Or lost it, I've not had much support for Blair's politics over the last few years, however I'm actually in favour of the 90 day idea.

Your average man on the streets has NO idea what goes on behinds the scenes of the country and I figure that in order to keep the average man from having to know, this sort of thing would be great. If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide. But at the moment, someone has to have the powers to look to keep the other 60 million of us safe.

I just wonder if the police had been able to lock up the london bombers for 90 days whilst they made a case against them....

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by MonSTeR
Or lost it, I've not had much support for Blair's politics over the last few years, however I'm actually in favour of the 90 day idea.

Your average man on the streets has NO idea what goes on behinds the scenes of the country and I figure that in order to keep the average man from having to know, this sort of thing would be great.

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If he's no idea, his opinion doesn't carry any weight.

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If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide.

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And you can enjoy three months rotting in a cell while the authorities figure that out.

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But at the moment, someone has to have the powers to look to keep the other 60 million of us safe.

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These powers would have put us in greater danger, both from our own government, and from all the new terrorist recruits they'd conjured up from the communities they alienated.

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I just wonder if the police had been able to lock up the london bombers for 90 days whilst they made a case against them....

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Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia have anti-terrorism laws Blair can only have sticky dreams about, and they suffer frequent atrocities because the first the authorities know about terrorists is usually when they strike. You don't defeat terrorism with fascist laws, you defeat it by attracting people away from the cause, and this madness would only have driven them further into its arms.

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by Byron
If he's no idea, his opinion doesn't carry any weight.

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His opinion doesn't have to!!! Having a populace that isn't aware of the secrets of the secret service is a safer populace. If you don’t know how you’re being tracked, it’s harder to take steps to avoid that surveillance.

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by Byron
And you can enjoy three months rotting in a cell while the authorities figure that out.

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But WHY are they going to lock you up unless you’re doing something you shouldn’t be? Security resources are stretched enough; they couldn’t be arsed to investigate you without suspicion, let alone lock up someone.

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by Byron
These powers would have put us in greater danger, both from our own government, and from all the new terrorist recruits they'd conjured up from the communities they alienated.

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I disagree with both these points, Tony Blair’s not deciding who to lock up, neither’s Gordon Brown. It’s the security forces and unless you’re a suspect, they’re not interested. What communities in particular? As far as I saw, you could lock up a black man for 90 days, or a white man, or even a little green man

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by Byron
Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia have anti-terrorism laws Blair can only have sticky dreams about, and they suffer frequent atrocities because the first the authorities know about terrorists is usually when they strike.

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Yet and how much WORSE would the terrorist acts threat be without those safeguards? There’s no real-world research on this that I could find, so I think it’s 50:50

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by Byron

You don't defeat terrorism with fascist laws, you defeat it by attracting people away from the cause, and this madness would only have driven them further into its arms.

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I agree with this point, at least, the first part of it, but until we’re in a position to attract folks away from the cause (and at the moment, how do we do this, turn the UK into an Islamic state like Iraq was perhaps?)And, how do you attract a fanatical sociopath away from a cause in just 90 days?

I think we need every measure to keep the people safe in their daily lives.

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by MonSTeR
His opinion doesn't have to!!! Having a populace that isn't aware of the secrets of the secret service is a safer populace. If you don’t know how you’re being tracked, it’s harder to take steps to avoid that surveillance.

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Depends on the integrity of the secret service. After David Shayler and 45 minutes to nowhere, I'm not inclined to believe the Spooks version.

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But WHY are they going to lock you up unless you’re doing something you shouldn’t be? Security resources are stretched enough; they couldn’t be arsed to investigate you without suspicion, let alone lock up someone.

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Because they have suspicious about an entirely innocent person, and it's easier to sling them in a cell for 3 months than mount a complex surveilance operation. Because they've made a mistake. All sorts of reasons. You're detained on suspicion, you're charged on evidence. Surely you're not so trusting as to believe the cops only go after guilty people with the purest of motives?

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I disagree with both these points, Tony Blair’s not deciding who to lock up, neither’s Gordon Brown. It’s the security forces and unless you’re a suspect, they’re not interested. What communities in particular? As far as I saw, you could lock up a black man for 90 days, or a white man, or even a little green man

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They could, but they won't, we all know which demographic the police will go after. The recent case of an entirely innocent Muslim bookshop being pulled apart on the basis of a dodgy informant springs to mind.

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[b]Yet and how much WORSE would the terrorist acts threat be without those safeguards? There’s no real-world research on this that I could find, so I think it’s 50:50

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The question is how much better would they be without them. Internment gave the marginalised IRA mainstream appeal and killed off the non-violent civil rights movement. That's an accepted political reality.

