Weekend Report Back and Serious Debate

This weekend was great. I got a new home entertainment system and had some friends round for supper on Saturday night. Zenstar set up the HES for me and I roasted a leg of pork. It was the best pork roast ever! Everybody thought I was totally stressed from all the work, I was actually loving it, It was really fun. Then I slept through the first half of "ladykillers" and woke up to catch the end which I hadn't seen. Thanks to everyone involved for making it a good time.

On Sunday I tried to watch "Closer" which was utter crap!!! Ended up watching "Bad Santa" which was okay.

Yesterday my dad was on the arse end of a four car pile up on the N2 and I had to go help him out with that. That's why there was no blog post.

And today I'm back at work.

I was going to comment on this story but Moonflake beat me to it. Good thing I don't agree with her or I'd have nothing to talk about!

Here's the thing, these searches are illegal. Cops should uphold the law, not break it. If people think that cops should be allowed to do these kinds of things then they should get the laws changed, speak to your local representative. Our constitution upholds the individual's right to privacy for various reasons, not least of which is to avoid persecution and harassment. This is to say that police officials require evidence against you before they are permitted to detain or search you, this is to prevent the random abduction of people off the streets because they might be on a list of people who have committed crimes. Can you imagine a scenario where the people waiting for a bus are rounded up, taken back to the station, finger printed and detained until such time as it is certain that they did not commit any of the crimes currently listed?

It's also to prevent the police from abusing their power, case in point: the VIP protection services detaining the scorpions special investigative unit and preventing them from investigating charges against Ex-VP Zuma, or detention of opposition party members in our "oh so democratic" neighbour Zimbabwe.

Also these methods are totally inefficient. Ostensibly what the police are doing is going: "we have a list of names of people who have committed crimes, but how can we catch them", "let’s go and see if we can find any of them in these arbitrary restaurants!". Surely their objectives would be more efficiently served by going directly to the homes or workplaces of the listed offenders and arresting them. This argument is supported by the fact that no one was detained for traffic offences during the Friday night raid, only five people were arrested and those on immigration and drug charges. The 550 number quoted in the paper was for people arrested at roadblocks previous roadblocks. Now if the police say they achieved their objectives on Friday night then one must question exactly what these objectives were. Were the police just fishing? How safe does that make you feel?

Anyway after that I leave you to pursue more Jenga madness.

schpat