@ Shakje

Absolutely not, but you shouldn't need to fill in forms to follow someone who's known to be a burglar, at a time and in a location and in circumstances that look like they could be about to do it again.

Thats way different from stopping someone who "just doesn't fit in" for being in a middle class area in a hoodie, or with the wrong skin colour, and hassling them. That is wrong and rightly challenged.

Or if my car was stolen during the night I'd prefer if ANPR cameras could look for it right away not not wait until a form had been filled and sent to someone working office hours.

My exchange analogy still stands, and it has become the case with information held by ISPs, even will full access theres just so much data that no one has the resources to look through it unless its for a specific reason. That's not to say there shouldn't be accountability, of course there should. but would you be happy if you were the victim of a crime and the person responsible got away because the checks and balances prevented the police from acting in time? I'm just not sure the balance is right.

@Aristotle

Criticising spelling, the last recourse of a pedant. My "vision" is just reading whats ACTUALLY being suggested and not reading the headline and crying "OMG its another nail in the coffin of civil liberty, we're doooooomed!"

And incidentally, if you can spot an "experienced" legal professional in the CPS you win a prize.

@Brian Bles*ed

Isn't the suggestion that if YOUR house is burgled repeatedly the police should be able to watch YOUR house so if they come back again they can be caught? You'd object to that?

Police need to be, and as far as i can see _mostly_ are, accountable. But equally clear is that its not a case of plod doing their job AND filling in forms, its either or. Which is why they're not on the street being a deterrent, which for my money, is where they're meant to be. Instead we have people in police looking uniforms doing it for them. If you prefer them filling in forms to catching criminals then we've got the police you want right now so no need to complain. If you want to emigrate fair dos, is there another country where its any better?