28 days, stop and search, ID cards - the continuing civil liberties battles

The arguments over 28 days detention rumble on. The opposition parties are hopelessly on the backfoot on this one. The position should not just be against an increase in 28 days, they should be calling for the limit to come back down. This would be in line with other Western democracies.

In the world of concessions, if you don't adopt a decent bargaining position, then you end up paying a lot more. By arguing that we stay on 28 days, it is inevitable there will be some increase on that. Already the opposition offered up post-charge questioning and the use of intercept evidence as an alternative to increasing the detention limit. The government gobbled these up and still want an increase in pre-charge detention. Whatever the case, sadly Gordon Brown gets what he wants, which is to look tough on the issue, not matter how absurd his proposition is.

On stop and search, these look like continuing indefinitely in Scotland by the British Transport Police. The rationale seems to be that because of the new form of terror, having surveillance of train stations to be on the lookout for suspect packages is not good enough anymore. Now people strap them to themselves or smash in with their cars. By randomly stopping and searching people, the argument goes that our transport network becomes a hostile place for would-be terrorists.

The problem with this analysis is that a would-be bomber would simply have to press a button if stopped by the police while on his way to detonate a bomb. His job would be done. Meanwhile, stop and search is humiliating the disproportionate number of Asian-looking people that are stopped under it, undermining good relations between police and communities which are essential at this moment in time.

Opposition to ID cards continues to grow too, with Baroness Shirley Williams the latest to say she will go to jail rather than carry one.

Comments

[aineliva]

I'm with Shirley Williams. Everyone is getting in on this. Heard something recently that the British gvt are in talks with Irish gvt and we'll all need passports to go back and forth across the water soon.

Does this mean that if I want to travel from London to Swansea by train, I'll be liable to be "randomly stopped and searched"? It will be a pretty hostile place for all of us.

Most galling of all, we will have to pay for these ID! We're going backwards not forwards.

Agree with you, it looks more like another of the gvt's "we want to look tough on the issue - short term, not thought out", policies than any real solution. But then that's my experience of this govt, lots of "initiatives", little concrete outcome.

[veritas]

What's your solution to the security problem?

Or don't you think we have one?

[aineliva]

Isn't it just hilarous? Doesn't god work in mysterious ways? What's the likelihood of ID Cards now?

So Gordon thinks we are going to give him more information that can be lost, unregistered, in a plain brown envelope, in the post.

What I wouldn't give to be the proverbial fly on the desk in No 10 right now; I can hardly wait for the next Bremner, Bird and Fortune programme.

Run for you life Alaister, Gordy's on the warpath. Single handed you have just sunk any hope of ID Cards for at least twenty years. Thank you Mr Darling.