Obsolete

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Beheading videos and sillily overreacting.

Sometimes you just have to simply despair at the overreaction where anything slightly related to terrorism comes to public notice:

Video clips of al-Qaida-inspired terrorists beheading people have been found on the mobile phone of a 12-year-old boy, a senior police officer revealed yesterday.
The footage was found by teachers who reported the child, who is white, to police after he sent clips to his classmates.
The discovery was revealed yesterday to show how children of all religions could be attracted to al-Qaida. West Yorkshire's chief constable, Sir Norman Bettison, said terrorist propaganda was spreading like a virus, and warned that every Muslim child in Britain could be at risk.

This ludicrous interpretation is based on the premise that jihadist propaganda is so dangerous that anyone so much as watching it is likely to be attracted to the ideology behind it. I'd argue that the absolute opposite is the case, at least when it comes to the snuff films that were for a while all the rage in Iraq; why else would al-Zawahiri himself have apparently ordered that al-Qaida in Iraq stop releasing them, other than because of the revulsion they were causing and continue to cause except in the most bloodthirsty of the gorehounds? ISI as a result switched to the slightly more humane execution method, at least when they were filming them, of a point blank shot to the head. A recent raid in Iraq itself that turned up a treasure trove of media releases, if you could call them that, revealed that AQI/ISI had continued to record most of the beheadings which were carried out, but hadn't released them, which as the account noted was close to the level of documentation which the Khmer Rouge gave to those that they murdered. Similarly, Mullah Omar, the erstwhile head of the Taliban recently made gave more or less the same edict, calling for an end to the beheadings of "spies" and other unfortunates caught up in the anarchy of Afghanistan/the lawless regions of Pakistan, presumably because of the outcry over the release of a video showing a child beheading a man.

Rather, the beheading videos just show the barbarity of the likes of AQ/ISI, especially when so many of those executed, rather than being Westerners, were Iraqis that had committed the crime of "spying" for the occupiers or working for either the police or Iraqi army. Two of the most horrific executions were in fact not carried about by al-Qaida in Iraq/MSC/ISI but by Ansar al-Sunnah, which has now reverted to its original moniker of Ansar al-Islam, a group with an almost indistinguishable Salafi takfirist ideology from ISI, but which has never joined the ISI for reasons unknown. The first, and one of the most notorious was of 12 Nepalese cooks. Only one was beheaded, but the deliberately appalling way in which he was killed has stuck in the memory of many due to the killer only initally severing the man's trachea, leaving him unable to breathe, his windpipe making a chilling, blood-curdling noise as he struggles for breath, before he finally succumbs, some 25 seconds later. The other 11 were lackadaisically shot, almost as an afterthought, with hardly any of them being killed instantly, or even approaching quickly. The reaction in Nepal could have been predicted; Kathmandu saw its two mosques attacked, and riots across the city. Seif Adnan Kanaan was the second, who in the video says he works at Mosul airport, where he also supplied Americans with beverages. He is later seen being beheaded slowly, before the masked man cuts deep enough to sever the jugular, leading the killer to pull his head back, with the blood gushing from his neck in a torrent. Like in many of the other recorded murders, his head is then placed on his back. If anyone is seriously attracted to such groups and their mindset after viewing either, then their psychiatrists are going to be incredibly happy.

Instead, what has obviously happened in this case is that the boy has been browsing the numerous video websites with a slightly more challenging selection of delights than YouTube, or visited one of the similarly vast selection of gore websites that also exists. He and his friends have already doubtless browsed the porn sites, and he's just gone the next inquisitive step up. His mistake appears to have been in getting caught and someone in the chain of command completely overreacting; this has nothing whatsoever to do with any attraction to a terrorist group.

He [Bettison] raised the example of the 12-year-old during a speech at the Association of Chief Police Officers annual conference in Liverpool. The boy has been referred to a project to divert people from extremism before they turn violent. His parents are not Muslim.

Sigh. This boy didn't need referring to any spurious project; he needed to be treated like anyone else at that age examining death and life's extremes which the internet provides in spades. Yes, he shouldn't be viewing such things at all at that age, but that's no reason for him to be treated as a potential terrorist simply because he's seen such videos. The whole thing comes across as some grotesque charade, to be seen to be doing something, especially in its apparent view that Muslims are more susceptible simply because they share the religion, as if they too aren't disgusted and turned off by some of the brutality recorded by insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere.

Jihadist propaganda is potentially a worry, but that it is only really likely to be sought out by individuals already inquisitive about the current conflicts where mujahideen groups are fighting shows the limited reach it is always likely to have. Influencing those in the West is only one of the aims of such releases, whether they be potential jihadists or the public at large, in order to give the impression that such wars can never be won against such hostile enemies, but the main aim by them has always been an insular one, to keep the jihadi community itself salving at the bit, while showing off the group's own achievements. At the same time it also provides those monitoring such groups with an invaluable insight into them, one which almost balances out the negative effects of their release in the first place. This is why legislation against them, something which has been threatened, needs to be opposed. A change in attitude from complete horror and the "something must be done" attitude whenever someone also gives into temptation and inquisitiveness also wouldn't go amiss either.

Labels: al-Qaida, beheadings, jihadists, Norman Bettison, online jihadists, terror

6/26/2008 09:23:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The paedophile Nazi nail bomber.

Martyn Gilleard only had the 39,000 indecent images of children. Oh, and the four nail bombs under his bed. Not to mention the knives, swords, handcuffs, and print-outs on how to make bombs and poisons. Then there's the writings on the impotence of the far-right for not carrying through on the often talked about online ideals of bombing mosques, killing Muslims and so forth. Just in case anyone thought he wasn't serious and just some lone figure, he was also a member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party (although that might be expired as the WNP morphed into the Nationalist Alliance) and the British People's Party. Finally, he also posed in front of a AWB flag (also taken up as the Blood and Honour group's logo), although doubtless he's never been to South Africa or has any links with the country whatsoever.

Gilleard with Eddy Morrison, National Advisor of the British People's Party.

It's the British People's Party that's integral to this story however. According to Indymedia, far from being just some ordinary member of yet another split from a split from a split, Gilleard was the BPP's Goole and East Yorkshire organiser. Handily, Indymedia also has a photograph of Gilleard with Eddy Morrison, the "National Advisor of the BPP". The BPP's leader is Kevin Watmough, who also runs the Redwatch website, and whom as Indymedia report, was forced to protest that Gilleard had not been grassed to the police by any members of the BPP. Perhaps that's true, but just in case the BPP and others until recently had pages up making clear their support for Gilleard.

