Tony Blair has introduced a new anti-terrorism bill in the UK. One section of the bill is sorely needed. Britain’s grand bargain with the jihadi mullahs, sanctuary in exchange for immunity, was as always as ill-informed as Saudi Arabia’s:
… the bill would make it illegal to publish, disseminate or sell material that incites terrorism, giving authorities power to shut down bookstores and Web sites deemed to promote extremism. It would also become an offense to attend a “terrorist training camp…” [Link]
Muslim men might be be arrested, jailed for 90 days and then released… the wrong ‘Mohammed Khan’But the rest is a bad echo of Dubya’s Fascist Act. From feudalism to democracy and back?
Blair, formally presenting his new terrorism bill to Parliament, said police had made an “absolutely compelling” case that they need to detain suspects for as long as 90 days without charge; the current limit is 14 days. [Link]
Heavy-handed measures can create backdraft. Careful policing is why people praised the British troops in Iraq — pity it’s good enough overseas but not at home:
Livingstone said the proposals brought back bad memories of the response to the start of the Irish Republican Army’s violent campaign in 1969. He said the government passed emergency measures under which innocent people were locked up for long periods. Far from making Britain safer, he told the group Wednesday, this reaction helped the IRA recruit more members.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, drew sustained applause when she said she feared that the new measures would largely target young Muslim men, who would be arrested, jailed for 90 days and then released with nothing more than an explanation that police had picked up the wrong “Mohammed Khan,” a common name. [Link]
… we already have 200 pieces of anti-terrorism legislation on the statute book… The police say they need this time because of the complexity of terrorist cases… But this is not a unique problem. Major fraud and pornography trials have faced similar challenges… We are talking about suspects here, not terrorists. Of the 895 people arrested under terrorist laws in the last five years, 500 were released without charge. Nothing is more likely to unite communities in opposition to anti-terrorist operations than this kind of law. [Link]
<
p>The British attorney general has also objected, the same chap who said the Iraq war was illegal:
The government’s plan to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge could be struck down by the courts as a breach of human rights, its own official anti-terror watchdog warned last night. The concerns raised by Lord Carlile QC are believed to reflect reservations privately voiced by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith… [Link]
90 days!??? 90 days without charge!!! Can you even imagine???
Inayat Bunglawala sent e-mails out a few weeks before 9/11, praising Osama Bin Laden as a great Muslim hero – this was after the Nairobi bombings that killed 200 African infidels. Bunglawala is a snivelling little creep.
The extension of the time period is because the police believe they need more time to gather evidence in cases when encrypted software is used in hard drives and so on.
But why worry about these kinds of things when suicide bombers come from the Muslims of Britain to strike in London, Israel, Iraq and Kashmir?
Its the state thats the fascist, right?
The point is to balance the rights of the innocent. You’d be the first in line to snivel and wail if you were locked up for three months without charge. Your arg, Pablo, makes is illogical. Why stop at 90 days? Why not a year? Why not indefinite? They’re accused of terrorism, after all.
Non-unique: fraud and pornography trials have faced similar challengesÂ…
Remind me again who has a legal monopoly on the use of force and incarceration. Why do we give them that monopoly? Because of due process to safeguard the rights of the innocent. Which on any given day, could be you.
Manish
I never snivel.
Those crimes dont involve people plotting, and carrying out, the suicide slaughter of men women and children on trains and buses.
A little more urgent perhaps?
Maybe not.
So, Britain is a fascist state because it might extend the time period in which terrorist suspects can be held in custody? Thats what you’re saying, right?
There is no perspective or agency here, just hysteria.
And ominous ‘warnings’ about the ‘consequences’ of ‘alienation’ amongst ‘Muslim youth’ (Why? What are they going to do? Blow themselves up?) in Britain dont wash so much after everyone knows they are each a personal target for people who like to strap semtex to their bellies and take the fast track to janaat.
It may well be that the proposals are flawed – but making grumbling threats about the ‘consequences’ of ‘alienating’ sullen terrorists is not the way to endear the proponents to the British people – especially from vicious anti semitic snot rags like Bunglawala.
Actually it’s about getting the bad guys (community cooperation) and not creating more. But I suppose it’s hard to understand second-order effects.
You don’t like Bunglawala, fine. How about the cops and terror experts who say it’s a bad idea for catching terrorists? How about the IRA busters? The British attorney general?
This is what happens – when a terrorist offence takes place, or when a terrorist suspect is identified and arrested – all the people that are in his phone book and e-mail inbox are taken in and questioned. Most of them are not guilty of anything – but some of them may well be implicated in the crime or have information at some level of the terrorist activity in question.
