Dangerous steps towards a security state (The Observer, in the UK)

[muriel_volestrangler]

I think that several DUers who have been saying how great Gordon Brown looks would do well to read this Observer editorial:

Britain has has very tough anti-terror laws. Owning extremist propaganda and taking part in conversations that glorify suicide bombing are sufficient to merit a custodial sentence, as was proved last week when four university students and a schoolboy were jailed for possessing material for terrorist purposes.

They were charged under the Terrorism Act 2000, passed before al-Qaeda had attacked New York, Madrid and London. It was aimed at people who hoard detonators and combustible chemicals. The fact that a court now considers DVDs of radical Imams to be as explosive as Semtex says much about the way British justice has adapted to the phenomenon of jihadi terrorism. It also shows how security laws, over time, tend to be interpreted to the limit of their draconian potential.

That is a lesson Parliament should remember when it comes to consider the next round of government anti-terror measures. Gordon Brown made a statement to the Commons last week outlining his plans, the most controversial of which would give police greater powers to detain terrorist suspects without charge. They currently have 28 days, a compromise figure agreed when Parliament rejected government plans for a 90-day limit in 2005. Mr Brown's new pitch is for police to add weeks of detention one at a time, with a judge's permission, up to a new limit of 56 days.
...
But there is already in place a powerful security apparatus combating terrorism. There are 40 terror trials pending. Several attacks have been thwarted. Meanwhile, no new evidence has been presented to prove that extending pre-charge detention would thwart more.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2137078,00.html

See also today's op-ed by Henry Porter - an excellent writer on civil liberties:

Beware of Mr Brown. He's after your rights

The new Prime Minister is subtler than Mr Blair, but he also believes our freedom gets in the way of security

It is precisely because the Prime Minister appears so earnest and reasonable - is so solicitous, so keen to discover common ground, so conscious of our tradition of rights and freedom, and so strategic in the presentation of his case - that he represents a far greater threat to civil liberties than did his predecessor.

Gordon Brown would never say 'civil liberties arguments are made for another age', because it is too crass. Of course the arguments should be heard, their moral force acknowledged and their proponents saluted, but then gently nudged out of the way by the imperatives of security. The exceptionalism that Tony Blair pleaded is, in confronting what Brown called the 'generation-long challenge to defeat al-Qaeda related terrorist violence', still intact.

He has asked for 56 days' detention without charge and has placed ID cards, now referred to as 'ID security' - cleverly linking the cards to ideas of personal protection - at the heart of the counter-terrorist strategy. Neither measure is proven to add to our capacity to fight terror, yet both represent the gravest possible menace to the store of freedom in this country. In the name of security, the state increases its power over the individual and will be soon be in a position to apply it in areas of our life that have nothing to do with the fight against al-Qaeda. That is why a Labour government again attempts to entrench ID cards in the armoury of terror measures, even though they clearly did not stop Madrid and would not have stopped the 7/7 bombers.

The government certainly has a duty to protect its citizens but we must be very careful before giving up the principles of detention and punishment without trial, as well as the jewels of privacy and of freedom of movement, which the ID card national identity register threatens. The innate character of every government is to increase the power of the state to deal with problems that it declares are unprecedented. It is a default position that requires a rigorous response from the opposition, for once these things are lost they never come back without a fight.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2137085,00.html

[Double T]

1. Gordon Brown is just another two-faced leader.

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."
Benjamin Franklin

[Greeby]

2. I watched Broon announce this in the Commons on Wednesday

Barely had the "56 days" line left his mouth than the Tory frontbench jeered him. Don't think he can count on their support for this one