Sadly, it seems that Gilleard never saw fit to mention that far from just being raided for his equipment gathered in case the imminent race war breaks out, he was first targeted because of his predilection for children. If there's one thing that the neo-Nazis hate more than someone with a skin colour other than white, it's a paedophile of any colour. Understandably, the BPP quickly changed its tune over its "martyr", as evidenced by this page:

Having just learnt (today) the exact nature of the charges against Martyn Gilleard in Leeds Crown Court, he has been summarily expelled from the British People's Party and we strongly advise that no White Nationalist should give him any further support. The BPP has been lied too regarding this former member's charges and has acted swiftly to remove him from the membership rolls. We advise all patriots to withdraw any and all support from this man in the light of what has been revealed today (but is subject to court restrictions of reporting), and also be advised that this man should never again be allowed into any decent Nationalist group.
The National Executive Council,
The British People's Party

Not, you understand, because he dreamed of bombing mosques, but because he was a nonce.

Seeing as this blog has been notably sniffy in the past about some of the scaremongering over takfirist jihadists and the threat they pose, it should be pointed out that Gilleard was hardly about to become the next David Copeland; his "nail bombs" were 35mm film canisters with nails wrapped around the outside, intended to be used similarly to hand grenades. Like those he castigated as being all mouth and no trousers, it seems doubtful that Gilleard himself was going to actually act on his rhetoric, especially when surrounded by such cowards as those within the BPP.

It does bear repeating though that if this had been a Muslim found with nail bombs under his bed, thoughts on starting a jihad in this country against the indigenuous population along with photographs of him in front of al-Qaida's or the ISI's various banners, we might have heard rather more about it at a national level than we did prior to this man's trial. The real worry with the extreme far-right and its more belligerent members is not so much whether they'll go further than Gilleard and actually bomb mosques etc, but the response which will come afterwards. Their real agenda is not to kill Muslims, but to attempt to set off a reprise of the riots of 2001, albeit on a grander scale than before and through which they can attempt to benefit from the inevitable fallout. That could potentially have far more serious repercussions in the long run than any attempt by the next generation of jihadists to emulate the horrors of 7/7, and while we're obsessed with finding insights into the radicalisation of young Muslims, we also need to be aware of the anger building on the exact opposite side of the spectrum.

Labels: British People's Party, fascists, Martyn Gilleard, neo-Nazis, racism, terror, terrorism

6/24/2008 10:05:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I love a free country.

It wasn't quite the humiliation I was hoping for, but any sort of humiliation will do in the circumstances. This fallacious, grubby, mendacious, shitty little party that makes up this country's excuse for a government can't even manage to bribe enough of its own backbenchers to win the vote on 42 days on its own terms. We were elected as New Labour and we will govern as New Labour, said the past supreme leader. That involved relying on the Conservatives at one point to pass his "trust schools" legislation. Now Brown can boast that he's gone one better than his hated predecessor: he didn't have to rely on the Tories; he just had to prostitute himself to the Democratic Unionists. To call Ian Paisley's party the antithesis of everything that Gordon Brown and Labour claim to stand for might be putting it mildly: last weekend Iris Robinson, when asked to comment on a man who was beaten up in a homophobic attack, suggested to him that he should consider therapy to "cure" him of his homosexuality, and when that understandably caused some controversy, she then said that she didn't consider the man personally to be a sinner but that he was committing a sin which could be "redeemed by the blood of Christ".

It wasn't just the DUP which were bribed. The only Tory to vote with the government was Ann Widdecombe, whom we already knew was going to rebel, and like the DUP, is to the right of Genghis Khan. Also to the right of Attila the Hun is Bob Spink, the Tory MP who jumped before he was pushed, becoming the only UKIP MP in parliament, who also voted with the government. Like both Ann Widdecombe and the DUP, he too has something against gay people, voting very strongly against equal gay rights previously. What a merry band for the Labour party to rely on. Perhaps this is what Gordon Brown meant when he promised change: no longer will we just propose policies that the Conservatives routinely find agreeable, we'll now go further and legislate the way that Dr Ian Paisley would. Our values demand it.

You can't help but get the feeling that this is almost as bad, if not worse than losing the vote, which the government won by the 9 votes that the DUP provided. If the Labour rebellion had held up, then they could have at least argued that it was the dinosaur left, the usual suspects that had voted it down, and reading the 36 Labour rebels, most of them are members of the "awkward squad". Then they could have gone after the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, accusing them of ignoring the overwhelming will of the public themselves. Instead this just looks awful. It further undermines Brown's authority, showing that despite the constant phone calls, the arm-twisting, the begging and the throwing around of money at any cause which a backbencher mentioned, even that wasn't enough to persuade a majority of his majority to lay down both their arms and their principles. It's just pissed off almost the entirety of the media, except for the Sun and possibly the Express, with even the Brown-worshipping Paul Dacre not supporting his friend; further alienated the Labour core that he needs to win back over; and it hasn't even made the police's job any less frantic in the long run because of the hoops which now have to be jumped through to activate the additional time. The phrase, applied previously to the dodgy dossier by Jack Straw of "an absolute Horlicks" comes to mind.

The real opprobrium shouldn't land on the heads of those that have gone with this all along however, but rather on those that ummed and ahhed and then were finally bought off with whatever piecemeal little promise that Brown and the whips made. Salutations then to the supposed left-wingers Jon Trickett and Jon Cruddas, members of the Compass group of MPs that decided after all their pouting and calls for Labour to turn leftwards that supporting the government on the most regressive measure they've come up with recently was a fantastic idea. Congratulations to Mohammad Sarwar, supposedly bought by the disgusting non-concession of compensation for those released without charge after 28 days, but who others suggest was in fact persuaded by the prospect of being able to choose his successor in his seat, i.e., his son. And a big round of applause to Austin Mitchell, who didn't even barter with the whips for personal gain, but instead decided to stand right behind Gordon Brown just as he goes over the top, straight into no man's land:

Labour backbencher Austin Mitchell said he had intended to vote against 42 days, but changed his mind and backed the Government in order to "save Gordon Brown for the nation".
"I support him and I think he would be on his way out if he had been defeated on this," Mr Mitchell told Sky News.

Hell, if we're going to save Brown for the nation, we might as well get him stuffed and put in a glass case. We won't need to do the same with Mitchell; he's already got Brown up his arse, like Matthew Corbett has Sooty.

Still, what a wonderful day for democracy, and what a shining example we've just given to all those banana republics and oil oligarchies. You can almost imagine the conversation the next time the Saudis come to visit and Brown, out of the side of his mouth, mutters something almost inaudible about corruption and human rights. Sorry, says Abdullah, we're not taking any lectures from the bribers-in-chief in the House of Commons and from a country which can lock up suspects for 42 days without charge. We share the same values, don't you remember?

