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Friday 1st August 2008

Police Seize War on Terror Games

Breaking news - police in Kent are using tried and tested intimidation tactics with the protesters at this year's Climate Camp and last night raided the campsite, systematically emptying tents and vehicles and confiscating offending materials, among them a few War on Terror board games.

According to reports, the police obtained a search warrant to seize articles for use in criminal damage. These included: "planks of wood, carpet and a war-on-terror board game". Latest reports reveal the police have seized "rope, tools, a ladder, three boardgames, boiler suits, wet suits and flares". Take a look at the official police photo of the 'cache'.

"Confiscated items have included: planks of wood, carpet and a war-on-terror board game" Don't get us wrong, we think the police are doing a wonderful job, shoring up democracy by bullying peaceful protesters. But this list of confiscated items - it'd take some imagination to cause any damage using such a weird assortment of objects. It sounds more like a list of props for a conceptual theatre piece. Wet suits and carpet?

Also, just how .... how in God's name do you cause criminal damage with a board game? We know it's been labelled subversive by some, but it's hardly going to bring an entire power station to a juddering halt just by waving one in the air outside the gates.

If only the police had asked us, we'd have given them one. This surely tops the list of "extreme lengths gone to in the pursuit of getting a 'war on terror' board game". And, lads, taking three is just greedy. Give two back at least, eh?

UPDATE: Amusingly, the War on Terror has been highlighted in this story on Channel 4 news (at 1min 35), ITV news (2min 50), The Independent and also the BBC. Check out that "weapons stash"! Well done Kent constabulary, you're all more than earning your salaries. Incidentally, watch the video at the bottom of the BBC page for some good old fashioned police brutality and a classic piece of double-think: "We're here for the safety of the campers" *THWACK*.

UPDATE #2: Don't you just love the silly season? The Independent wrote a fairly favourable piece, focussing on War on Terror and its puzzling unpopularity. That article got recycled by our local paper, The Cambridge Evening News and also popped up on Schnews and game news site ICV2. It also spawned a couple of radio interviews. We only managed to catch the one on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire - here's Andy S rambling on about something or other (mp3 file, 3.5 MB).

UPDATE #3: Crikey, this story's just exploded on the interwebs, mainly thanks to security guru, Bruce Schneier. Boing Boing, B3ta, ZDnet and even Slashdot and Digg all followed suit and caused our server to fall over. It's still pretty slow - sorry about that, folks. Bear with us.

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