all singers are terror suspects

Subject: all singers are terror suspects
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:51 PM

Thanks to Rafe Culpin on uk.music.folk for pointing this out.

London police presuming all live music to be a terrorist threat

And yes this does appear to include carol singers.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:59 PM

They have access to lotsa good drugs in England, huh? Your cops and courts doin' doobies?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 09:05 PM

They're probably right. People who play guitars and drums and bodhrans are probably terrorists, too. The night after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992, my son decided to set up his punk rock band on the top level of a parking garage in downtown Sacramento. They drew an audience of about 125. Soon, the garage was surrounded by cops in riot gear.
The newspaper said that people in the audience were throwing bottles at the police, but my son said that it looked to him more like simple littering.
Still, it was a pretty stupid thing for my kid to do.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 09:56 PM

Yeah, look what happened to the Beatles after they did that....

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: allanwill
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 10:45 PM

That's OK - I can't sing to save my life!

Allan

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:09 AM

Deeply worrying, this has sod all to do with preventing terrorism. Next step is to ask for home addresses and phone numbers for all audience members. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.....

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:11 AM

Yet another example of the paranoia which drives so many bureacracies, leading them to perform innumerable stupid and harmful actions.

Health warning - before tangling with The Management, remember these three principles:

1) Whatever Management can't understand,it fears.

2) Whatever Management can't control, it seeks to destroy.

3) For Management, power is not a means to an end, but an end in itself - managers do not mess other people around in order to achieve some noble purpose, they do it because messing other people around makes them feel good.

Fortunately for the rest of us, most bureacracies are so full of incompetents, and so tangled in their own red tape, that many worthwhile things still get done despite their efforts. Like tiny mammals in the Jurassic past, we dodge around under their clumsy dinosaur feet, getting on with our lives as best we can. They may believe they control the world, but they are wrong - and the future belongs to us.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: bankley
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:25 AM

" This Machine Kills Facists "

The Scare-orist Brigade is nervous

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:31 AM

"Next step is to ask for home addresses and phone numbers for all audience members. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear....."

I got sent a 'Cinema Buzz" movie discount club card.

When I found out they wanted me to tell them the brand of toothpaste my mother used as a girl, I stopped filling in the membership form...

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:37 AM

Interesting and horribly suspect, for those of us like myself who sustpect everyone in power of being 'suspicious'

I wonder what the implications of this might be on the great tradition of protest songs, with which 'the people' have ever voiced their objections?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 01:12 PM

Wait a minute.

If an audience of (just for example) of black or Asian people assembles, and an act of terrorism occurs, then who's going to be hurt?

Black or Asian people. Audience members, innocent bystanders, and men-in-the-street. Isn't that what we see in the papers every day? People gather (market, religious ceremony, procession) and somebody bombs the crowd.

So if the police think there is a danger of terrorism at concerts, they are trying to protect the audience. Is it so terrible of them to want to know what's going on, when, where and by whom?

As for less serious problems, if they are like the police here, they send a black officer to a disturbance among black people, and a white officer to a disturbance among white people. Experience just shows that to work.

I agree that the penalty sounds draconian, but the basic idea behind this is to protect the audiences.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 01:28 PM

This is *London* you're talking about.

How many racially homogeneous audiences are there for anything?

And why would they be specifically snooping at the *performers*?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Ernest
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 02:10 PM

Looks like the London Police has read some of the "folk club"-threads here....

;0)
Ernest

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 02:32 PM

Does this apply to church services?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 03:30 PM

We are all potentially at risk from terrorists, regardless of skin colour. That's got nothing to do with music concerts, and even less to do with who's performing. If the police or security services have intelligence that a musician is involved in something dodgy, then they should take the appropriate steps to apprehend that individual.

Blanket targeting all live music events seems crazy. Rather than processing thousands of pointless forms, the police should be concentrating their resources on real threats. This is pointless, a waste of time, money and resources, and alienates even those who don't automatically distrust the authorities.

It's the same mindset that equates live music with potential for violence, as one senior police officer was quoted saying recently in connection with the Licensing Act. Of course, the police have a distorted view, because they get called to the minority of events where violence does occur, they extrapolate this to say that violence is likely at all live music events. Whereas my experience is the opposite - in 40 years of attending folk clubs, concerts, festivals etc (most with no police presence)I can't recall seeing a single violent incident.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Ythanside
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 06:19 PM

No violence in folk clubs? Really?

I witnessed a guy murdering 'On Raglan Road' once.

:-)

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 06:37 PM

So, the person who controls this in England is "UK Music chief Feargal Sharkey "

Did they issue that name to him when they gave him the job?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:35 PM

I can't see why a music event should be any more (or less ) dangerous than any other place where people gather. Such as a bus queue, a supermarket, or a primary school gate.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Peace
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 11:12 PM

I ain't got time for eloquence. In short, fuck 'em!

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,Meggly
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:26 AM

There's a specacular piece of logic from Detective Superintendent Dave Eyles.

"We can't demand it - we recommend that you provide it as best practice. But you're bloody silly if you don't, because you're putting your venue at risk."

So, errr, they can't demand it, but they'll close you down if you don't provide it? How is that NOT compulsory?

WTF?!

We can't stand for this! Any fellow Lahndeners fancy help starting a petition to Borris?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:40 AM

Heh! When my daughters were teenagers, we used to commit "Drive By Singings"

Windows rolled fully down and top of the lungs singing at people we passed. We sang everywhere, under shelter at Disneyworld during thunderstorm, shopping in KMart, strolling around Charlotteville's downtown mall. We got strange looks. Mostly we got smiles. We got people taking pictures. Didn't matter. We were singing for us.

I think we all should just sing where ever we are. Standing in queue at hole in the wall bank machine, during weekly shop at (pick your favourite supermarket), on the bus/tube to and from work, at the parking attendant putting ticket on your window screen. Sing rousing songs with easy refrains. Don't be shy. Encourage people to join in. Not only in London, but everywhere.

Stand up Catters and sing.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,guest squeezebox at work
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 07:42 AM

Dave Burland was a policeman before he got into terrorism in a big laid back way LOL

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 08:09 AM

So, the person who controls this in England is "UK Music chief Feargal Sharkey "

Yes, it really is him, and no, he's not in charge of the Metropolitan Police - he's objecting to this measure on behalf of UK Music, which is "a new umbrella organisation representing the collective interests of the UK's commercial music industry" according to its Web site. You learn something new every day, eh?

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: TheSnail
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 08:11 AM

Don't just stand up and sing, fill in their forms. They are expecting 10,000 a year. Give them 100,000. Give them a million. Every time you plan to invite a few friends round to sing Happy Birthday to your 3 year old, fill in the form.

And, BillD, Feargal Sharkey IS chief of UK Music

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: olddude
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 07:09 PM

All but threw out the Bill of Rights here in the states for the excuse of "tracking down terrorists"

Patriot Act is just the opposite. All they had to do was call a judge for a warrant, that is how it is suppose to work. Sooner or later the "secret police" will be taking names in folk clubs or the neighbor like me that plays guitar on my porch

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 10:06 PM

Joe Hill

Victor Jarra

Jesus

All deemed too dangerous.

Subject: RE: all singers are terror suspects
From: Beer
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 10:16 PM

Lenny Bruce