There is of course little chance that 42 days and the bill as a whole will get through the House of Lords, at least prior to the summer recess, meaning that this isn't going to pass onto the statute books just yet. We shouldn't have to rely however on the unelected to defend our civil liberties from such attack; and yet once again an anachronism is called upon to do just that. Every unnecessary dilution of our hard-won liberties in the face of the "terrorist threat" does their work for them, and yet only 36 Labour MPs were prepared to stand up and vote against a measure that will embitter and further stigmatise those that we desperately need to win over. Some will think that shameful. The biggest shame of all however is a Labour leader as hunkered down in his bunker, unwilling to listen as his predecessor, supporting and making deals with those he would once have said he had nothing in common with. If this isn't the beginning of the real start of the downfall of Gordon Brown, then it most certainly deserves to be.

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, death of Labour, Democratic Unionists, Gordon Brown, no compromise on 42 days, terror, terror laws, terror suspects

6/11/2008 08:43:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Brown should not just be humiliated, he must be humiliated.

42 reasons to mock the Sun.

The reading and voting on the 2008 Terrorism Bill has finally begun. It's been mentioned before, but it really does seem the mooted extension of detention without charge has been being discussed and debated now for years - because it has. As soon as Blair suffered his first humiliation in the Commons, an extension beyond 28 days was back on the agenda, and it's been evident from then that Gordon Brown isn't just going through with it now because it's a hangover from the Blair era: he's going through with it because he absolutely believes it is needed. Whether he's convinced himself of that in order to attempt to wrong foot the Conservatives is open to question, but there's no doubt that he has always supported an extension. Any attempt to claim that he doesn't and is going through the motions is wishful thinking, as are similar rumours that "Wacky" Jacqui Smith feels the same way. Her contempt for the opposition arguments, once greeting David Davis as he walked in the room after a requested meeting with, "So, you're still a 42-day denier then, are you?", as if his crime was someway similar to Holocaust denial, has always been obvious, as it has with the other irredeemable Labour minister, Tony McNulty.

The 42-day extension isn't the only truly objectionable part of this latest bill, as Judith Sunderland reminds us. Post-charge questioning was first suggested to help negate the need for a further detention without charge extension, but is now in the bill despite that, to doubtless be used and abused by the police for any advantage that they see fit, regardless of the familiar "safeguards" of judicial supervision and recording of all interrogations. Unlike in pre-charge detention, the bill makes clear that if someone who's been charged refuses to answer questions post-charge that it will be potentially held against them in court, limiting the right to silence. Considering that as Peter Clarke made clear in his recent Torygraph article supporting an extension that many "terrorist suspects" opt for silence, this seems to be yet another way of increasing the chances of a successful prosecution, helpful when so many arrested under the Terrorism Acts have previously failed to be charged.

Perhaps logically, the bill also creates another new register for those convicted of terrorist offences, to add to those for sexual and violent offenders. Of concern will be whether those convicted of "lesser offences", such as the heinous crime of downloading "material that may be useful to terrorists", which can apply to almost anything that the prosecution puts its mind to, will fall under this definition that will almost certainly prevent someone from doing almost anything with their lives without being under constant suspicion. Most of those found with material downloaded from the internet have received generally lenient sentences, such as the infamous "lyrical terrorist", who had a 9-month suspended sentence handed down and Abdul Muneem Patel, who served 6-months for having a US army explosives manual under his bed, but the case of Mohammed Atif Siddique, who although took it the next level, received an astonishing 8 years (Abu Hamza, by comparison, for radicalising numerous individuals and preaching murder for years got 7) shows that not everyone who just might be inquisitive is going to get off so easily. Just what is such a register going to do except further embitter those who need to be won over rather than endlessly persecuted? It may well be justified for those sentenced to over 10 years, but the case has not been made for lesser sentences, and unless the proposal is modified to be considered on a case-by-case basis it ought to be rejected.

Then there's the other really objectionable part of the bill. Just get a load of this:

The bill would allow the home secretary to let an inquest take place without a jury if it would involve "the consideration of material that should not be made public in the interests of national security, in the interest of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country, or otherwise in the public interest."

In other words, the government could more or less never have to let another potentially damaging inquest take place in public again. So broadly is this drawn that it wouldn't just cover the obvious, such as the embarrassing truth that the United States military doesn't give a shit about us and little things like "friendly fire" where they accidentally kill our servicemen or where the police accidentally kill Brazilians who get in the way when they're hunting terrorists, but also inquests into the deaths of those killed in terrorist attacks themselves, where the security services might be embarrassed by how some of those involved slipped through the net, right up to inquests which are required under Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, where a public inquiry is a necessity if there is significant evidence of wrongdoing by agents of the state where someone has lost their life. It is entirely open to ministerial interference and abuse, and desperately needs to be either substantially amended or defeated completely.

Desperation is once again wielding its ugly head. As legal adviser after legal adviser comes out against 42 days, the latest being the Scottish Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, with the former holder of the post also supporting her, journalists on both the Sun and Times (spot the connection) made wholly spurious claims that MI5 had actually come out in favour of 42 days after reports stating the fact that it had not requested any further extension. All the statement by Jonathan Evans in fact does is repeat that it has not adopted a position on the matter. After obtaining the amazing support of Sir Hugh Orde, chief of police in Northern Ireland, the Sun is now bigging up the fact that the head of the British Muslim Forum also supports the government, claiming he's the country's "top Muslim", which must be a highly sought after position. His point that Muslims are just as likely to be victims of attacks as the perpetrators is a sound one, but to be victimised twice over as the extension of time will almost certainly blots out any benefit to the Muslim community which it might bring. As Anthony Barnett writes in a lengthy but brilliant post which I think is the best summation of all the reasons to oppose 42 days which I've come across, of the studies that have been undertaken into how legislation and radicalisation affect Muslim communities, all have concluded that such measures are only likely to make things worse, with the trust factor which is so important in disrupting future plots being unnecessarily affected.

The Sun, which did so much last time to help the opposition defeat 90 days, is just as hysterical this time round. It's produced 42 of the most ludicrous, at times hilarious reasons for why 42 days is necessary, which I'd fisk if I'd have the effort to go through such non-sequiturs and statements of the obvious masquerading as reasons. The very first, that there have been more than 15 attempted attacks since 2001 is just waiting to be ripped apart. Even if you count the 21/7 attempts as four separate attacks (also listed as a reason), then add last year's failed Tiger Tiger and Glasgow airport bombings (also listed as a reason), and Nick Reilly's "amateur-hour" attempt last month (also listed as a reason; spot a pattern here?), then you don't come close to 15. The other most laughable reasons are:

An al-Qaeda video obtained by MI5 after 7/7 identified the Queen as a potential terror target. It branded her ‘one of the severest enemies of Islam’.

Christ, if they're prepared to target the Queen they must really mean business! Better vote for 42 days just in case!

