Thursday, August 07, 2008

Pooling the EU's police

A highly dangerous 53 page report on "EU Security"receives comment in today's Guardian, read here. On 22nd July I linked to an article from this blog titled "A Paine in the EU" and stressed a comment from Damian Hockney who until recently was an elected representative from the Greater London Assembly on the police authority for Britain's capital city. Part of his comment was as follows: I sat on the police authority in London in the UK and raised the issue of the EU demands for immunity from prosecution for life for the staff of Europol, the EU police agency. This coincided almost exactly with the plan to make Europol an "operational" police force rather than just a form of info exchange police diplomatic service. Why, I asked, was the EU demanding "immunity for life from prosecution for any crime an official might commit" (except traffic offences!). And why did the UK for example grant these immunities? In a parliamentary instrument rammed home with no debate? HOW CAN ANY INDIVIDUALS, LEAST OF ALL THOSE CHARGED WITH ENFORCING THE LAW, BE PLACED ABOVE THE LAW? WHY WOULD A EUROPEAN POLICE FORCE REQUIRE IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION? UPON THE ORDERS OF WHICH APPARATCHIKS WOULD SUCH UNAUTHORISED AND UNACCOUNTABLE OPPRESSION OCCUR? WHAT EFFECTS WOULD SUCH SUPREME POWER ON THE GROUND BE USED BY INDIVIDUALS ALREADY MORALLY SUSPECT BY BEING ATTRACTED INTO THE EMPLOY AND SERVICE OF A NON-DEMOCRATIC, UNACCOUNTABLE, UNAUDITED AND THOROUGHLY CORRUPT ORGANISATION? WHY HAS THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION DAVID CAMERON AND NUMEROUS OTHER MPS NOT RAISED THIS ISSUE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AS IT APPEARS THE IMMUNITIES HAVE ALREADY BEEN GRANTED? Considering the proposals reported in the Guardian and linked above, surely some of the EU's mainstream media might also start to ask some questions and raise concerns - or are they already too scared? Later Update. The Telegraph now has the full report in pdf format linked here. Get this quote: "139. Efforts should be made to launch a “European Security Tool Pool” Initiative. Such a “tool pool” would not be a place, a body or a database but rather an innovative concept allowing Member State and European Union institutions to make available and secure tools of proven or potential use in the security field for appraisal and/or testing by authorities of other Member States and, where useful, support their mutual deployment e.g. by meeting related licence costs, translation and training." All this where the operatives and those authorising the targets will have lifetime immunity from prosecution except when exceeding speed linits!

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1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Will the day come when we, as the British people, will have to fight a guerilla war against EU paramilitary forces patrolling our streets? Years ago I would have ridiculed such a suggestion. Not now.

11:56 AM  

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