Tag Archives: anti-terrorist legislation

Julian Huppert MP writes: It’s time to bail out TPIMs

By Julian Huppert MP | Published 29th June 2011 - 11:55 am

Labour’s approach to dealing with the threat of terrorism was illiberal and ineffective. The regime they built was topped off by control orders, which remain one of the most odious elements of their legacy. These orders totally bypassed due legal process, establishing a bewildering clandestine world of secret evidence, special advocates and draconian restrictions that would have made Kafka blush.

The irony was that all this authoritarian paraphernalia, which did great damage to civil liberties many of us had previously taken for granted, failed utterly to achieve its intended purpose. Not a single person subject to a control order has ever …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , | 5 Comments

LibLink: Tim Farron – Easing of control orders makes this a proud day for civil liberties

By NewsHound | Published 27th January 2011 - 3:20 pm

Lib Dem president Tim Farron writes in The Guardian’s Comment is Free about the Coalition’s reforms of control orders, restoring greater freedom for UK citizens. Here’s an excerpt:

With details of reform of counter-terrorism laws unveiled in the House of Commons, today is a proud day for those who cherish the freedoms that we in Britain have enjoyed for centuries and that our ancestors fought and died for. … the proposals detailed mark a decisive move away from the paranoid, authoritarian state presided over by Labour. No longer will people who have had no charge brought against them be locked up

…

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , | 36 Comments

Liberal Democrat responses to anti-terrorism legislation review

By Mark Pack | Published 27th January 2011 - 8:55 am

Here’s a round-up of responses from Liberal Democrat figures and blogs:

Tom Brake MP (Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs and Justice)

Sanity and justice have been restored to British life.

Today is a victory for those who have campaigned to restore the historic freedoms that Labour spent 13 years destroying.

Control orders are gone, 28 days detention without charge is gone, indiscriminate stop and search is gone and the abuse of anti-terror powers by councils to pursue petty offences is over.

There will always be a balance to be struck between freedom and security and these proposals

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Anti-terrorism review: 6 questions to judge the government by

By Mark Pack | Published 25th January 2011 - 8:56 pm

With the publication of the government’s anti-terrorism review just about to happen, and likely to include a large number of details, what are the key points to look for in judging how the review has gone?

So far, we know one outcome – the reduction in the maximum period people can be held without charge from 28-days to 14-days (which is in line with the Liberal Democrat manifesto). Yet to be published are the plans on control orders (the abolition of which has been another key Liberal Democrat demand) and on a host of other anti-terrorism legislation.

What to look out for

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , | 38 Comments

Jo Shaw writes: Counter Terrorism and Security Review latest

By Jo Shaw | Published 24th January 2011 - 10:23 am

The long awaited outcome of the review of counter-terrorism and security powers is to be announced this week. Already last week, the expected and widely trailed outcome was confirmed that the length of time for pre-charge detention has been halved from 28 to 14 days – this 28 day power will lapse on Tuesday. It now appears that Theresa May will announce the outcome of the review on Wednesday, after Cabinet presumably discusses the issue on Tuesday.

The most thorny issue for the Liberal Democrats is what will go and what will remain of the highly controversial Control Order regime. David …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Detention without charge to be cut from 28-days to 14-days

By Mark Pack | Published 20th January 2011 - 9:55 pm

It’s long been a Liberal Democrat demand, and it was in the party’s 2010 manifesto, so good news that detention without charge is set to fall back to 14-days. The current 28-days limit expires on Monday and today the government has confirmed that it will not be trying to renew the limit. The 28-day increase was brought in by the then Labour government in 2006.

The BBC adds:

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, who campaigned to reinstate the 14-day limit, said the move would speed up the justice system. “If the time frame is longer I’m afraid that there is less

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , | 17 Comments

Control orders: BBC reports likely outcome of government review

By Mark Pack | Published 11th January 2011 - 9:53 pm

The BBC that in place of control orders the government is intending to have powers to do the following:

ban suspects from travelling to locations such as open parks and thick walled buildings where surveillance is hard
allow suspects to use mobile phones and the internet but only if the numbers and details were given to the security services
ban suspects from travelling abroad
ban suspects from meeting certain named individuals, but limited to people who are themselves under surveillance or suspected of involvement in terrorism

Under the planned new orders, the security services would lose the power to impose overnight curfews, force suspects

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 12 Comments

Anti-terrorism legislation: news emerges of likely reforms

By Mark Pack | Published 30th November 2010 - 12:54 pm

In his Hugo Young lecture last week Nick Clegg clearly signalled the imminent end to control orders. Now over the last couple of days the shape of the likely conclusions from the anti-terrorism review are starting to emerge, with the current 28-day limit on detention without charge coming back down to 14 days. A new set of tighter than usual bail conditions could then be imposed for a further 14 days.

