Sign of the times?

From the Guardian: Suspicious behaviour on the tube (via Nosemonkey).

Having found some time to browse the blogs I've not had time to read over the last two months, I'm starting to regret spending my Sunday on the computer. It's sunny in LA. I should be on the beach. But instead, I'm sitting on the patio, reading about the enormous pile of horse dung that Britain is turning into. It stinks.

If you want to feel really pissed off, read the article above. It is a scary account of the loss of liberty and privacy in London today. Orwell wasn't bloody far off when he wrote 1984. And while I haven't been to London since the bombing, my brother lives, studies, and commutes in London. He would perfectly fit the description of someone acting suspiciously, as defined by the Met:

[David Mery was] stopped and searched because:

• they found [his] behaviour suspicious from direct observation and then from watching [him] on the CCTV system;
• [he] went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates;
• two other men entered the station at about the same time as [him];
• [he was] wearing a jacket "too warm for the season";
• [he was] carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept [his] rucksack with [him] at all times;
• [he] looked at people coming on the platform;
• [he] played with [his] phone and then took a paper from inside [his] jacket.

And so would almost every 20-, 30-, 40, 50-something year old male with a knapsack-style laptop bag. And so would I, but being female I guess I'd be slightly lower on the dodgy-scale. Although I'm outraged about what happened to David Myer, and the fact that he now has a police record he does not deserve, I can't say I'm surprised. My bro has had his bag searched several times. And so have his friends. I'm loathe to ask if there's a trend amongst his friends between the number of bag searches and the darkness of their tan. I'm afraid to hear the answer.

And there I was complaining about the ridiculous number of security checks I've had to go through to get to the US... Imagine being stopped and searched just to get from point A to B in your own country. Oh, hold on... These folk would know all about it...