First minister calls for end to vexatious reports after far-right agitators attempt to ‘overwhelm’ official systems
First minister calls for end to vexatious reports after far-right agitators attempt to ‘overwhelm’ official systems
Neo-Nazi and far-right agitators are exploiting Scotland’s new hate crime law to make vexatious complaints en masse in an attempt to “overwhelm” police systems.
A prominent figure in England’s white nationalist movement is among those urging followers to spam Police Scotland with anonymous online reports, the *Observer *has found.
The leader of a far-right group – one of several fringe organisations being assessed by the UK government under its new extremism definition – promoted a private channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that includes a “call to action” urging members to “mass report”.
Posts in the channel instruct members to log cases of supposed “anti-white” hate, which they say includes a statement on the police force’s website that “young men aged 18-30 are most likely to commit hate crime”.
There's a great fake commercial in the new Reno 911 where Reineisha is selling a Kyle Rittenhouse costume for black people because 'you'll be safer dressed like this than with black skin'
There's plenty of anti-police neo-nazis. Good luck trying to make sense of their ideological reasoning, but they exist nonetheless. This would also be advantageous for sympathetic police too. Gives them a reason to say "see, this tip line is bullshit. We don't need to pay any mind to it".
If they're persistent enough the tip line may be shut down. We've seen it in the US with anti-trans snitching pages started by a few states. Progressives of various stripes flood these pages with bunk information to the point of breaking the site for a long enough time and the state caves, taking the page down. It's a common and effective tactic, no wonder the fascists are using it too. Tactics aren't sacred or necessarily specific to a given ideology. If it works for the left it may very well work for the right too
The fact that this system can be exploited by neo Nazis should tell you that it can be exploited by anyone. Including the cops who will be investigating these complaints.
Non-public and anonymous are not the same thing. I don't know about your jurisdiction but when you file a criminal complaint police do take down your name and address, if you're worried about retaliation or such there's ways to have all public records under a pseudonym and e.g. your lawyer's address, but the state will still know who you actually are.
You can also give an anonymous tip to the police -- but those don't ever reach the level of complaint. Police and prosecutors can toss such a statement without much fanfare, even if they don't they can't follow-up with questions, you're way less credible as a witness, especially since you can't be nailed for false accusation, at least not without investigators hunting you down. You can't file an accessory suit (that is, be a co-prosecutor) because courts definitely don't deal with anonymous people, if they anonymise the public record then because they think it's the right thing to do to serve justice, not because you don't want to show your face to at least the judge(s).
Even that thread shows how that system is ripe for abuse:
"If a hate crime is reported to the police and following investigation no criminality is established, it will be recorded as a “hate incident”, although this is now being reviewed by the police. Hate incidents are not recorded against alleged perpetrators, but their names appear in the police files for the complainant.
Under Police Scotland’s enhanced disclosure programme, prospective employers can request criminal history information on any person including: unspent convictions, relevant spent convictions, unspent cautions, inclusion on children’s or adults’ lists, information from the sex offenders register, and other relevant information held by the police. This final category would include non-crime hate incidents, meaning they could be disclosed to employers."