15. European lawyers argue it would breach the human rights of terror suspects and be out of step with the rest of Europe.

Yes, this really is a reason. This is the level of contempt the Sun has for the rule of law and civil liberties in general.

The above isn't really aimed at those wavering in the Commons however; it's for public digestion, and the blatant scaremongering which has been on-going for years has had the unsurprising effect that a majority (65% according to one poll, 40% according to today's in the Times, with another 35% with the right safeguards) supports banging up "terrorist suspects" for 42 days. Ask the same question but put "indefinitely" rather than an amount and you probably wouldn't get that dissimilar an answer, as ministers at the time of 90 days claimed they had up to 80% support based on similar polls. This is one of those few measures on which public opinion, while still being very carefully considered, ought to be disregarded. Many will give away liberties if they believe it will bring security, especially if they aren't personally threatened by it, but as that famous quote by Benjamin Franklin has it, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

In any case, 42 days will not even bring a little temporary safety. 42 days will not prevent terrorist attacks and will be unlikely to stop any potential terrorist from committing an attack that might have been prevented if he had not been released after 28. Can the police really claim that the extra two weeks will be anything other than give them extra leeway should they not be in the mood to sift through such vast amounts of material as they claim to have been? Will something pop up on the 42nd day that couldn't have been found with more rigorous investigation on the 28th?

The latest wheeze from the Labour front-benches has been to offer compensation for those held beyond 28 days who are then subsequently released without charge. All this does is again highlight the extreme deprivation of liberty that 42 days will be, while admitting that innocent individuals will be caught up in it. Is 28 days in a police cell not bad enough already? Why not save the compensation by not extending the limit and instead using it improve police resources, or to win over the very communities that will be most affected by it? This has been Labour's conundrum from the beginning. Rather than concessions and safeguards, all the alterations to the measure have done is make the legislation even worse while still not winning enough Labour MPs over to swing the vote.

Tomorrow Gordon Brown deserves to not just be defeated, but humiliated. If it means the end of his premiership, or the calling of a vote of confidence, then so be it. If it means David Miliband as the next prime minister, then again, so be it. It's only if this illiberal, draconian, unwarranted and completely unnecessary deprivation of hard won civil-rights is again defeated that maybe both the police and the government itself will finally get the message that enough is enough. If Brown wants to martyr himself, clinging to the chapter and verse of Blair before him that the public support it and he's doing what's right, then once again, so be it. Today's news that pensioner poverty, child poverty and inequality have all again risen shows where Brown's real concerns are: on attempting to bludgeon the opposition while winning over the worst of the "popular" press rather than on the core Labour support. His government is finished; tomorrow might well tell us whether he'll manage to last as long as even his beloved party.

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, death of Labour, Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith, no compromise on 42 days, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, terror, terror laws, terror suspects, Terrorism Act 2008

6/10/2008 09:15:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Terrorists have personalities too!

Amazingly, according to the Telegraph. Jihadist wit is also the same as every other sort of wit:

Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a 30-year-old Kuwaiti said to have sent £60,000 to the 19 suicidal terrorists, made the press gallery snigger. Told by the judge that US military lawyers were being provided free of charge, he snapped back that America "tortured me free of charge, too".

You can't argue with that, can you?

Labels: al-Qaida, Guantanamo, jihadists, Telegraph, terror

6/07/2008 07:02:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Friday, June 06, 2008

42 days: the Murdoch press not speaking with one voice, and connected thoughts.

Memories...

As the vote on 42 days looms ever larger, the Murdoch press is, in a very rare occurrence, not speaking with one voice. While the Sun attempts to ratchet up the tension on the Labour backbenchers, the Conservatives and also doubtless the Democratic Unionist MPs who potentially could swing the vote, the Times seems to taking the opposite view.

While some of the Times's apparent sniffy view of 42 days might well be down to attempting to balance out publishing Gordon Brown's own justifications for the extended detention limit on Monday, it seems to be going out of its way to both publish critics and to question whether now after the "compromises" that alter the chilling power not one jot that it leaves the police even more caught up in bureaucracy. Its biggest coup is getting John Major, who rarely comments on politics at all, to write an article denouncing the measure in terms just as strong as anyone from Liberty. While it was Major's home secretary, Michael Howard, that started the authoritarian crackdown which Labour has happily carried on, coming from someone who was himself targeted by the IRA but who also later started the peace process that led to the Good Friday agreement, he deserves to be listened to.

As for the police now complaining the powers will be too convoluted if they are passed, most of it appears to be objection purely for the sake of it, and also to anyone other than themselves deciding exactly how dangerous an individual "suspect" is when it comes to them declaring they need longer than 28 days. Whoever was speaking to the Times however is bang on in this instance:

"Some of what is being proposed is very worrying because it amounts to a blurring of the lines between politics and operational policing.”

Well, exactly. Requiring parliament to vote on whether the temporary extension to 42 days should continue to be in place when those are still in custody is ridiculous on at least 3 levels. No MP is going to vote against it when they'll be jumped on if they let a "terrorist" go in the process; they can't make a judgement without knowing what evidence or case is against the individual, therefore potentially prejudicing any future trial; and finally, it's something that no politician should be deciding in the first place. To be fair to the government for half a second, they're trapped between a rock and a hard place: they can't win if they were just to extend the limit to 42 days with the same system which is currently in place, but their safeguards have both made the legislation worse while not altering the fact that 42 days is simply unacceptable, and no amount of pleading by the police or ministers that they need it either because of the level of threat or because of the complexity of the cases they're investigating is going to change that.

Hence why the Sun is now going for the only other tactic remaining: bring in the survivors, feed off "their lifetime of suffering", as the article is headlined, and make clear that the proposal must be adopted for all our sakes. When the Sun tried this method last time round, it splashed on its front page the image of John Tulloch in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks, implying that he supported both the government and the Sun's campaign. The only problem was that he didn't, and he was livid with being used in such a way. This time the Sun's been far more careful, interviewing 2 survivors of 7/7, 2 who lost relatives, Colin Parry, who lost his 12-year-old son in the IRA Warrington bomb, and Michael Gallagher, whose brother was killed by the IRA and who then lost his son in the Omagh bomb. All of them concentrate on the police needing more time, but it isn't just about that. It's also about the effect this has on the Muslim community, and disillusioning those that are fighting against the few that do have radical views. 42 days will only increase the grievances that some already hold, and make it even more difficult to increase the flow of intelligence from within.

If the Sun had wanted to add a semblance of balance, it could have asked the views of probably the most high profile 7/7 survivor, Rachel North, who opposes any increase. It could have asked John Tulloch and apologised for its previous distortion, but it seems this is too important an issue to give an opposing view a chance. This sort of statement also needs directly challenging, whether coming from someone who's lost a relative in a terrorist attack or not:

"If the suspects are innocent then they won’t have anything to worry about. If they are guilty then why are their human rights in custody more important than the rights of the people whose lives they were going to take, or may already have taken?"