The police’s stop and search powers are also likely to be curtailed, particularly following the news that in the last year over 100,000 stop and searches were conducted under …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Clegg signals control orders to go

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd November 2010 - 8:47 pm

In the Hugo Young lecture tonight, Nick Clegg all but said that control orders were to go when – in pre-prepared comments in the middle of the speech – he said:

Old progressives pose a trade-off between individual liberty and national security. But, for liberals, liberty is the guarantor of our security. It is a false trade-off. For old progressives, national priorities will automatically trump individual freedoms. By contrast, the Coalition Government has already halted ID cards, and set out plans to regulate CCTV and end the indefinite storage of innocent people’s DNA. We will also shortly be published the results

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , | 8 Comments

Opinion: Control Orders – 14 words to mull over

By Jo Shaw | Published 21st November 2010 - 12:26 pm

“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society”. These are the first fourteen words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the Liberal Democrats. It was this statement that finally made me decide to join the Lib Dems nearly ten years ago, and has kept me campaigning, working and fighting for and on behalf of our party ever since.

The control order debate has been raging lately, within the party and in the press. I wanted to explain why I feel so strongly about the issue of control orders and why I set up the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 13 Comments

Control orders: ineffective but a blow to freedom

By Mark Pack | Published 16th November 2010 - 10:11 pm

“Ineffective in the fight on terror – but a devastating blow to freedom” – that’s the pithy and accurate summary of control orders by Mary Riddell over in the Daily Telegraph. And the newspaper in which the piece appeared is are reminder of how civil liberty issues cut across the political spectrum in not always expected or neat ways.

Riddell points out,

Within the next few days, Mr Cameron and his deputy must reach agreement on the future of security in Britain and, in particular, on control orders and how long to hold terror suspects without charge. The “car crash” foreseen

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Jeremy Browne MP writes… I’m no Tory: I’m a radical, authentic liberal

By Jeremy Browne MP | Published 9th November 2010 - 5:27 pm

Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne’s appearance on BBC1′s Question Time last week prompted critical comments for refusing to condfemn control orders, instead saying that the Coalition’s decision on control orders will await the outcome of the government-commission anti-terrorism review of Lib Dem peer Lord (Ken) Macdonald. Here Jeremy responds to his critics…

When I appeared on Question Time last week, I acknowledged that, confronted with a real terrorist threat from ideological zealots hostile to all of our liberal ideals, the government may sometimes, in its response, have to wrestle with the difficult tension between liberty and security. My goal is …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , | 77 Comments

Opinion: Did the LibDems pick the wrong weekend to call for curbs on anti-terror measures?

By Paul Walter | Published 30th October 2010 - 8:55 am

James Lyons of the Daily Mirror tweeted last night to say “Oh dear – lib dems picked wrong weekend to call for curbs on anti-terror measures”.

He referred to a Guardian story about LibDem backbenchers calling for the scrapping of control orders and the limit to detention without charge to be reduced to 14 days.

Well yes, I suppose if you have a hangover this morning and, therefore, impaired thinking faculties, it is easy to hear the news (of the discovery of the toner cartridge bombs on their way to the US) and think “silly, woolly Liberals” for raising their …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , | 12 Comments

More details published of Government’s review of anti-terrorism powers

By Mark Pack | Published 14th July 2010 - 9:20 am

A Home Office news release tells us:

The Home Secretary has announced today that a rapid review of key counter-terrorism and security powers is underway. The review will look at what counter-terrorism powers and measures could be rolled back in order to restore the balance of civil liberties and counter-terrorism powers…

The review will look at six areas:

• the use of control orders;

• stop and search powers in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the use of terrorism legislation in relation to photography;

• the detention of terrorist suspects before charge;

• extending the use of deportations with assurances to remove foreign

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Police pay damages to photojournalists

By Mark Pack | Published 29th June 2010 - 8:50 am

The police’s problems with mistreating photographers just go on and on. Yesterday Helen reported on the latest incident – including the damning comment from a policeman who, when asked under what law he was demanding a photographer’s details, simply said “I don’t have to have any law”.

But also we have the recent news that the police are paying compensation after an incident outside the Greek Embassy in 2008 when they stopped two photojournalists taking photographs. As the Press Gazette reported,

Vallée had his camera pulled away from his face and the lens of Parkinson’s video camera was covered by

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 4 Comments