UK - Blair's secret stalker squad

[buckthesystem]

This is too creepy: Something straight out of the soma consumption from Brave New World & how you would be 're-trained if you questioned the way the state was doing things. Horrifyingly, it brings to mind images of people being "sectioned" for writing letters in the papers or in forums criticising public figures and being "helped" under the mental health act. Here's the story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...d=1770&ct=5

Revealed: Blair's secret stalker squad

Fears that doctors could be used to lock up terror suspects without trail

The Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health laws.

The revelation is set to reignite the row over the Government's use of draconian measures to deal with terror suspects amid accusations they are abusing human rights.

The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was quietly set up last year to identify individuals who pose a direct threat to VIPs including the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Royal Family.

It was given sweeping powers to check more than 10,000 suspects' files to identify mentally unstable potential killers and stalkers with a fixation against public figures.

The team's psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment - including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.

Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.

Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors and mental health professionals to determine if someone should be forcibly detained.

But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects - increasing fears the line is being blurred between criminal investigation and doctors' clinical decisions.

It also raises questions about why thousands of mentally ill individuals have been allowed back into the community - including some who have attacked and killed members of the public - while VIPs are being given special protection.

Scotland Yard, which runs the shadowy unit, refuses to discuss how many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because of "patient confidentiality".

But at least one terror suspect - allegedly linked to the 7/7 bomb plot and a suicide bombing in Israel - has already been held under the Mental Health Act.

The suspect, who was subject of a control order and cannot be named for legal reasons, later absconded from the hospital and his whereabouts are unknown.

The existence of FTAC, part of the Metropolitan Police's specialist operations department which oversees anti-terrorist investigations and royal and diplomatic protection, slipped out in the fine print of a Home Office report.

The report makes it clear FTAC is a counter-terrorism unit and says: "We aim to make the UK a harder target for terrorists by maintaining effective and efficient protective security for public figures."

NHS documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal the unit's role "concerns the identification and diversion into psychiatric care of mentally ill people fixated on the prominent".

The purpose of the centre is "to evaluate and manage the risk posed to prominent people by...those who engage in inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours in the context of abnormally intense preoccupations, many of which arise from psychotic illness."

The Mental Health Act requires two doctors or psychiatrists to approve someone's forcible detention for treatment.

So-called 'sectioning' allows a patient to be held for up to six months before a further psychological assessment. Patients are then reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.

(for rest of article go to link)

[hmh]

I made a post on another topic about the state using mental health as a way to quash free thinking, especially if you disagree with the status quo. The UK seems to be about three steps ahead of the US at the moment in doing this.