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I agree with this point, at least, the first part of it, but until we’re in a position to attract folks away from the cause (and at the moment, how do we do this, turn the UK into an Islamic state like Iraq was perhaps?)And, how do you attract a fanatical sociopath away from a cause in just 90 days?

I think we need every measure to keep the people safe in their daily lives.

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The question isn't how do you attract away sociopaths, it's how you stop normal people becoming radicalised. Writing terrorists off as sociopaths and mademen is a cop out. They're ordinary people who chose a barbaric path, and bringing in extremist policies drives you further away from the position of winning hearts and minds.

The burden of proving the case for draconian laws in on the part of those proposing them. The police and government singually failed to do so. What evidence do you have that says they were right?

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by Byron
I'm truly amazed the hitherto craven parliamentary Labour party have ridden out a vicious campaign of intimidation and emotional blackmail from their leader, senior police and the Sun's foul hijacking of the 7 July victims' memories to finally remind Blair his word isn't automatically law.

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oh whatever!!

Vicious? Intimidation? Dressing things up in nasty words doesn't make them any more true.

To be honest reading your first post has made my blood boil because to me it amounts to the kind of thing you're acusing the government of. Lets make big noises with big words and hope that no-one feels brave enough to disagree and to be honest I didn't feel brave enough 'til today. I'm sure you'll shout down this post and I'm not a master debater and will probably come across as an ignorant pleb but here goes nothing...

I think your supposition that harsher anti-terrorism laws will automatically create more terrorists is far too basic. If someone is disaffected then they must be a hell of a way towards extremism for one law to tip them over. I also think its a crass overgeneralisation to say that this government has alienated the communities where the terrorists are likely to come from and that these particular communities are the only ones to come under suspision. Sure, you heard about the innocent Muslim bookshop, but how many similar searches turn up relevent material? We don't hear about those becasue they're not newsworthy. A sense of perspective is needed.

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by Byron
Depends on the integrity of the secret service. After David Shayler and 45 minutes to nowhere, I'm not inclined to believe the Spooks version.

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We'd have the same security service no matter who was in charge *shrug*

I'm glad that Tony Blair is the leader of this country and strongly believe had either of the other political parties been in charge then the Iraq war and July 7th would still have happened. This is far from the beginning of the end.

As for the 90 days law - I agree that it was probably too long. I would have preferred that the amendment tabled by Janet Anderson of 60 days had been taken up. 28 days isn't a very long time to gather evidence on something as complex as a covert terror op. Especially as many covert survailence techniques require a lot of red tape (and therefore time) for authorisation.

oh and... It takes more than one PROPOSED change in law to make someone qualify as a tyrant. Just another language point that irked me.

*apologies for any typos - if i read this back i'll probably delete it *

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by Sydney

oh whatever!!

Vicious? Intimidation? Dressing things up in nasty words doesn't make them any more true.

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Giving them the false credibility of pretending they're legitimate tactics on the part those involved would be dressing them up.

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To be honest reading your first post has made my blood boil because to me it amounts to the kind of thing you're acusing the government of. Lets make big noises with big words and hope that no-one feels brave enough to disagree and to be honest I didn't feel brave enough 'til today. I'm sure you'll shout down this post and I'm not a master debater and will probably come across as an ignorant pleb but here goes nothing...

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I have no need or desire to shot anyone down in substantiating what I say. Preassuming a hostile response is hardly practicing what you've just preached, is it?

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I think your supposition that harsher anti-terrorism laws will automatically create more terrorists is far too basic. If someone is disaffected then they must be a hell of a way towards extremism for one law to tip them over.

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Authoritarians won't drive people over the edge. But they will drive them into the hands of those who'll take them the rest of the way.

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I also think its a crass overgeneralisation to say that this government has alienated the communities where the terrorists are likely to come from and that these particular communities are the only ones to come under suspision. Sure, you heard about the innocent Muslim bookshop, but how many similar searches turn up relevent material? We don't hear about those becasue they're not newsworthy. A sense of perspective is needed.

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What's crass is the sweeping approach the government has taken, not making reference to it. Muslim communities are under massively disproportionate suspicion of terrorism in exactly the same fashion the Irish community was during the troubles. The bookshop is part of a wider pattern. Between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2004, there were 701 arrests under the Terrorism Act. 119 people were charged. Of them, only were 17 convicted, and most of them for peripheral involvement in Irish terrorism. Four people were convicted of involvement in Islamist terrorism, and that was for membership of proscribed organizations. That's a disgraceful gap between arrest and conviction. Under the common law arrests are supposed to made in the belief they're the first step towards conviction, but those figures indicate arrests are being used as fishing trips. That bookshop was raided without even checking the material on display first because that's what happens when those in power don't have sufficient restraints on their behaviour.

Last time this approach resulted in a large number of the Irish community becoming more afraid of the authorities than the terrorists. My perspective falls on the entrance to exactly the same blind alley.