Do you believe that the police should not arrest suspects in such a situation in order to placate the sensitivities of Muslim activists like Bunglawala, who believes that the British government is engaged in an indiscriminate witchunt against Muslims, or should the British police have as their supreme consideration the welfare and safety of British citizens who are living under the threat of mass murder by suicide bombing?
And if you accept that anti-terrorist policy and criminal investigation should take as it overwhelming concern the safety of British people – is it right in the aftermath of arrests such as these to somehow twist them into Islamist propaganda to heighten a hysterical brief that the British state is deliberately persecuting innocent Muslims, as Bunglawala and other organisations like the MAB and IHRC do with regularity?
Things look black and white from there – they look kind of complex from here.
I argue on a case by case basis with them too. As it happens the mood amongst the British public is such that an extension of the detaining period is something that will be welcomed – whether it should be extended to ninety days or twenty eight days is something that can be considered and debated bearing in mind operational considerations and detail.
All of these things get thrashed out between parliament, the judiciary (which acts as the executir of European legislation) and the Executive. Any such legislation will be beholden to constant judicial review. Relaxing restrictions of the admissability of certain types of evidence is another area that should be examined.
My problem is with those who reflexively paint any such legislation as an attempt to persecute, or as a prelude to Orwell’s 1984. Some of these people have their own agenda – and it isnt pleasent.
Questioned, but not arrested without actual suspicion. If arrested, not for 90 days without charges.
The U.S. right to a writ of habeas corpus was created specifically because of abuse by the English king.
Speaking of agenda… there are quotes from four sources here. Muslim Council, Liberty, a Guardian editorial and the British AG. You’re getting your chuddies twisted over one of them, but how about responding to the rest.
I think the British Muslim community would be served a lot better if they had somebody other than this bigoted guy speaking for them… :
Top job fighting extremism for Muslim who praised bomber
Kind of like getting O.J Simpson to speak about violence against women.
Ok, the Bunglawala quote is gone (I was unfamiliar with his background).
Now, anyone have anything substantive to say on the argument itself.
Yeah, well, the mood among the U.S. public just recently was pro-Iraq war and pro-Fascist Act, and earlier pro-Japanese internment. People are easily stampeded. Sometimes you have to lead.
It looks like Europe is seeing a shift from their previously liberal views on individual rights and immigrants :
Dutch unveil the toughest face in Europe with a ban on the burka
My view on such laws is that any violation of privacy, that does not entail physical discomfort, is permissible for citizens.
With a court order, and with/without informing me
However, I will oppose for citizens, but not oppose for non-citizens…
Does the Patriot Act bother me? No. Why should it?
M. Nam
Your pliability has been noted in the appropriate quarters, komrade.
Â… the bill would make it illegal to publish, disseminate or sell material that incites terrorism, giving authorities power to shut down bookstores and Web sites deemed to promote extremism
Eh? this is the part you like? What does deemed mean? deemed by who? deemed how? on what grounds? “shut down bookstores and websites” is a verb clause that gives me the willies, and I’d like it to be connected to a more precise and descriptive criterion clause.
Presumably it’s the hardcore jihad books and videos and sermons they’re talking about.
Manish
My chuddies remain untwisted.
I have said everything I wanted to in my responses.
Just to make clear though, I dont think that chest beating like Tarzan and presuming that all the people who are amenable to extra legislation to prevent suicide bombers killing more children and teenagers and men and women on a case by case basis under judicial review and thrashed out in Parliament, the House of Lords, the Law courts and with due cognisance of the Human Rights Act of the EU – characterising such people as essentially of ‘fascist’ tendency who are set on creating a police state is reflexive hysteria and extremely bad faith.
It fails to see the merit in the representations of the police, for example, that they may require new powers in order to beat the terrorists. After all, the upshot of the stance of the reflexive stoppers is that there is a pernicious and stupid conspiracy in place to persecute Muslims generally (not those individuals who plot to explode a van full of explosives outside a London nightclub or blow themselves up in a shopping centre) – no, Muslims as a whole are being targetted.
I have no problem with contesting the specifics of the suggested legislation – I just have a problem with those who scream ‘Fascist!’ at the mere whiff of how allowances for detention may need extending, without considering the case of and by itself.
I think granting the state the power to lock you up without charges for months on end is absolutely fascist. It’s one of the key definitions of an ‘axis of evil’ state. I’m sure case-by-case extensions exist via judicial review.
