The images of masked men walking around with assault rifles including the brutal execution of a French policeman will fill many of us with terror and fear. The chilling words of Charlie Hebdo writer Laurent Léger on the phone to his friend ‘Call the police. It’s carnage, a bloodbath. Everyone is dead’ are chilling.
It is tempting at a time like this to seek security at all costs and those in power are usually all too willing to oblige. We ask to be kept safe and they are more than happy to play the paternalistic state. They give the caveat that we must give up certain freedoms in order to achieve the safety that we crave both for ourselves and our loved ones.
However, it is important that in the face of such terror, we do not give up any more of our freedoms than we already have over the past 14 years. Many bedrocks of western liberal democracy have been slowly chipped away since the start of the War on Terror. But these violations of our fundamental principles have bought neither absolute security nor stopped the attacks against us. Britain for instance has had to deal with terrorism of one sort of another since well before the July 7th bombings but after September 11th 2001, the number of rights we in the west have compromised in the hope of some delusional belief that there is such a thing as absolute security has been too high.
Whether it is unfettered spying by the NSA or GCHQ, detention without charge or without trial, it is imperative that the principles that keep us a fair and free society are upheld. We should not accept additional powers for intelligence and security services. It is incumbent upon Francois Hollande and other European leaders including us in the UK not to give in to the temptation of sacrificing the values of liberal democracy in the face of these threats.
The only prudent principled response to this tragedy is to not cower before the intimidation and barbaric violence of fascists neither by compromising freedom of expression by censoring the cartoons nor by rolling back bedrocks of democratic society. We have seen how in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans stood by and watched as the ironically named Patriot Act was passed with little controversy. Since then, Americans have accepted the torture, warrantless phone tapping and bulk collection of data of completely innocent people. It remains to be seen to what extent Britain’s intelligence services were complicit in these crimes.
Citizens within a democracy have the right to not be detained without trial and the right to not be under surveillance without a warrant from a judge. The fact that this even has to be said shows how far we have come and how much we have been prepared to give up since this all began. The erosion of civil liberties may continue unabated. Our willingness to give up our most basic rights has gone so far in the West that GCHQ is now brazen enough to say that privacy was never “an absolute right”. This all completely ignores the fact that the NSA’s dragnet surveillance “had no discernible impact” on preventing acts of terrorism in the United States. This is all to forget that the Fourth Amendment is specifically supposed to protect citizens against general warrantless searches.
For an appropriate response to terror, Hollande must look closer to home. After the Utøya island massacre in Norway, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said “The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation”. Norway did not respond to the attack with knee-jerk attacks on civil liberties, but instead doubled down on their principles of freedom and democracy.
The press should neither censor the cartoons which caused the controversy nor shy away from printing them. At the same time, we should not accept attempts to further curtail our own freedoms from institutions who already appear beyond the power of the democratic will of the people.
With MI5, Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister now calling for more powers, it is important now more than ever that the defenders of liberty make their stand. We should look in horror when a man who may one day seek the office of the Prime Minister says something like “I’m not interested in this civil liberties stuff. If they’re a threat, I want their emails and calls listened to” without realising how many people who are not a threat would also have their phone calls and emails listened to.
Totalitarianism comes in many different forms including Islamic fundamentalism and it should be opposed in whatever form that it takes. The cartoonists were exercising their democratic right through the powerful medium of satire and that right must be defended. However, we should not be convinced that we must also give up what makes us a free society.
* Zaheer Rayasat is a communications assistant for Conscience: Taxes for Peace Not War
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14 Comments
I’m not sure there is an absolute right ‘not to be under (any kind of) surveillance without a warrant from a judge. Presumably you mean ‘not to have otherwise private behaviour under surveillance without a warrant from a judge’? If my local copper wants to keep an eye on someone’s (public) Fb page because he is a suspected offender, that’s fine by me. I agree that the copper should need a warrant to see private messages, but we need to be absolutely clear about what we mean by surveillance, because there are people (both Labour and Tory) who will ruthlessly misrepresent us if not..
Otherwise, a good article and I agree.
Good article.
Thanks for the article, but I have long been a supporter of giving the security service access to emails. I am not a fan of some of the harsh and self-damaging immigration controls and banning the likes of Snapchat seems too far for me, but access to emails for suspects seems good.
I took one day off reading about politics and I am already behind, but from what I can see Yvette Cooper wants a sensible middle way between Cameron and Clegg that we should look at and it is possibly similar to what Ming wants.