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We'd have the same security service no matter who was in charge *shrug*

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Absolutely not the case. In name certainly, but in nature the security services can be changed radically by the right policies. Just compare the assassination-happy CIA of the 1960s to the reigned in version of later years, or the enormous changes PACE has made to British police practice.

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I'm glad that Tony Blair is the leader of this country and strongly believe had either of the other political parties been in charge then the Iraq war and July 7th would still have happened. This is far from the beginning of the end.

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The only position Tony Blair could hold that would make me glad would be in a dock. Heading the Nuremburg indictments was the charge of "Launching aggressive war",a crime in which this self-deluded man has made the nation his unwilling accomplice.

Iraq would probably have gone ahead regardless, but there was absolutely nothing inevitable about Britain's involvement. It's extremely hard to imagine a Prime Minister Kennedy getting this country entangled in a murderous imperialist bloodbath that will stain this island for decades to come. Perhaps 7 July would have occurred regardless, but a reading of Islamist terrorist groups' tactics -- targeting only the coalition countries -- makes it seem very unlikely. This is indeed far from the beginning of the end, which will only come when the government stops doing the terrorists' job for them.

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As for the 90 days law - I agree that it was probably too long. I would have preferred that the amendment tabled by Janet Anderson of 60 days had been taken up. 28 days isn't a very long time to gather evidence on something as complex as a covert terror op. Especially as many covert survailence techniques require a lot of red tape (and therefore time) for authorisation.

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But a long time to rot in a cell. To my mind, anything beyond the historic 48 hours in unacceptable in any circumstances, and 24 hours should be the norm. Citing technical difficulties is a time-honored figleaf for authoritarianism. I remember the best excuse the government could come up with to boost regular pre-charge detention from 24 to 36 hours was a lack of interpreters: the obvious solution, employing more, wasn't even discussed. The billions the government has ploughed into ID cards could be funneled into boosting police resources. Abolishing procedural safeguards is always the easy option, but rarely works, because as well as protecting the suspect, tight standards ensure better investigations. Leveling a criminal charge is not the end of the investigation process. All a charge means is a criminal conviction should be technically possible.

What the press didn't mention when reporting Australia's anti-terrorism coup was that pre-charge detention for terrorism cases there is 24 hours, possible because in Australia, as in every other country, wiretap evidence is admissible in court. The government has refused to allow that here because striping people of their most fundamental civil rights is so much simpler.

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oh and... It takes more than one PROPOSED change in law to make someone qualify as a tyrant. Just another language point that irked me.

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Except of course it's not one proposed change, it's the most extreme manifestation of a long-term agenda for the destruction of individual freedom and the creation of a police state.

Witness a small sample of the damning list: secret courts that deny the accused access to the evidence used against them; admission of evidence extracted under torture; retention of innocent people's DNA; abolition of double jeopardy; frequent attacks on jury trial; biometric ID cards. The shameful catalogue cracks the very backbone of what it means to be free. A bugbear of the mainstream left that irks me is their utter weakness in the face of those who soil all they hold dear. I don't call someone a tyrant lightly, but Blair earns the charge a thousand times over with his dedicated campaign to strip the people of this island of their hard won liberties. He has the stench of the Star Chamber about him, and would do well to remember the ultimate of fate of that man behind that.

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by Byron
(quotes)
Depends on the integrity of the secret service. After David Shayler and 45 minutes to nowhere, I'm not inclined to believe the Spooks version.

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Neither am I, By! But the integrity of the Service is a different (although certainly linked) matter,

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Because they have suspicious about an entirely innocent person, and it's easier to sling them in a cell for 3 months than mount a complex surveilance operation. Because they've made a mistake. All sorts of reasons. You're detained on suspicion, you're charged on evidence. Surely you're not so trusting as to believe the cops only go after guilty people with the purest of motives?

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Yes it IS a lot easier, but these guys are not total morons, they do their job brilliantly for the most part, especially restained by the political correctness and niceties that they have to cope with in certain areas. But I agree there are probably some racists and bullies and thugs in the police force, but do these people tend to be interested in progressing to the more specialist areas? Are they allowed to take command of anti-terror operations? If they ARE, then they probably have the skills and mindset deemed necessary to keep your and my lives safe, even if that means wrongly detaining a couple of suspects for a while.

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They could, but they won't, we all know which demographic the police will go after. The recent case of an entirely innocent Muslim bookshop being pulled apart on the basis of a dodgy informant springs to mind.

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Oh wait, so what you’re saying is that they’ll target the demographic of the perceived threat??!?! Who’d have thunk it?!?!?! But if you're looking for extremist Muslim terrorists then it’s not much good looking in a druidic sewing circle for old ladies is it? If you were looking for a female druidic terrorist in her 70's then maybe…

Again, revising the procedure for acting on informant information and the length of detention period are not really linked directly are they?

