Behind a bush, in the wind: the boys from Brazil

The relationship between UK police and young Brazilian men does not make happy reading.

They shot and killed an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezez, at Stockwell tube station during a terror scare in 2005.  Opportunities to identify him were missed.  There was a police stake-out at his apartment, but he was not photographed when he started out on his fatal journey because the cameraman was having a piss.  An image of him, passed to police ‘Gold Command’ (I hope there’s no Bronze and Silver) would have confirmed straightaway that he was not the right man.  How many calls of nature have left a person dead?  

With David Miranda, again from Brazil, the police have now shot themselves in the foot.  We are supposed to believe that they just took it on themselves to detain him for nine hours on anti-terror laws.  No instruction from the Home Office.  No 10 just says it was ‘kept abreast’ of what was happening. Washington just says it was given a ‘heads-up.’ Trite metaphors, but this was the very choice which confronted police when the time came to shoot Menezez.  They chose the head in case he had strapped a bomb to his breast.

The material that David Miranda was carrying may have been obtained illegally, but it may also expose how organisations have been spying illegally on their own citizens.  The British government has portrayed the seized data as dangerous.  There is certainly a danger here to any organisation caught with its pants down.  Such embarrassment can be fatal.  However, it is in the public interest to know when government agencies break their own laws. 

Terror laws were used on this occasion to intimidate and stifle investigative journalists.  They are meant to be used randomly, but they targeted a particular individual.  Miranda was questioned about his ‘entire life.’  Once again we are talking about the entire life of a young Brazilian man.  Less than thirty years, but well beyond the span of a democratic government.

Nine hours can be a long time.  Still, there are vital parts in every investigation.  We wouldn’t want to let anyone down.  The police employed six agents. They rotated the questioning.  None of them had to wait more than ninety minutes for a piss.