Brown on ID cards and 28 days

Gordon Brown yesterday laid out proposals before the House of Commons to bolster our security.

Disappointingly, they do not differ much, if at all, from the Blair years. His "third line of defence" (after border police and biometrics at the border) is the introduction of biometric ID cards by 2009. I thought that that the idea of them as any sort of deterrent to terrorism had been long knocked on the head.

More healdine grabbing was his bid to increase 28 day detention to 56 days. He introducced this in a cunning way. Liberty have been arguing that if longer than 28 day detention is needed, due for example to the number and complexity of suspects, then the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 allows for a national state of emergency to be declared and another 30 days of detention. Brown used this stance as cover to say that he's proposing 28 days without the need for a state of emergency, but with judicial and Parliamentary safeguards instead.

The problem with this, as we saw with control orders, is that they also had judicial and Parliamentary safeguards, but that these proved to be pretty toothless. In practice, the full force of the legislated possibilities are used without any hindrance.

Liberty and the Conservatives have also argued for post-charge questioning as an alternative to longer detention period. Brown incorporated this proposal into his package, without backing down from increasing 28 days. He defended the need for an increase by saying:

The 2005 case cited in previous debates on this issue involved investigation of some 60 mobile phones, 268 computers, and 920 DVDs. However, the airline investigation last August involved 200 mobile phones, 400 computers, 8,000 CDs, DVDs and other discs containing 6,000 gigabytes of data, almost 70 premises searches, and inquiries across three continents. Another case involved 3,000 statements, the examination of 6,000 documents, more than 8,000 exhibits and inquiries across nine countries. During the recent period—I must make this clear to Members, in the light of a radio debate this morning—six people had to be held for 27 or 28 days.

His mention of the thousands of CDs and DVDs point to something significant. The increase in detention is argued on the basis that we need to take imminent threats of our streets. But the current anti-terror legislation not only deals with those who would cause explosions and deaths, but also those that "glorify" it, or have material that would be deemed as doing so. This is surely what Brown's reference to CDs and DVDs is.

This kind of terrorism is not an imminent threat. If the piles of DVDs cannot be trawled through in the time available, such a suspect could be returned to once new information came to light. This goes back to what I said a few months ago about arrests actually meaning something in days gone by.

If a plot is imminent, and worthy of long detention, that will surely be apparent within a couple of weeks. Even if the suspect was some kind of threat, the likelihood of them acting after being incarcerated for 28 days, their home ransacked and all their possessions seized, is small to say the least. With all their fertiliser gone, they won't even be able to do any gardening. And there's a fair chance they'll be getting watched, and not just by the state.

Meanwhile, it was left to the much-derided Ming Campbell to make the best intervention about the prime minister's statement on security. "Consensus," he said, "cannot be achieved at the cost of principle ... of course the public has a right to security, but that includes security from the power of the state."

There's no answer to that, and he didn't get one.

Simon Hoggart with a hat tip to Chick Yog.

Comments

[joe90]

I see Brown is happily promoting Israeli Apartheid - he's become a patron of the JNF-UK!

http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2007/07/brown-joins-jewish-national-fund.html>Brown joins the Jewish National Fund
JSF
27 July 2007

I feel safer already knowing my Prime Minister is involved in, and encouraging, one of the main sources of terrorism in the world - the Israeli-US genocide of the Palestinian nation!

[joe90]

As Brown attempts to make us all safer by aligning himself with Jewish-Israeli fundamnetalism and the liquidation of the nation of Palestine -
- here is a Press Release from Red Ken's office -
http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=13054>Joint Statement from the First Minister of Scotland and the Mayor of London

Dangerous commies getting together with nationalists to aplogise, or something, for terrorists - I can just imagine Ron Gallagher's response. In fact, I could probably write it for him, save him the trouble.

[Umar]

Ok as much as we hate New Labour and Gordon Brown I still think they are much better than the Tories under the Neo-con David Cameron. Don't get me wrong I hate them both and am fast becoming politically apathetic, but surely: "better the devil you know, than the one you don't"???