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The question is how much better would they be without them. Internment gave the marginalised IRA mainstream appeal and killed off the non-violent civil rights movement. That's an accepted political reality.

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Different situation, different types of terrorist and I’d presume, different goals. I agree that the IRA
gained a sort of Robin Hood status amongst certain groups, so yes I agree you make a good point there. But was that the ability to hold folks, or the internment of known/proven/admitted/suspected IRA members that caused that? (actual question and in no way hypothetical)

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The question isn't how do you attract away sociopaths, it's how you stop normal people becoming radicalised. Writing terrorists off as sociopaths and mademen is a cop out. They're ordinary people who chose a barbaric path, and bringing in extremist policies drives you further away from the position of winning hearts and minds.

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But how would you win hearts and minds, without compromising the country? I agree you’ve got to stop folks from being radicalized, but if you can’t prevent those who are instigating it, from doing so, it becomes VERY hard to prevent.

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The burden of proving the case for draconian laws in on the part of those proposing them. The police and government singually failed to do so. What evidence do you have that says they were right?

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A VERY fair point, and I have none to hand and haven’t researched it nor do I have the inclination to prove it factually, certainly not for the purpose of a chat board like this one, as you so rightly said,
“The burden of proving the case for draconian laws in on the part of those proposing them” and I didn’t propose them. I support them, because on the face of it, the extra security that might be gained by all outweighs many times over the loss of liberty to some.

I don’t see any real evidence against them, and do those who object have anything more than “ooh it impinges on civil liberties!!!” Not seen anything presented here really…

1) *If* I had the misfortune to be arrested by the police because they thought I was involved in some sort of terrorist activity it would not make me a howling extremist who was going to blow up a bus . If I was held for 24/48hrs it would be inconvenient, for 3 months would be a slightly distressing *however* I'd know the police would only be doing there job and seeing as how I'm not looking for ways to kill thousands of innocent people I'm sure they'd find nothing and I'd be suitably compensated for my loss of liberty.
You'd receive no compensation whatsoever, and you must lead a most curious life if three months in a cell would only be "slightly distressing" to you.
2) I wonder how your view would change if some sort of terrorist activity actually affected you? If you had a loved one killed by a suicide bomber who it later turned out the police would have liked to have held for 3 months on suspicion but couldn't, would you be blaming the police for there inaction or would you take the view that Mr Bomber, while maybe killing a score of people, always had his civil rights.
3) I'd love to know where you get all your insider knowledge of the British political system...I'm guessing from reading private eye as most politicians boy of the month are from Brazil.

To conclude I think, as usual, that Byron's political rambles are not worth the 1's and 0's they're written with. They're actually a good testamnent to why drug use can cloud your mind and destroy brainscells but hey-ho.

(glitch, please ignore edit msg)

(Edited by Staff 13/11/2005 18:53)

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by MonSTeR
Neither am I, By! But the integrity of the Service is a different (although certainly linked) matter,

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Although integrity is decided in large part by what you're allowed to get away with.

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Yes it IS a lot easier, but these guys are not total morons, they do their job brilliantly for the most part, especially restained by the political correctness and niceties that they have to cope with in certain areas. But I agree there are probably some racists and bullies and thugs in the police force, but do these people tend to be interested in progressing to the more specialist areas? Are they allowed to take command of anti-terror operations? If they ARE, then they probably have the skills and mindset deemed necessary to keep your and my lives safe, even if that means wrongly detaining a couple of suspects for a while.

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You don't have to be a racist thug to misuse power. An officer can honestly believe they're right, and be completely wrong. But that said, excessive powers invariably create excessive abuses. Just witness the sorry parade of wrongly convicted people from the troubles.

And as I and (God help me I'm quoting a Tory approvingly) David Davis have said, the government has yet to make the case increased detention would keep us safe.

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Oh wait, so what you’re saying is that they’ll target the demographic of the perceived threat??!?! Who’d have thunk it?!?!?! But if you're looking for extremist Muslim terrorists then it’s not much good looking in a druidic sewing circle for old ladies is it? If you were looking for a female druidic terrorist in her 70's then maybe…

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Perceived threat is exactly the point. It's easy to overestimate and tar people with the same brush. All the figures to date show the actual number of Islamist terrorists is far below the popular perception fuelled by the authorities' claims.

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Again, revising the procedure for acting on informant information and the length of detention period are not really linked directly are they?

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They're linked by demonstrating the same "Storm in, questions later" mindset.