A lot of people looked on at the massive demonstrations in Paris and France over the weekend and thought it was a liberal demonstration against violence, but let’s not forget that it took place under the watchful eye of thousands of extra troops and police officers. A desire for security is pretty much a fact of life and we need to accept it.
Regards
I completely agree that 1) terrorism seeks to force by fear or anger to do that which we had not wanted to do 2) extremism should be countered by “assertive moderation ” – ie an assertion of freedom of speech and civil liberties. Nearly all of the terrorists were on the radar of the intelligence community but too much information is the issue and a lack of engagement because of a shortage of manpower. Liberal Democrats are right to support targeted engagement and oppose mass surveillance. We are right to oppose all intolerant religious extremists and oppose right wing racists who would wrongly seek to inflame, insult and provoke under the cover of free speech.
‘The press should neither censor the cartoons which caused the controversy nor shy away from printing them. At the same time, we should not accept attempts to further curtail our own freedoms from institutions who already appear
beyond the power of the democratic will of the people.’
Well, that’s all OK as far as it goes. But then many of the people talking je suis Charlie and all that might do well to ask themselves some searching questions. Would for example they be quite so sanguine about cutting satirical cartoons that say opposed equal marriage? Or satire about the disabled? Or satire about transgender people? Or satire that questioned the value of free movement in the EU? Or would that be, ‘hate,’ and, ‘demonization.’
Should people convicted of crimes be able to use the media and internet to protest their innocence?
It is of course true, as Nick Clegg said, that there is no right not to be offended. But then equally I do struggle reconcile this idea of free speech as a democratic, cherished value with the ever more strident and shrill nature of public debate. Maybe, of course, we would all do well to take the internet less seriously – these boards are really just a load of meaningless blather.
And yet I am faintly uncomfortable with just how much gratuitous offence and ill-will there is now and how normalised it has become, along with a load of cant about free speech. Is baiting people really so heroic and democratic? Maybe Muslims (and indeed people of all religions) are not forced to read satire about their religion – and of course what happened in France was an inexcusable crime. But there is more to democratic values than the limits of the state. Ultimately the public at large gets the democratic values and civil society it deserves, state surveillance or not.
Perhaps when it comes to free speech I suggest we could do with a bit more Kant and a bit less cant.
Thank you for this, if we give up our freedom we have lost and we are, in reality, no better than those we oppose.
@ Eddie – “I am not a fan of some of the harsh and self-damaging immigration controls and banning the likes of Snapchat seems too far for me, but access to emails for suspects seems good.”
Why? Why would criminals use your email when they could use secure IM? You either accept safety or freedom, which is it?
@ ljp – “Would for example they be quite so sanguine about cutting satirical cartoons that say opposed equal marriage? Or satire about the disabled? Or satire about transgender people? Or satire that questioned the value of free movement in the EU?”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I am in agreement with Zaheer. We must remember that terrorism is at attack by weak forces on stronger ones. It has two effects – the immediate shock and then the later alienating effect of over-reaction from the authorities. So we must not fall into the trap of over-reaction. TOver-reaction helps the terrorists’ political aims.
We cannot have absolute victory or safety here and we must be prepared for some casualties (and the honour them when they happen).
We must be very sceptical about restricting liberties; if we find such restrictions necessary, we must involve independent adjudicators; we must also have them subject to sunset clauses, so that they are reconsidered at intervals.
Hi Jedi, banning snapchat affects everyone, even people under no suspicion whatsoever, so I think it is different. I am unsure about iMessage, but probably best not to ban that either. Sometimes I wish the press wouldn’t report on the holes in our security service, but there you go!
We have already restricted Liberties: no British media outlet showed the latest front page of Charlie Hebdo. The few journalists who are honest about self censorship are Nick Cohen and Charles Moore.
Charlie, self-restraint of choice is not necessarily restriction of liberty.
“Hi Jedi, banning snapchat affects everyone, even people under no suspicion whatsoever, so I think it is different.”
how would banning pgp email be different?
Hi Jedi, I think the likes of iMessage is used for communication purposes more than Snapchat, so there is a small difference, but overall I’m not won over on either being banned. Cameron and Boris Johnson would have us end up with 1984 style telescreens in every home so they could listen to private conversations.
you either have security or freedom:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/david-cameron-internet-surveillance-syria-russia-iran-communication
which is it?
you cannot mandate government approved secure comms, because then the crimms use it, rather than the email you conveniently left open for their use.
accept the fact that more people will be murdered, maimed, scammed, and abused, in order that the rest of us can have freedom rather than tyranny.
cameron is indeed very wrong, i agree on that much.