Won't have anything to worry about? How would you feel about potentially being held for 42 days in a police cell, while your life outside falls apart with you falling under the highest of suspicions even if you are completely innocent? 42 days means potentially losing your job, losing your partner, losing your standing, losing everything. We don't know anything about those who were held for 27/28 days then released without charge and how it affected them, possibly because they didn't want any further publicity, or how those previously found innocent, such as the other "ricin" plotters, were then persecuted because the case was not proved against them. Through her remarks, already Stacy Beer is judging those arrested; no one is "guilty" until they proved that they are. Their rights are not more important than anyone else's; they deserve the same as everyone else, regardless of what they are accused of. John Major in his article also directly challenges the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" view that the Sun and others have constantly referred to:

The Government has been saying, in a catchy, misleading piece of spin: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This is a demagogue's trick. We do have something to fear - the total loss of privacy to an intrusive state with authoritarian tendencies.

We could also ask Rizwaan Sabir, someone who did have nothing to hide whether we have something to fear, as we could Hicham Yezza, the man who printed out the document he downloaded from a US government website, also held and due to be deported over completely separate immigration charges.

No one now is likely to change their minds willingly. As Diane Abbot made clear on the This Week last night, all the garbage about Jacqui Smith making a barnstorming speech that had convinced everyone was wishful thinking spun to the waiting hacks who had to quickly send in their copy to meet the deadlines. The real convincing had occurred over last weekend with Gordon repeating his cold-calling act on his MPs, with whips making similar threats and if that didn't work, resorting to wimpering begging. They want it to be changed from a matter concerning the drift of this country towards ever increasing police power and authoritarianism to an issue simply of Gordon Brown's leadership. If Brown has any courage left, he could even at this late hour admit defeat and withdraw the amendments from the bill. He would suffer further in the short-term, but his supposed moral compass and the ability to admit when he's got it wrong would in the end strengthen his leadership. Instead, if he loses, he'll be one step closer to the abyss.

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, John Major, no compromise on 42 days, Scum-watch, Stacy Beer, Sun-watch, terror, terror laws, terror suspects, Times-watch

6/06/2008 08:38:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

There is a grave exceptional threat from terrorists of mass destruction...

If it wasn't so serious it would almost be funny. The latest safeguard that will stop 42 days detention without charge being used to hold anyone with a beard and funny ideas is that the Home Secretary herself will have to decree that the extension can only be used when there is a "grave exceptional terrorist threat", such as an attack on the level of 7/7 taking place or feared to be about to take place. Like with all the other safeguards, it's both pointless and worthless. We're being constantly reminded that the threat we face from terrorism is, in the words of the ex-head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad Peter Clarke, "deadly and enduring". The brown-trousers-o-meter already declares that the current threat level is "severe", which means an attack is highly likely. How could we possibly tell the difference between a "grave exceptional" threat and the current level?

I mention Clarke because he too has now stepped into the breach with his own article on why 42 days is necessary, while, like Brown yesterday, making no real justification other than that the police have their resources stretched to be able to manage within 28 days. It's not worth fisking in full, but there are some parts that deserve answering:

In August 2004, Scotland Yard Anti-Terrorist Branch officers spent a fortnight sleeping on their office floor. Why? Because they had been given the job of winning the race against time to find evidence of terrorist planning buried in the encrypted files of dozens of computers seized during Operation Rhyme - the investigation into a terrorist network led by Dhiren Barot, the al-Qa'eda planner.

There in a nutshell seems to be the real reason why the police want longer than 28 days. It means they don't have to rush themselves quite as much or sleep on the floor of their offices, and who frankly could disagree with police officers doing such an important job being uncomfortable while protecting the public from evildoers? It's also nice to see that Clarke mentions that Barot's computers were encrypted, meaning that as the law has since changed the police could now charge someone in Barot's position alone for refusing to provide an encryption key to decode the files. Again, whether Barot really did have any genuine links to al-Qaida is unclear - he apparently went to Pakistan to get his plans approved - and returned empty-handed.

Barot was a career terrorist who had been to training camps in Pakistan and the Far East. But we didn't know what stage his plans had reached. We could not be sure that he or other members of his group were not going to launch attacks, even as we watched. The decision was made to arrest them, and they were promptly rounded up in London and Blackburn.

As it turned out, he or his group could not have launched attacks because they didn't have funding, explosives or have even reached the first stages of preparing to launch an attack. All they had was plans, and very asinine plans they were too.

There was not a shred of evidence against them. The intelligence was clear - that he and his gang were planning attacks in this country, but there was no evidence that could be used in court.

At the time, terrorist suspects could be detained for 14 days. In this case, the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place on the morning of the 14th day. It was a very close call. We were minutes away from having to release a group of terrorists. Two years later, they pleaded guilty to plotting to make a dirty bomb and to kill fellow citizens in huge numbers.

Ah yes, either the Coke can dirty bomb or the smoke alarm dirty bomb. It's strange how when discussing these cases that no one, either police or journalists seems prepared to go into the actual details which are nowhere near as frightening or doom-mongering as the popular perception of what a dirty bomb would involve are. Why Clarke is focusing so much on this case is unclear: it shows the system working as it should have done. So does his next example:

This case told us that things had to change. Plots that have been uncovered since Barot, and the attacks on London in 2005, show the terrorist threat is growing in scale and complexity.

Plots where again the system has worked, with three men who were held for 28 days being charged, and another three released after 28 after the "liquid bombs plot". Again, where does this all end? In two years will have the police asking for 60 days because the plots have grown in scale and complexity again, with spurious amounts of data which they've had to go through being used again as the casus belli?

And yet, as Parliament prepares for the debate on the second reading of the Counter Terrorism Bill, we have to brace ourselves for another deluge of politicised comment on the proposal to extend the time terrorist suspects can be held.
The cross-party consensus that, for many years, helped guide the thinking on such issues evaporated in 2005. The parties blame each other for this, but the quality of the public debate has suffered. It is now difficult for counter-terrorist professionals to offer a view without being accused of political partiality.

Could this possibly be because the police in the first case engaged in err, political partiality, supporting the indefensible when it came 90 days? Clarke himself previously why-oh-whyed over the criticism directed the police's way in a speech last year:

I know there have been concerns expressed about the role of the police service in that debate, and whether we overstepped the mark in terms of political neutrality - but I find this slightly puzzling. If we are asked for our professional opinion, and we express it, and the Government brings forward legislation, are we supposed to be silent the moment a draft Bill is published? We were accused of being politically partial, but I reject that.