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Different situation, different types of terrorist and I’d presume, different goals. I agree that the IRA gained a sort of Robin Hood status amongst certain groups, so yes I agree you make a good point there. But was that the ability to hold folks, or the internment of known/proven/admitted/suspected IRA members that caused that? (actual question and in no way hypothetical)

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It wasn't the only cause of course, but it's commonly accepted it massively boosted the Provisionals' recruits. Britain ignored the European Court of Human Rights ruling against internment; it was abandoned because it was a manifest failure. The hundreds of innocent suspects who were rounded up fabricated information to get out. It was an intelligence fiasco.

And the picture the government paints of the IRA as gentlemen terrorists doesn't tally with my memory of ruthless killers using sometimes late, sometimes false warnings to provoke maximum panic. They were a different type of threat to the Islamists, but what they lacked in fanaticism they made up for in resources.

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But how would you win hearts and minds, without compromising the country? I agree you’ve got to stop folks from being radicalized, but if you can’t prevent those who are instigating it, from doing so, it becomes VERY hard to prevent.

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But again, no one's shown these laws will prevent anything. Whereas their opponents have shown a similar approach in the past has been an utter failure.

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A VERY fair point, and I have none to hand and haven’t researched it nor do I have the inclination to prove it factually, certainly not for the purpose of a chat board like this one, as you so rightly said,
“The burden of proving the case for draconian laws in on the part of those proposing them” and I didn’t propose them. I support them, because on the face of it, the extra security that might be gained by all outweighs many times over the loss of liberty to some.

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Abandonment of cherished freedoms should require a ton more justification than "on the face of it". Tyrants always rely on the public's complicity by first stripping rights from unpopular minorities. People tend not to get too worked up about what doesn't affect them. But the loss spreads like a cancer through society. Our whole way of life is eventually changed. If you ignore what doesn't directly affect you, you'll find yourself powerless against what eventually does.

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I don’t see any real evidence against them, and do those who object have anything more than “ooh it impinges on civil liberties!!!” Not seen anything presented here really…

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It's a sad state we're in when the thought of something impinging on our civil liberties evokes anything but cold dread. I find myself agreeing with Peter Hitchens, we've had civil rights for so long in this country we assume it's the natural state of existence. Our complacency will ensure we soon realise that it isn't. Ask yourself this: what have governments done to earn the massive trust you're gifting them?

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by Milky
*If* I had the misfortune to be arrested by the police because they thought I was involved in some sort of terrorist activity it would not make me a howling extremist who was going to blow up a bus . If I was held for 24/48hrs it would be inconvenient, for 3 months would be a slightly distressing *however* I'd know the police would only be doing there job and seeing as how I'm not looking for ways to kill thousands of innocent people I'm sure they'd find nothing and I'd be suitably compensated for my loss of liberty.

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You'd receive no compensation whatsoever, and you must lead a very quiet, financially secure life if three months in a cell would only be "slightly distressing" to you.

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I wonder how your view would change if some sort of terrorist activity actually affected you

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My view might well change, which only proves the obvious truth that people can't make rational policy judgements about the source of their trauma. After the Birmingham Four's convictions were quashed, some of the pub bombing victims' relatives said they should stay banged up regardless because "someone should pay". The mother of one 7 July casualty said terrorist suspects should be banged up for 900 days without charge. I can't blame them for holding those views, but I'm hardly going to use them as a guide to good policy. This cult of the victim is nothing but a substitution of emotional manipulation for reasoned argument.

And it's highly selective. This may surprise you, but not every victim becomes a frothing authoritarian. Embarrassingly for the Sun, the bloodied man they plastered over their front page to shame people into supporting the law, John Tulloch, was in truth completely against it, and feels furious at how his image has been abused.

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If you had a loved one killed by a suicide bomber who it later turned out the police would have liked to have held for 3 months on suspicion but couldn't, would you be blaming the police for there inaction or would you take the view that Mr Bomber, while maybe killing a score of people, always had his civil rights.

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And again: the authorities have yet to come up with a scrap of evidence that three months without charge would prevent a terrorist atrocity. Before 7 July control orders were marketed as the tool to keep us safe from terrorism. Now it's this.

Our liberties keep disappearing, but the terrorists keep coming.

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I'd love to know where you get all your insider knowledge of the British political system...I'm guessing from reading private eye as most politicians boy of the month are from Brazil.

To conclude I think, as usual, that Byron's political rambles are not worth the 1's and 0's they're written with. They're actually a good testamnent to why drug use can cloud your mind and destroy brainscells but hey-ho.

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And someone relying on personal abuse to prop up their argument is hardly in a position to criticise other people's debating style, are they?

(Edited by Byron 13/11/2005 21:29)

Argh all these long replies are hurting my brain!

I personally do not have a problem with Tony Blair, there are plenty of Prime Ministers who have done worse, and he's *alot* better than Gordon Brown....

I also firmly agree with the 90 days idea. I know this sounds harsh but I am absoloutely sick of hearing about human rights etc etc all this political correctness makes me feel very claustrophobic indeed, I feel like I can't have any say anymore.

