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15 Mar, 5 tweets, 3 min read
The #PolicingBill in Parliament today is disastrous for protest rights.

It also contains clauses on digital extraction that could roll back our win against digital strip searches - meaning victims face intrusive, unnecessary, full phone downloads again.

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/end-…
If so, sex offenders would continue to evade justice.

Half of victims drop their complaints when faced with excessive demands for their digital lives.

And our research found police abandon rape cases when victims object to digital strip searches.

theguardian.com/society/2020/j…
The new clauses would allow police to demand FULL phone downloads from victims - EVEN where other means of collecting specific data is possible.

This is despite our engagement with police + CPS for 2 years, and VAWG experts advising Government on the legal protections needed.
Victims reporting rape want nothing more than to advance investigations and to consent to lawful evidence collection.

But the #PolicingBill could maintain an all or nothing approach in which victims have to either put their private lives on trial or see rapists walk free.
Victims of no other crime are expected to surrender their digital lives to such speculation and scrutiny.

The #PolicingBill could make it harder for women to seek justice AND harder to demonstrate about their rights.

The Government must go back to the drawing board.

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More from @BigBrotherWatch

Big Brother Watch Profile picture
16 Mar
📣 THREAD | MPs will vote on the second reading of the #PoliceCrackdownBill TODAY

A vote for the Bill will place protest rights in a permanent lockdown.
⚠️When @theresa_may voices concern that the government's plans might be too authoritarian... something must be up!

And IT IS.

This #PoliceCrackdownBill is a serious threat to our right to protest. The protest restrictions must be opposed.
🪧 'Does she not see that handing over more draconian powers to the police when they have so badly misjudged this situation would be both foolish and dangerous?'

@CarolineLucas says the #PoliceCrackdownBill risks undoing our longstanding right to peacefully protest.
Read 8 tweets
Big Brother Watch Profile picture
15 Mar
'I want to say thank you to Big Brother Watch who provided a helpful brief on why #Covid passes must be stopped'

@SteveBakerHW reads out our recommendations on why we need to #StopVaccinePassports.

📨 Join the fight, use our tool to email your MP NOW!

stopvaccinepassports.co.uk
'Vaccine passports are a complete and total overreaction and completely and totally unnecessary.'

@duponline's Ian Paisley Jr deplores the idea of vaccine passports and their assault on our civil liberties during today's petition debate.

#StopVaccinePassports
'These vaccine passports are essentially a way of making vaccines mandatory'

@munirawilson on why coercion is never a good way to build trust!

#StopVaccinePassports
Read 9 tweets
Big Brother Watch Profile picture
14 Mar
Faced with the reality of the state’s brutal silencing of expression and dissent over recent days and months, MPs are now voicing defence for free speech, liberty and democratic rights.

But for this to be meaningful & honest, those same politicians must oppose the #PolicingBill
A vote for the #PolicingBill is a vote for the shameful force seen at Clapham Common last night.

A vote for the #PolicingBill is a vote to keep protest rights in lockdown permanently.

Because the powers in this Bill are extreme, excessive and undemocratic to the core.
The 307 page Bill would criminalise a spectrum of dissent - from 1 person demonstrations, to the risk(!) of causing annoyance.

The Government can only go back to the drawing board. There are already excessive public order offences that heavily criminalise protest activities.
Read 4 tweets
Big Brother Watch Profile picture
23 Feb
🎉This is a fantastic judgment in a case brought by a Big Brother Watch supporter that could help many, many others wrongly prosecuted during the lockdowns.

It confirms it's *not* an offence to refuse to give your personal details to police for a suspected covid regs breach.
We cannot thank @jpormerod enough, who has provided fantastic legal support to people in need like Mr Neale throughout the pandemic, and who gives us excellent advice. No doubt there are more successes to come! Thanks again to Patrick, @BindmansLLP @wainwright_tom @gardencourtlaw
Mr Neale called us after he was arrested during the first lockdown simply for being outside, alone, posing a risk to no one. He was homeless and therefore exempt from the requirement to stay at home. The police treated him aggressively and held him in a police cell.
Read 6 tweets
Big Brother Watch Profile picture
22 Feb
Today, the Prime Minister will announce the roadmap out of lockdown 3, nearly 2 MONTHS after it came into force.

This long wait is unacceptable. The public shouldn’t be left in limbo, waiting on the discretion of Ministers as to when our liberties will be restored.
This lockdown was introduced without Parliamentary approval.

And throughout, Parliament and the public haven't been permitted to see the legally required reviews of the effectiveness of lockdown restrictions. How can Parliament make decisions without them? Do they even exist?
The Govt's emphasis on criminalising people & ever-increasing enforcement powers has caused a wave of injustice at a time of great hardship for many.

We want to see a public health, not criminal law, approach to the pandemic.
Read 4 tweets
Big Brother Watch Profile picture
21 Feb
✊NO ID CARDS✊

Today is an important day to say loud + clear: no national ID, no vaccine ID, no voter ID!

69 yrs ago today in 1952, Winston Churchill’s govnt scrapped ID cards. Why? In his words, to “set the people free”.

Here’s a story about Britain’s rejection of ID cards.
At the beginning of WW2 in 1939, the National Registration Act was passed as an emergency measure.

Every man, woman and child had to carry an ID card at all times. The main purposes were for evacuations, rationing and population statistics. 45 million paper cards were issued.
But like most emergency measures, ID cards didn’t go away after the war.

In 1950, Harry Willcock, a 54 year old London dry cleaner, was stopped by a police man who demanded to see his ID.

He refused, telling him simply “I am against this sort of thing”.
Read 17 tweets

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