Are we slowly losing our freedom?

I heard a student last week talking about his experience of being stopped by the police in the streets of Harrow, for having a digital camera in his hand.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the police have the right to stop and search anyone in a specific area.

Prior to this, they only had the right to do this if they had 'reasonable grounds' to be suspicious. It is now a power that the police hold in all circumstances.

I was unsure what to make of all this.

Public safety top of Met agenda

Following the 7/7 bombings and other threats of terrorism, it must have been at the top of the Metropolitan Police's agenda to ensure that this would not happen again.

There has been a 50% increase in the number of British Transport Police patrolling the Tube in the last two years according to an LU spokesman.

Rubbish bins were also taken away so that suspicious packages could not be hidden in them. It was announced last month that new 'bomb-proof' bins would be introduced.

These are all reasonable measures to tackle the threat of another terrorist attack. But is giving the police the right to stop and search a person even if there are no 'reasonable grounds' to do so, a step too far?

For a student to be on the streets taking pictures of the local area for a project, and to be stopped by the police, is in some ways a breach of all of our civil liberties.

I am unsure why he would have been stopped in the first place as I am not sure what harm a Sony digital camera could have on anyone. But there you go.

Where have our civil liberties gone?

We are living in a society where our civil liberties and human rights are being threatened.

They are being threatened by both sides - the extremists who are trying to harm us and the government who are attempting to protect us, but are harming our rights by doing so.

It is crucial that the government take safety measures to ensure that we are safe in society but I am not sure whether this has been taken one step too far.

I will be on the streets of London in the next few weeks both taking pictures and filming for various projects.

It will be interesting to see whether people feel that I pose a threat and need to be searched, taking photos with my camera - something that has been part of our culture for the last hundred years.

I asked two students what they thought of the Terrorism Act 2000, Section 44

Dominic Masters, Student

"Unless the police have reason to be suspicious of someone, they shouldn't have the right to stop and search them. It is taking away our civil liberties. Everyone is becoming too suspicious of everyone."






Gwenno Rees, Student

"It is important that the police have these powers as they are there to protect us. As much as I wouldn't like to be stopped under the Section 44, they need to exist for our own safety."