And if someone has done something wrong and has been involved in terrorist activity, surely it is better to give the police slightly longer to gather a case together. Otherwise people are just going to get away with it.

It's all well and good the House of Commons going "oh yay we're going to defy Tony Blair" or "oh yay we don't believe in opression of human rights" but at the end of the day it's going to be the general public of the country that is going to be attacked, not them.

Argh it just frustrates me!

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by Miss Corrupt
Argh all these long replies are hurting my brain!

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Then I'll try to be brief. (I know, rather like Jack Hackett saying he'll try to be sober.)

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I personally do not have a problem with Tony Blair, there are plenty of Prime Ministers who have done worse, and he's *alot* better than Gordon Brown....

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Don't see much difference between them to be honest. Brown's as right-wing as Blair, maybe more so, and up to his neck in everything the PM is.

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I also firmly agree with the 90 days idea. I know this sounds harsh but I am absoloutely sick of hearing about human rights etc etc all this political correctness makes me feel very claustrophobic indeed, I feel like I can't have any say anymore.

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Perhaps you'll be less "sick" of your rights the day you have need of them. The depth of people's hatred for their own liberties never ceases to amaze me. And I'm failing to see what a defence of the speedy trial doctrine, which has been around for centuries, has to do with "political correctness".

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And if someone has done something wrong and has been involved in terrorist activity, surely it is better to give the police slightly longer to gather a case together. Otherwise people are just going to get away with it.

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But the vast majority arrested on suspicion were released without charge: they hadn't done anything wrong. The police can continue to put their case together after an individual has been charged. What they cannot do is aggressively interrogate them, and demanding that power in relation to the hardened fanatics Blair claims this law is intended for makes little sense; someone willing to kill themselves for their faith isn't going to have any problem keeping sctum for three months.

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It's all well and good the House of Commons going "oh yay we're going to defy Tony Blair" or "oh yay we don't believe in opression of human rights" but at the end of the day it's going to be the general public of the country that is going to be attacked, not them.

Argh it just frustrates me!

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Most MPs travel on public transport and walk through the same streets we all do. They chucked out the measure because no evidence was offered that three months detention would have stopped a single attack.

Even if it did, far more people would suffer at the UK turning into a police state than the tragic but limited numbers who die in terrorist atrocities. The government's case rests on the logic of "The most important civil liberty is life." But there is something worse than death, and that's the life made not worth the living by government oppression. Generations of brave men and women gave their own lives and livelihoods to secure the freedoms we enjoy. Casting them aside at the first bomb gives terrorists a greater victory than they could ever achieve with their meagre force of arms.

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by Byron

Don't see much difference between them to be honest. Brown's as right-wing as Blair, maybe more so, and up to his neck in everything the PM is.

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I think fundamentally I just don't agree with his cuts within the civil service as I think it's really important, and with my Mum being a civil servant herself I first handedly have seen evidence that we certainly do not need any more cuts!

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Perhaps you'll be less "sick" of your rights the day you have need of them. The depth of people's hatred for their own liberties never ceases to amaze me. And I'm failing to see what a defence of the speedy trial doctrine, which has been around for centuries, has to do with "political correctness".

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Political correctness is not explicitly related to the speedy trial doctrine, but imprisonment in general. I'm sick of seeing groups campaigning for people who have done a crime, for example child abuse, and have been sent to prison and have then openly declared that they are sorry for what they have done. Imprisonment is to remove someone from society, and with the example of child abuse there is a difference of feeling sorry for your actions and being able to control your urges. You do the crime, you do the time, simple as that. Okay sorry for the digression but I thought I needed to just explain myself clearly there.

I have the need for my human rights every day. I have the right to a name, the right to an educated, equal opportunities, protection from abuse, and so on. So you can cease to be amazed now

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But the vast majority arrested on suspicion were released without charge: they hadn't done anything wrong. The police can continue to put their case together after an individual has been charged. What they cannot do is aggressively interrogate them, and demanding that power in relation to the hardened fanatics Blair claims this law is intended for makes little sense; someone willing to kill themselves for their faith isn't going to have any problem keeping sctum for three months.

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I cannot claim to know if the "vast majority" were released without charge because I don't know any of the statistics begind it. But surely that is the same with all crimes, you get people who you suspect who have done it, and others who haven't. And I would say that police interrogation is pretty tough as it is at the moment, and the term "agressive interrigation" is very unclear because it leaves the question when does interrogation become aggresive?

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They chucked out the measure because no evidence was offered that three months detention would have stopped a single attack.

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I just don't believe that at all. But that's entirely subjective.

