up to is a failure of understanding in the police force that one of its primary duties is to protect the various and sometimes inconvenient manifestations of a democracy, not to suppress them. That is why they have to be ultra-careful deploying specialist terrorist intelligence units and treating people’s opinions as evidence.
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Question : 40
Total: 60
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