Charlie Hebdo: the police have previous

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/13/police-snooping-charlie-hebdo-buyers

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I would like to believe Peter Fahy’s suggestion (Letters, 12 February) that “many neighbourhood police officers, who are well known in their communities, may have opted to visit sellers to establish any concerns and provide reassurance”.

This sort of thing has been going on for years. Back in the 1970s my wife and I, then living in Doncaster where we were active Labour party members, had the Morning Star delivered daily by our local newsagent. One day, when we returned from a holiday, our next door neighbours told us that two men in plain clothes had been asking them questions about “the two communists who live next door to you”. It may well be that newsagents were primed to alert the police and thus special branch.

If it was happening then, why couldn’t it be happening now? The newsagent has long gone the way of all flesh – as have newspaper deliveries –but I still read the Morning Star, officer. So much easier now that my local supermarket sells it.Rev Dr Peter PhillipsSwansea

• Has no one yet raised the most important question? How did they know which newsagents to ask?Mick HarneyReading

• Let me get this straight: on their own initiative, and without any central co-ordination, police in several forces visited newsagents and asked for the names of people who had bought Charlie Hebdo. What a relief to know it was all just an extraordinary coincidence!Owen WellsIlkley, West Yorkshire

• Guardian readers tomorrow?Tommy GeeWingfield, Suffolk