Police as Tools of the British Olympic Association?

The chairman of the British Olympic Association has decided the only way to fight drug taking in the 2012 London Olympics is to enable legal police raids:

this week Colin Moynihan announced plans to expand police powers to allow raids on the athletes’ village, ostensibly to combat doping.

The British Olympic Association chairman has evidently decided Britain’s bursting statute book is not sufficiently equipped to deal with a two-week sporting event. Fortunately for Moynihan, he moonlights as a Tory peer, so he can use the powers vested in him by this other hat to introduce a Lords bill to remedy the oversight.

As I say, this is fortunate for his lordship, but it does feel rather less fortunate for British citizens. It’s not just that the plan will be an ostentatiously ineffective deterrent – expert opinion holds that drug cheats tend to stay in privately rented accommodation – nor the vagueness about how Moynihan intends to criminalise substances which may be banned but in almost all cases are legal. It is simply unacceptable to change the law of the land to enforce the internal rules of a competition.

So Moynihan wants to use the police as a formal political tool then. He wants to use police raids to search for (as the article says) substances which may contravene the rules of the Games, but otherwise be legal. Yet another nail in the coffin of the rule of law in this country, merely brought about by 2012. And that’s in addition to this nonsense:

civil rights campaigners are worried about several clauses in the London Olympic Games and Games Act 2006. Section 19(4) could cover protest placards, they said, as it read: “The regulations may apply in respect of advertising of any kind including in particular – (a) advertising of a non-commercial nature, and (b) announcements or notices of any kind.”

Section 22 allows a “constable or enforcement officer” to “enter land or premises” where they believe such an advert is being shown or produced. It allows for materials to be destroyed, and for the use of “reasonable force”. The power to force entry requires a court warrant. Causing still further concern is a section granting the powers to an enforcement officer appointed by Olympic Delivery Authority.

Anita Coles, policy officer for Liberty, said: “This goes much further than protecting the Olympic logo for commercial use. Regulations could ban signs urging boycotts of sponsors with sweat shops. Then private contractors designated by the Olympic authority could enter homes and other premises in the vicinity, seizing or destroying private property.”

Do we really need to trample on civil liberties merely in order to stage the Olympic Games? As Chris Grayling points out in the second article, powers are there to be used. To say they won’t be is about as ridiculous as saying Peter Mandelson won’t use the Digital Economy Bill, if passed, to censor every website which inconveniences him. Trouble is on the way in 2012 and before, and as with most of the rest of the civil liberties breaches of New Labour, for no logical reason whatsoever other than to benefit corporate interests. I don’t know anyone who supports the Olympics being in London and although I was amazed on the day London won them, it made no sense for Paris not to get them. If only they had.