If Clarke would like to explain how Andy Hayman being asked by the Home Secretary to comment on why 90 days was needed is not the police making a political case or how the Association of Chief Police Officers' intervention prior to the 90 days debate, with officers phoning up MPs urging them to support the legislation is not the police becoming politicised, then I'm sure it would be gratefully received.

In any case, the political consensus collapsed because 90 days were so clearly beyond the pale, as the government now accepts, although the police themselves apparently don't. It's also because the evidence is simply not there for a further extension: it's been the opposition parties that have been the principled ones, holding the same position from the beginning, that beyond 28 day detention without charge is simply not acceptable.

Clarke continues:

For instance, critics claim that the proposal is a draconian extension of police powers. It is not. Detention would be a judicial discretion, to be exercised following an adversarial hearing with both sides legally represented. This would be no rubber stamp. Indeed, the record of the judiciary in challenging the Government in terrorism cases suggests that any application for extended detention will be subject to the sharpest scrutiny.

This is the exact same argument as Clarke made last year, and it was wanting then. The judiciary have been notably active in terrorism cases, but that's where the detention has been arbitrary, either indefinite or where those accused have been held under control orders. Where they have not been so active or so forceful is where the evidence against the accused has not just been around intelligence, and where they are in police rather than prison custody or under house arrest. The police case is almost always going to be stronger, making clear that the individual is a major potential threat while the defence will have to argue purely on civil liberty grounds; the judiciary, put in such a position, will almost always give the police the benefit of the doubt.

Skipping some of the rest which isn't directly relevant to why 42 days is needed so desperately:

When I was asked, in 2005, by the home affairs select committee how many terrorists I had been obliged to let go through lack of time to investigate, I inwardly despaired. It was the wrong question. We should look forward, not back. The fact that we have been able to convict more than 60 terrorists in the last year or so is irrelevant.

This seems more revealing than Clarke admits. It's because the answer is 0; the only organisations that have let some go through supposed lack of time are the security services. There is nothing to suggest that any "terrorists" will ever have to be let go because lack of time.

The better question would have been: "Is it likely that there will come a time when the present 28-day limit is insufficient?" The answer would have been, "undoubtedly". That is why we should legislate now, and not in panic in an emergency.

Except we wouldn't need to panic in an emergency. If there was some dire, dire need to go beyond 28 days, the Civil Contingencies Act could be invoked; the government could temporarily derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights; or the accused could even be charged with a lesser offence while the investigation continued, something that is apparently too obvious to consider. Doing either of the first two options would be worrying and potentially out of proportion with the actual threat posed, but then so is 42 days itself. The government and the police would however find it far more difficult to justify doing either than it would to invoke 42 days under the laughable "grave exceptional" threat when the only reason for extending the limit is so the police can get a little more sleep.

The details of the 42-day detention plan may not be perfect, but the principle of being able to protect the public in extremis must be right. The checks and balances in our system prevent arbitrary detention. The judiciary have repeatedly shown their vigilance and independence. We should trust the judges and give the public the protection they deserve.
And while we're at it - could we try, just for a moment, to take the politics out of this?

But it isn't the judges who are the ones who are proposing this; they're just the ones who'll get the blame if they get it wrong. It's not those who we have to trust, it's the police and the government, and the fact is that we don't trust either. Nothing Clarke or Labour has said is convincing, and those still on the Labour backbenches who are wavering need to continue refusing to countenance the counting dilution of our hard-won civil liberties.

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, fisks, Peter Clarke, police demands, terror, terror suspects, war against bullshit

6/03/2008 09:14:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Monday, June 02, 2008

Fisking Brown on 42-day detention.

How would we be able to tell when it had been implemented?

The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. If you're getting an overwhelming sense of deja-vu, imagining that we seem to have been here before, then you're not alone. For 42 days, read 90. For Tony Blair, read Gordon Brown. For Charles Clarke, read Jacqui Smith. The whole abortion of a debate over the urgent, pressing need for more time to hold the dastardly terrorist suspects, whether it be for another 42 minutes, 42 hours, 42 months or 42 years, or for 90 minutes passim ad nauseam has become so repetitive that you could get a robot to take up the slack and make the case for both sides.

If you don't therefore want to bored to tears, you might be inclined to skip this post. Just like when Tony Blair was in trouble he depended upon the Downing Street Echo and the Times to back him to hilt, so it seems to have come full circle with Gordo. With almost every newspaper apart from the Sun opposing any extension, and you tend to not be taken too seriously if you make your scholarly case for further detention powers in the same tabloid which has topless woman on its third page, Brown has instead taken to the sympathetic pages of the Thunderer in his restless case to convince the only two remaining people whom haven't already made their mind up about just how desperately needed those further 14 days are. The results are far from encouraging.

Next week, when Parliament votes on the proposal to detain terrorist suspects without charge for up to 42 days, hard choices have to be made.

Not really. There are two choices: to either reject yet another truly unnecessary, discriminatory, unhelpful, counter-productive and chilling reduction in civil liberties, or to support the government and a band of merry supporters which can be counted on one hand, which included the already mentioned Sun, "Sir" Ian Blair, Lord Carlile, who thinks that putting a figure on it is unhelpful but is supportive in principle, Melanie Phillips (a given) and David Aaronovitch. If I've missed someone, feel free to point them out.

Britain has lived with terrorist threats for decades. But I am under no illusion that today's threats are different in their scale and nature from anything we have faced before. Today in Britain there are at least 2,000 terrorist suspects, 200 networks or cells and 30 active plots. The aim of terrorists is to kill and maim the maximum number of victims, indiscriminately and without warning, including through suicide attacks.

We can agree on the point that the threat is different; whether it is in scale or nature is less obvious. It's too easy to forget that the IRA didn't always telephone through warnings, and unlike the jihadist takfirists, also used to specifically target politicians rather than civilians. They also had far more support and far more funding than our current "friends". Quoting the 2-year old murmurings of the former head of MI5 without any explanation as there wasn't then of whether these 2,000 "terrorist suspects" are all Islamists or otherwise, and without specifying if they're allied to al-Qaida type ideology or the more Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Hamas type simply isn't good enough. If there were 30 active plots, how come that more "plots" haven't either been disrupted or come to fruition since then? No one can dispute that the aim is to kill and maim as many as possible, but the last few attempts to do just that have failed miserably. Even one police officer called Nick Reilly's apparent recent attempt to construct a bomb in a restaurant as "amateur hour"; that could have been extended to last year's Glasgow airport attacks and even the "liquid bombs" plot. While we should be concerned and rightly, we should also be making clear that we're dealing for the most part with fantasists, not deadly trained and truly motivated fighters.

