So ruled the European Court of Human Rights today.
Today is a great day for freedom. Random stop and search powers were an abuse of our historic, hard-won liberties.
No successful prosecutions for terrorism offences resulted from these draconian stop and search powers. They failed to safeguard us from anything - they served only to intimidate, and to empower officials to intrude on us and our privacy without just cause - a terrible inversion of the proper relationship between the individual and the state, as I've pointed out previously on behalf of Big Brother Watch.
What this tremendous judgment cannot undo is the embarrassment and anguish felt by the many people abused for no good reason under this now unlawful power.
