Do you belong to a suspicious group? It’s hard not to…

So far-fetched have been recent grounds for arrest, or for flagging yourself up as a terrorist suspect, that people keep asking me if Lib Dem Voice is running a series of hoax posts. (We’ve had lingering near street ironworks, ordering vegetarian airline meals, handing in lost property, scaring ducks, putting your bin out on the wrong day, looking at things and – easily the most heinous, in my opinion – going equipped with balloons.)

I thought I was joking (albeit darkly) when I said on LibDig that people might one day be singled out for their taste in music, but even that now appears to have happened. Home Office Watch features the terrifying ordeal of a jazz musician arrested by anti-terror police who had taken his soundproofed studio, replete with wires, as a sign of bomb-making.

We read everywhere of the bewildering array of groups whom the Government has decided should carry ID cards, from Mancunians to pilots, or in a happy Venn-style coincidence, both.

Then there’s people travelling outside the UKpeople travelling inside the UK

(Are you remembering all these vital clues? Tricky when there doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern behind them.)

So who should we be wary of? What we need is a handy guide in pictures. Never mind Keeping Calm and Carrying On nor indeed not keeping calm and carrying on. At last, I’ve found just the thing:

Met poster about terrorism

Met poster about terrorism

Seems the key is to look for people who use these rare objects, and then watch them avidly (with or without the aid of your own cameras, mobile phones, computers, etc).

Anyone here who can still claim not to fit into one of the categories above?

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This entry was posted in Big mad database.
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15 Comments

  • Do I belong to a suspicious group? Yes, the Lib Dems – oh, and I have non-mainstream thoughts.

  • Helen Duffett 6th Apr '09 - 12:12pm

    Hmmm… “tourists” sounds a bit like “terrorists” – could lead to some comical mixups!

  • hieronymous 6th Apr '09 - 10:06pm
  • Surely reading that poster online constitutes reading something on a website related to terrorism?

    Does the graphic file have the word “GOTCHA!” embedded in the data by any chance?

  • Just a shame thanks to the lib dems and labour immigration policy we are now in this state. By the way I was nearly killed in 2001 in Sept 11th and thanks to the local lib dem council here in wavertree liverpool and its immigration policies the area around earle rd is turning into a hotbed of terrorist activity with our own middle east on the doorstep.

  • R Uduwerage-Perera 28th May '16 - 9:07pm

    Oddly I do not find it comforting that even more people are joining the ranks that I and other EMLD members were aready members of as one of those people who are subject to questionable forms of profiling.

    State promoted fear has been ramped up to extraordinary and unwarranted levels over the past decade and a half, and this has merely aided in marginalising communities and making people feel even more vulnerable.

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