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My view might well change, which only proves the obvious truth that people can't make rational policy judgements about the source of their trauma. After the Birmingham Four's convictions were quashed, some of the pub bombing victims' relatives said they should stay banged up regardless because "someone should pay". The mother of one 7 July casualty said terrorist suspects should be banged up for 900 days without charge. I can't blame them for holding those views, but I'm hardly going to use them as a guide to good policy. This cult of the victim is nothing but a substitution of emotional manipulation for reasoned argument.

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But the other side of the coin is that our lack of being able to imagine the feelings theses people must be going through makes us just as guilty when we say "well they're just upset, their judgement is clouded" because our judgement is clouded because we have only seen it from the one side too. And some people who haven't been directly affected by terrorism are also very irrational!

Okay I'll have to seem a hypocrite now, because this is a long 'un. Sorry guys!

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by Miss Corrupt
Political correctness is not explicitly related to the speedy trial doctrine, but imprisonment in general. I'm sick of seeing groups campaigning for people who have done a crime, for example child abuse, and have been sent to prison and have then openly declared that they are sorry for what they have done. Imprisonment is to remove someone from society, and with the example of child abuse there is a difference of feeling sorry for your actions and being able to control your urges. You do the crime, you do the time, simple as that. Okay sorry for the digression but I thought I needed to just explain myself clearly there.

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I don't really see what relevance campaigns to improve the rights of convicted people have to detention time for unconvinced terrorist suspects. It's perfectly possible to hold extreme libertarian views on the innocent and draconian ones on the guilty; in fact until very recently it was the basis for our legal system.

And I remain completely baffled what "political correctness", a belief restricting offensive language prevents offensive behaviour, has to do with any of it!

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I have the need for my human rights every day. I have the right to a name, the right to an educated, equal opportunities, protection from abuse, and so on. So you can cease to be amazed now

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You don't consider due process a "human right" then?

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I cannot claim to know if the "vast majority" were released without charge because I don't know any of the statistics begind it. But surely that is the same with all crimes, you get people who you suspect who have done it, and others who haven't.

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The stats are public record, so that matter isn’t in dispute. You're right, you arrest the people you suspect have done it, but that suspicion should be a reasonable one. Such a wide discrepancy between arrest and charge is very unusual, and suggests it isn't.

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And I would say that police interrogation is pretty tough as it is at the moment, and the term "agressive interrigation" is very unclear because it leaves the question when does interrogation become aggresive?

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The type of interrogation allowed after a suspect has been charged is far more restrictive than that before, usually only to clear up discrepancies with earlier statements. This is because, as the state has now made a formal allegation, it's considered unfair to continue to pursue the accused for evidence you can use against them.

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I just don't believe that at all. But that's entirely subjective.

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Check for yourself. There were lots of assertions from the police and government, but not a scrap of hard evidence that detaining terrorists beyond 14 days would save lives. At prime minister's questions, Michael Howard demanded the prime minister give an example of such a case: answer there came none.

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But the other side of the coin is that our lack of being able to imagine the feelings theses people must be going through makes us just as guilty when we say "well they're just upset, their judgement is clouded" because our judgement is clouded because we have only seen it from the one side too. And some people who haven't been directly affected by terrorism are also very irrational!

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Whether they're clouded or not is really beside the point, which was that the opinions of victims carry no special weight. Arguments must be judged solely by their merits, not by our sympathy for the person expressing them. Laws based on emotion are invariably poor ones, and I for one don't want the country captive to emotive views co-opted to further the agenda of trash media.

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by Byron
Check for yourself. There were lots of assertions from the police and government, but not a scrap of hard evidence that detaining terrorists beyond 14 days would save lives. At prime minister's questions, Michael Howard demanded the prime minister give an example of such a case: answer there came none.

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But is there evidence form reliable sources in paralled situations that documents the contrary?

A scrap of hard evidence that detaining terrorists beyond 14 days would NOT save lives?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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by MonSTeR
(quotes)

But is there evidence form reliable sources in paralled situations that documents the contrary?

A scrap of hard evidence that detaining terrorists beyond 14 days would NOT save lives?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Trying to reverse the burden of proof is always a good sign an argument's been lost ... or someone's playing devil's advocate.

The government's inability to prove its case is itself evidence of absence. All terrorist arrests are public record, and not a single case exists where a suspect was arrested, held for 14 days, had to be released for lack of evidence and went on to commit an atrocity.

Laws must always be based on what has been, not what might be, because you can't disprove a negative. I could say banging people up for 20 years without charge would save lives, and you'd have to let me because you couldn't disprove what hasn't happened. That way lies Minority Report.

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by Byron

Trying to reverse the burden of proof is always a good sign an argument's been lost ... or someone's playing devil's advocate.

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You can't prove the Earth is round therefore it MUST be flat... but, sail around it and HOLY SCHIZNIT!!! It IS round... see, absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence.