Look at the scale and complexity of today's terrorist plots and you will understand why the amount of time required before charges can be brought has increased. In 2001 police investigating the last big IRA case had to analyse just one computer and a few floppy disks. The suspects used their own names and never went beyond Ireland and the UK.
By 2004 the police investigating the al-Qaeda plotter Dhiren Barot had to seize 270 computers, 2,000 disks, and more than 8,000 other exhibits. There were seven co-conspirators, and the investigation stretched across three continents. In the 2006 alleged airline bomb plot, the complexity had grown again - 400 computers, 8,000 disks and more than 25,000 exhibits.

This is just yet another attempt to blind people with statistics and figures. We don't know what 270 computers means in reality: it could be handhelds, computers in internet cafes, etc, all of which are not going to take anywhere near the time to search as a personal encrypted computer which holds most if not all of the relevant information. The same goes for the number of disks mentioned: are they burned CDs and DVDs or are the police going through suspects' entire DVD and CD collections in search of even the slightest amount of possibly hidden evidence, which would explain the huge amounts of disks apparently gone through? The possibility that this is exactly what they are doing is raised because our old friend Dhiren Barot apparently had concealed some alleged "reconnaissance" material on a Die Hard video. Fast-forwarding through DVDs and videos doesn't take that long, which underlines just how subjective the raising of such apparently vast amounts of material which needs to be shifted through is.

In any case, these examples are not even necessarily relevant; both cases involve "plots" which were disrupted before they came to fruition and where the police are searching for anything that might support their case. The "nightmare scenario" which has been raised by ministers such as Tony McNulty which would justify 42 days is 3 or 4 attacks of 9/11 type intensity occurring at the same time. In such cases, where crimes have already been obviously committed, and when the perpetrators will be presumably dead, it already seems doubtful that 42 days would be necessary. The alleged facilitators of 7/7 have only recently been brought to trial, and it certainly didn't taken anything approaching 28 days to hold them prior to being charged.

The police find themselves investigating multiple identities and passports, numerous mobile phone and e-mail accounts, and contacts stretching across the world. Simply establishing the true identity of a suspect may itself take days. Often hundreds of hours of video footage have to be viewed, layers of computer encryptions deciphered and overseas authorities persuaded to co-operate.

Why is this being used as a justification, apparently the only remaining justification? If the reason why "suspects" need to be held for longer than 28 days is because of the resources the police have, then give them more resources, don't extend the time the "suspect" can be held. Similarly, bringing up the encryptions argument again is really getting tiresome: the police have the power to demand encryption keys, and if the suspect refuses, he can be charged on that alone. As Spy Blog points out, encryption can either be broken or it cannot. Having to "persuade" overseas authorities to co-operate is also a red herring; hardly any countries refuse to co-operate, it's just the time that it takes for them to do so, which again, is not a justification for extending the time limit.

And the police cannot just wait for suspects to be caught red-handed. They have to make a judgment about intervening early to avert tragedy; which means more time may be needed, between arrest and charges being laid, to unravel the conspiracy and assemble the evidence.

Which they've up till now managed perfectly well, perhaps too well, if worries about what the "liquid bombers" could have actually achieved are substantiated. Dhiren Barot and his cack-handed "dirty bomb", used so often to scaremonger, were similarly dealt with perfectly adequately. We're being asked to legislate for a hypothetical, something that may never happen but which may happen, asking us to support it on the basis of the "increasing complexity" which adds up to the police sifting through more data than perhaps they even need to. It's about as far from convincing as it's possible to get.

The challenge for every government is to respond to the changing demands of national security, while upholding something that is at the heart of the British constitutional settlement: the preservation of civil liberties. And if the national interest requires new measures to safeguard our security, it is, in my view, the British way to make those changes in a manner that maximises the protection of individuals against arbitrary treatment.

Now Brown's assaulting us with his favourite topic, Britishness. It's the British way to lock up suspects for a random number of days on the possibility they might be nasty; that's another way to say what Brown has just written.

So our first principle is that there should always be a maximum limit on pre-charge detention. It is fundamental to our civil liberties that no one should be held arbitrarily for an unspecified period. After detailed consultation with the police, and examination of recent trends in terrorist cases, we propose the upper limit of 42 days.

Really? Where where you then prime minister while Belmarsh was being used as the British equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, albeit only for "foreign terrorist suspects"? Were you making clear your opposition to this constitutional outrage, only ended when the House of Lords ruled that it was incompatible with an act which your self same government brought in? If you want us to know the specifics of exactly why the police think we need 42 days, why don't you publish these detailed consultations? In reality this "detailed consultation" seems to amount to asking either the head of the Met or the current head of anti-terrorist policing what amount of days they'd like: we've had 90, we've had 56, and now we've got 42. How do we know that in another 2 years' time the police aren't going to be asking for yet another 2 weeks longer than the current limit?

Our second principle is that detention beyond 28 days can be allowed only in truly exceptional circumstances. The decision is made by the Home Secretary but must be backed by the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as the police. And this would allow the higher limit only for a temporary period, and only where there is a specific terrorist incident or threat under investigation that warrants it.

Which is yet another "compromise" that isn't. It just so happens that this "safeguard" has been designed so that the current director of public prosecutions, who opposes any increase, has to embarrass himself by admitting that he got it wrong. How limiting the higher limit to a "temporary period" is also any kind of safeguard is bizarre: if the higher period is needed again, the police will just ask for it again, and parliament and judges are hardly likely to disagree with them, especially when the tabloid press will be howling if they do.

Our third principle is that the Home Secretary must then take this decision to Parliament for approval. If Parliament refused to sanction the decision, the existing 28-day limit would stand.

How likely exactly is it that parliament will disagree when it's already decided that 42 days might be appropriate? How and why should parliament be asked to decide whether it is necessary when they will neither legally nor politically be able to make such a decision without either prejudicing a potential case or without bringing the whole of the weight of the media down on their heads if someone then released goes on to commit any sort of offence? This isn't a safeguard or a compromise, it's an unholy mess that makes things worse, not better. Oh, and here's a good question: what happens exactly if parliament happens to be in recess when such an extension is needed?

Fourthly, the judiciary must oversee each individual case. As happens now for detention beyond 14 days, a senior judge will be required to approve the extension of detention in each individual case every seven days up to the new higher limit.

Again, how likely is it that any judge will dare to risk the chance of releasing such a suspect, especially when the police will be making clear in no uncertain terms how they must not be? It's not a safeguard now and it certainly won't be after 28 days.

Fifthly, to enhance accountability there must be independent reporting to Parliament and the public on all cases. That is why the independent reviewer will now report publicly not just in general on the operation of the legislation but on each individual case.

And since the "independent" reviewer already supports an extension, and thinks that control orders are necessary and proportionate, we can take a guess at what his reports will say. Yet again, how his reporting on each individual case will not prejudice a trial will be interesting to discover.

