"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 [Many? That means that some are not] of which arise from psychotic illness."
Who gets to decide what "inappropriate" or "threatening" means? What if a whistleblower has information that a member of parliament has engaged in bribes? Would trying to reveal such information constitute "inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviors" in the context of "abnormally intense preoccupations" with that MP's illegal actions?
Indeed, a study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry found a high rate of false positives in the British identification of dangerous persons.
The Mail continues:
"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.
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"Human rights activists fear the team, whose existence has never been publicised, may be being used as a way to detain suspected terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts.
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"Last night human rights group Liberty said the secret unit represented a new threat to civil liberties.
"Policy director Gareth Crossman said: 'There is a grave danger of this being used to deal with people where there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.
"'This blurs the line between medical decisions and police actions. If you are going to allow doctors to take people's liberty away, they have to be independent. That credibility is undermined when the doctors are part of the same team as the police.
"'This raises serious concerns. First that you have a unit that allows police investigation to lead directly to people being sectioned without any kind of criminal proceedings.
"'Secondly, it is being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorism at a time when the Government is looking at ways to detain terrorists without putting them on trial.'"
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"The team examined thousands of cases and liaised with the FBI, the US Secret Service, the Capitol Hill Police, which protects Congressmen and Senators, and the Swedish and Norwegian secret services.
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