It's not a sign of losing an argument, it's just a scientific approach to looking at a situation. Besides, I'm not arguing, I'm just discussing, therefore no-one can "win".

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by Byron
The government's inability to prove its case is itself evidence of absence.

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No... see above.

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by ByronAll terrorist arrests are public record, and not a single case exists where a suspect was arrested, held for 14 days, had to be released for lack of evidence and went on to commit an atrocity.

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And again, and yes here I am playing devils advocate, was proven to commit an atrocity. Could it be that after the arrest, the individual was considered compromised and thus shut out of whatever he had been previously involved in... You just can't know... Or he could have gotten away with it or passed on information to his successor or something else...

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by Byron
Laws must always be based on what has been, not what might be, because you can't disprove a negative. I could say banging people up for 20 years without charge would save lives, and you'd have to let me because you couldn't disprove what hasn't happened.

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In principle I do agree, laws need to be based on something tangible. But you can't disprove a negative either way. will the 90 day law fail to prevent further terrorist atrocities? Who knows? there's never been a test, or a pilot scheme or whatever, especially not against this sort of domestic terrorism, admittedly though I do concede that the NI situation which was again pretty much a domestic threat, would probably be the closest analogue, but I think that there are so many differences, it only gives the loosest of comparisons. - Maybe you're right though and one should base the laws on the nearest comparison you can draw. anyone else have opinions on the Northern Ireland / Al Queda parallel?

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by Byron
That way lies Minority Report.

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Exactly, but the opposite way lies Mad Max where the police are powerless and when there IS a psychopath that's caught and there's not enough evidence to convict the bad guy, (and the police aren't allowed to beat a confession out of him ) said psycho goes on a murder spree killing Max's best friend, his wife and his child...
Nice cars though

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by MonSTeR
(quotes)

You can't prove the Earth is round therefore it MUST be flat... but, sail around it and HOLY SCHIZNIT!!! It IS round... see, absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence.

It's not a sign of losing an argument, it's just a scientific approach to looking at a situation. Besides, I'm not arguing, I'm just discussing, therefore no-one can "win".[/b]

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Wooden spoon Mon? "There is no spoon!" *groan* *apologies*

Not really a fair analogy as you can prove the earth is round without sailing round it. (That old trick with the ruler and the horizon for one, complicated calculations regarding its curvature if you want to get technical.) Better would be me claiming I'd just flown to Pluto and back and saying, "Disprove that!" Claims always bear the burden of proof: if someone can't offer evidence, it's not proven. Might be possible, but not proven.

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And again, and yes here I am playing devils advocate, was [b]proven to commit an atrocity. Could it be that after the arrest, the individual was considered compromised and thus shut out of whatever he had been previously involved in... You just can't know... Or he could have gotten away with it or passed on information to his successor or something else... [/b]

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Again it's all guesswork. As you say "You just can't know", and if lived by that logic, we'd be barcoded by the end of the week.

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In principle I do agree, laws need to be based on something tangible. But you can't disprove a negative either way. will the 90 day law fail to prevent further terrorist atrocities? Who knows? there's never been a test, or a pilot scheme or whatever, especially not against this sort of domestic terrorism, admittedly though I do concede that the NI situation which was again pretty much a domestic threat, would probably be the closest analogue, but I think that there are so many differences, it only gives the loosest of comparisons. - Maybe you're right though and one should base the laws on the nearest comparison you can draw. anyone else have opinions on the Northern Ireland / Al Queda parallel

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There's a fundamental difference between evidence-based predictions, and pure guesswork. If you can point to fatal flaws in the status quo you're not asking you opponents to disprove a negative because you have a tangible evidence there is a problem, and can use that patern of evidence to substantiate a probable outcome. Whereas if you've no evidence the status quo is flawed, your predictions rest on a bed of sand. Disproving them would be disproving a negative because there's nothing behind them.

That, and if the burden was to disprove proposals, governments would be packed with even more laziness than is already the case.

Proposed laws don't have to be factually wrong for me to oppose them. I completely opposed, and continue to, the abolition of the right to silence, but on grounds of principle; the Tories provided a pattern of evidence that showed it was very probable their desired ends would be met. (And they were.) I simply disagreed with those ends. I've already outlined the argument why 90 days should be opposed even if it achieved what it set out to, but I'm sticking with the practicalities because they're far more conclusive.

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[b]Exactly, but the opposite way lies Mad Max where the police are powerless and when there IS a psychopath that's caught and there's not enough evidence to convict the bad guy, (and the police aren't allowed to beat a confession out of him ) said psycho goes on a murder spree killing Max's best friend, his wife and his child...
Nice cars though

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Maybe we can settle on Demolition Man. Though you'll be needing the three seashells if "Checkpoint" Charlie is running things.

(Edited by Staff 05/12/2005 20:01)