So I say to those with legitimate concerns about civil liberties: look at these practical safeguards against arbitrary treatment. With these protections in place, I believe Parliament should take the right decision for national security.

These safeguards are absolutely worthless. In fact, they're worse than worthless; they justify, condone and underpin that arbitrary treatment. There could not be a better specific example that the current anti-terror laws have already gone too far than that of Rizwaan Sabir: when you can be held for 6 days for downloading an al-Qaida manual from a US government website, the potential for arbitrary treatment, injustice and increased resentment against the authorities could not be greater. While those arrested at the same time were charged and convicted, two of those arrested during the investigation into the Birmingham beheading plot were held for a week without once being questioned about the allegations being made in the press, of which they only learned after their release. It doesn't matter if for every 1 that is released after an extended period in detention 10 are charged and subsequently convicted: it's that 1 and his story that enrage, that do the damage and which show why such an extension must be resisted.

I have received much advice in recent weeks. Some have argued that I should drop or significantly water down the 42-day limit. But having considered carefully all the evidence and arguments, I believe that, with all these protections against arbitrary treatment in place, allowing up to 42 days' pre-charge detention in these exceptional terrorist cases is the right way to protect national security.

Indeed he has received much advice, and typically of Gordon, he hasn't taken a single piece of it on-board. He's still convinced that this is the one remaining piece of legislation on which he can wrong foot the Tories, making them look weak, and by at least one of the quoted polls, around 57% of the public do support the government, although that's a figure way down on the support for Blair when 90 days was defeated, showing that the unpopularity of the government and the fall in fearmongering over the terrorist threat in general seems to have had an effect. The most laughable and contemptible opinion put across is that being "tough" has nothing to do with it: the loathsome McNulty appearing on Newsnight emphasising that, while in more or less the same sentence repeating Smith's argument from earlier tonight that this would be a decision showing the government "governing". If that isn't a shot across the bows of the Tories, ridiculing them for being playing with people's lives as they're in opposition rather than government, I don't know what is.

That is why I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing: protecting the security of all and the liberties of each; and safeguarding the British people by a careful and proportionate strengthening of powers in response to the radically new terrorist threats we now face.

No Gordon, you're sticking the principle of being a politician rather than governing in the interests of the "British people". While terrorists threats will grow and wither respectively, our civil liberties will only ever be weakened. Once lost, they are near to impossible to win back. From a government that has only done one thing to civil liberties, and that's to slash them, despite the welcome introduction of the Human Rights Act, to claim to be protecting the security of all and the liberties of each is obscurantist in the extreme. It was to be hoped that Labour MPs would still vote 42 days down, something now looking less likely, not because MPs have been won over by the government's case, but because they don't want to make things even worse for the party and for Gordon. The cavalier attitude that shows towards civil liberties and the people's interests is politicians at their very worst. Those that do change their minds for just that reason more than deserve eviction from parliament itself, something the electorate seems inclined to do regardless.

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, fisks, Gordon Brown, terror, terror suspects, war against bullshit

6/02/2008 09:41:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Friday, May 23, 2008

Don't panic, but he might be Islamic!

So, a man walks into a Giraffe...

Err....

It does seem almost like a joke, doesn't it? Guy chooses a Giraffe restaurant, of all places, to go in (the one here advertises "global burgers" and is probably fair-traded and feng shuied out of the stratosphere), orders a drink, then goes to the toilets and explodes. Still, it was nice of this not quite Mr Creosote to go pop out where it was unlikely anyone else would have got hurt, wasn't it?

You also have to hand it to the police. The explosion took place at around 12:50 this afternoon. By just before 10, the police had managed to investigate to such an extent that they felt confident enough to know exactly why Nicky Reilly did what he did: apparently he is a recent convert to Islam, suffers from mental illness, and, in their words, was "was preyed upon and radicalised." That's a pretty decent turn around for any investigation, and the police's decision to announce their initial conclusions before any charges have been laid, and before the dust had even settled can only be welcomed. 42 days? Apparently all they really need is 42 hours.

Labels: 42 days, Exeter bomb explosion, Giraffe restaurant, Nicky Reilly, police, terror, terror suspects

5/23/2008 01:12:00 AM | Permalink | | links to this post

Saturday, May 17, 2008

No compromise on 42 days.

The issue of extending the detention limit without charge under which terrorist suspects can be held has been with us so long now that the latest supposed developments bring nothing other than a gnawing sense of exasperation at how, despite comprehensively losing the argument over 90 days and now over its successor, 42, that this fundamental issue of just how far down the authoritarian road we go has still not been solved.

Politics is all about compromise, and it's all the better for it. There are however some matters, and this is most certainly one, where there cannot be one. The supporters of a further extension to the time limit, putting us under our common law system into bed with the most vicious autocracies and dictatorships both past and present, can be counted on one hand: they number Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith, "Sir" Ian Blair, Lord Carlile and the Sun newspaper. None of their arguments are in the slightest bit convincing, especially when the latter hints darkly that those who vote against the measure when it eventually comes before parliament again will have to answer for it when there's next a terrorist attack, somehow implying that they'll be responsible for something that it is most certainly the work of others to prevent, and extending the limit will do nothing whatsoever to improve their chances of doing so.

In this instance compromise in fact potentially provides those proposing such a draconian change with a fig-leaf of respectability. The Guardian yesterday reported that there might be further concessions, bringing down the time when parliament will have to vote on the extension being authorised to 7 days, and further judicial review of the power. Both of are already concessions from the original, even harsher plans, but neither will do anything to alter the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that any extension is necessary. The parliamentary authorisation on its own is problematic because, as the director of public prosecutions has argued, it risks giving parliament's seal of approval to a case before it has even entered the sphere of a trial. Even worse is one of the alternatives being suggested in an amendment by Andrew Dismore, who proposes holding suspects on police bail past the 28-day limit. This is the worst of all worlds, keeping the suspect under perpetual investigation and uncertainty, giving the police carte blanche to obstruct and disrupt the suspects' lives over an even longer period, while also providing the window of opportunity for those who might well be dangerous to go on the run, just as the control order system is both shockingly illiberal and disproportionate whilst also being ineffective.

If the government is not prepared to back down over 42 days, which goes to the very heart of how civil liberties are being almost casually eroded while also disenfranchising and disengaging those in the Muslim community who need to be brought on side rather than belittled and onerously targeted, then it deserves to be defeated with the same, if not more ferocity than it was over 90 days. If that involves a further loss of face for Gordon Brown, who seems to obstinately refusing to back down because of his determination to both buy off the Murdoch press and show the Tories up as "soft" on terror, then so be it.

Labels: 42 days, 90 days, civil liberties, Gordon Brown, no compromise on 42 days, terror, terror suspects

5/17/2008 08:30:00 PM | Permalink |