carrying a terrorist related device. The officer is given full powers of arrest if he has 'reason to suspect' that a device is secreted on inner clothing, or if illegal drugs are found. The following view was expressed in a letter to Guardian by Dr CA Gearty.

Dr CA Gearty, 'Stop and search for the motive' (1996) The Guardian A police state is one in which the police determine the content as well as the mode of implementation of the law. [Under the new Act] the police will be able under the authority of a senior officer to stop any pedestrian and search him or her, together with anything they might be carrying, for articles of any kind that could be used for any purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of what [the Act] describes as 'acts of terrorism'. These powers may specifically be exercised even where the police officer has no suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, about the person he or she is searching. The Act will herald a return to and will fully legitimise the arbitrary stop and search powers that were such a stain on our criminal justice process before the enactment of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.