I’m not familiar with the specifics of UK law, but in the U.S., in most cases the police have all the power they need, they just have bad management and bad operational efficiency. In the UK, 200+ anti-terror laws, as the story states.
This kind of legislation is usually more vote pandering and security theater than an actual solution (fixing law enforcement management and increasing the level of computerization).
Manish
Even if ninety days is accepted (and each police application for extension would have to be approved law courts which are probably the most rigourously sceptical and tenacious in holding the police and legislature to account) – even then ninety days is not Gitmo. Ease up on the hyper rhetoric of ‘fascism’ please – it is preposterous to frame this debate in these terms.
fas·cism n.: Oppressive, dictatorial control.
Tricky topic.
It’s a delicate balancing act; you don’t want matters to degenerate to the level where police are dispensing Judge Dredd-style “summary justice” or — worst of all — where authorities are acting in the same way as the police in Punjab did back in the early ’80s (large numbers of suspects rounded up and disappearing, etc etc). The latter in particular really will alienate people who were previously neutral/innocent. It’s a cliche, but you cannot protect freedom and human rights by compromising — indeed destroying, in the worst cases — those very same freedoms and rights.
On the other hand, it is pointless and ineffectual for supposedly moderate clerics and religious-based organisations to throw their hands up and declare “We do not condone the actions of the extremists and their supporters, and/or they are not true [fill in religious affiliation here]”, if they are not simultaneously going to take concrete actions to stop both the words and the actions of the fanatics. Talk is cheap.
There are a number of developments we are now seeing. Firstly, the indigenous population’s patience is gradually decreasing (fortunately Brits are a lot more restrained than many others — otherwise there would have been Delhi-style riots here right after 7/7). Secondly — and what I have said several times on other similar SM threads — if the problem of anti-Western religious extremism is not resolved internally, other people will try to solve the problem for them. Which could make matters much, much worse for absolutely everyone.
Manish
Yeah – and extending the length of time that a terrorist suspect can be detained (under complteley transparent judicial review) inside a liberal democracy trying to defend itself from mass murdering maniacs before being charged is fascism isnt it?
If you cant see where the hyperbole comes in then we are on different wavelengths completely.
Empirically, we know that most people detained are innocent. ‘Under judicial review’ usually means charge them or let them go within a reasonable period of time. Enact a ‘lock ’em up at will’ law, and it isn’t much of a liberal democracy any more.
Look, unless you’re personally willing to be thrown in jail without charges for three months, and all that entails (loss of job, loss of girlfriend, social ostracism), you’re making an argument only applicable to a group you dislike. That’s not viable democracy design, that’s just vile.
Manish
Thats not a lock ’em up at will procedure – you caricature again with your hyperbole.
It is a terrorist suspect arrested on evidence and suspicion of enacting or facilitating a terrorist act of mass murder being held for a period of time which after it has passed he will have to be charged or released inside a fully functioning democracy with complete transparency and recourse to provisions of the European Human Rights Act.
At present the time period is 14 days. The government believes it may be neccessary to extend this period. And you call this fascist and claim that anyone who puts it in perspective is vile? Just for discussing it?
Alright. Lets say a compromise is reached and it is decided that in this instance the period is extended to 28 days – is that fascist? Whats the tipping point until when it becomes a ‘fascist’ incarceration. Forty Five Days? Fifty days?
I dont know, maybe the mere arresting of them in the first place even for one day is fascist, thats certainly what Bunglawala and other hysterics would think.
I’m just joking – I dont really think you think like that (at least I hope not)
How much less safe did London become from 7/6 to 7/7? It’s a bit of a rhetorical game, isn’t it. You seem to be arguing Fascism, capital F; I’ve defined it as oppressive, dictatorial control, lowercase. That’s analog, there’s no tipping point, there are only degrees of shittiness.
For most suspects, 24-48 hours is reasonable, the usual period for the U.S. writ of habeas corpus. It’s only as long as 14 days in the UK because of the seriousness of the terrorism charge. Longer is worse.
You still haven’t answered the question I posed you: suppose you were unwittingly swept up in a terror investigation. Say your blog address was found in some terror suspect’s Web browser cache. Is it fair to throw you, personally, in jail without charge for three months?
Further confirmation that the U.K is not alone in moving towards a more hardline approach in regards to terrorism:
Dutch Detain 7 in Anti-Terror Sweep
I think there is a feeling of betrayal in Europe in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden (and the UK)that their historically liberal ways have been abused. As that Dutch politician said “the time of cosy tea-drinking” is over. Only time will tell if this approach will yield any better results. The social pundits will argue that point for years to come.