Man arrested on suspicion of photographing a drain

Huh?

Shome mishtake shurely?

Nope.

Stephen Clark, a man of good character, had never been on trouble with the police before. He is an Oxford graduate in politics who lives a blameless life in Manchester, UK.

However, despite this, he was arrested twice in the space of two hours by the Manchester police.

He was then held under arrest for two days, had his home, laptop computer and camera-phone searched and had his fingerprints and samples of his DNA taken.

Why?

Because the police suspected he was taking photographs of a drain-cover. And, of course, it is a well-known fact that 'what a drain-cover looks like' is an essential piece of terrorist intelligence.

It appears that the police subsequently found no sign of any drain-cover photographs in his possession. If they did, they're not saying anything. And they released Mr Stephen without charge.

However, they are keeping his fingerprints and DNA samples.



Anyone out there still think that if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear from the UK's surveillance and control laws?