Tag Archives: civil liberties

Stephen Tall

Official: the snoopers’ charter is dead in this parliament

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th May 2013 - 10:30 am

One element missing from the Queen’s Speech was the Communications Data Bill, aka the ‘snoopers’ charter’. No surprise to Lib Dems: Nick Clegg torpedoed it last month.

So I had a momentary spasm of concern to see on ConservativeHome this story from Mark Wallace: The Snoopers’ Charter comes sneaking back. Again.

I asked Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert (who’s played a crucial role in safeguarding civil liberties this parliament, including on this Bill) if there were any truth in it, and got an immediate reply…

…

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Pawel Swidlicki

Liberal Democrats risk civil liberties blind spot on EU crime and policing laws

By Pawel Swidlicki | Fri 26th April 2013 - 1:19 pm

There are few issues that galvanise Liberal Democrat members like civil liberties. Since going into coalition, party members have upheld this tradition by campaigning on a range of issues, most notably the so-called snooper’s charter and secret courts. However, the party has also traditionally been strongly committed to European co-operation – what happens when these clash?

The immediate context is the choice facing the coalition on whether to definitely opt into around 130 EU criminal and justice laws, including the European Arrest Warrant, by 2014. This is part of a wider debate whether it …

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Posted in Europe / International and The Independent View | 6 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink…Nick Thornsby: The snooper’s charter has reminded Nick Clegg, finally, he is a liberal

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th April 2013 - 6:55 pm

Yes, I know, it is Snoopers’ Charter Central here on Liberal Democrat Voice today. I hope you will forgive us for being relieved and delighted that Nick Clegg has made sure that the Government will not be bringing forward an illiberal, unnecessary and intrusive measure.

Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, our Nick Thornsby has given his take on the issue, going back through the events of the past year since the idea first emerged. At that point the Party was furious that we could even contemplate such a thing:

 Their anger was such that a hastily arranged conference call with

…

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Dr Jenny Woods

Opinion: A reference article for the Communications Data bill

By Dr Jenny Woods | Wed 24th April 2013 - 9:37 am

Back in February 2012, I became concerned about rumours of proposed new legislation which would put in place the means for monitoring all UK citizens’ online and mobile communications – legislation which had previously been thrown out as unworkable by opposition parties when the last Labour government tried something similar.

I wrote a policy amendment, appended to Julian Huppert’s Spring 2012 Conference motion on civil liberties, setting out what I hoped would be a good Liberal Democrat position against those – then unseen – proposals. If I’d known then what was to be …

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Caron Lindsay

Secret Courts..what does the party do now?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 5th March 2013 - 2:02 pm

Its’s not been the easiest 24 hours to be a Liberal Democrat. It was very hard to watch the majority of our MPs vote to remove the right to a fair trial in civil cases where national security is deemed to be a factor.  Just seven MPs voted in favour of amendments advised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The fact that the JCHR had a different view from the Government should surely have raised a huge red flag. An even bigger signal that our MPs were on the wrong course was the fact that Labour were voting in …

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Jim Killock

The Independent View: only 24 hours left to have your say on adult filtering

By Jim Killock | Wed 5th September 2012 - 11:55 am

Default blocking of online adult material is a controversial and illiberal policy, which has attracted criticism from plenty of Liberal Democrats – and rightly so. Default Internet censorship takes decisions about what is appropriate for families and households out of parents’ hands. In the process the Government would be constructing an infrastructure of censorship that will be inefficient, error-ridden and open to abuse.

Default blocking will mean the Government and technology companies, rather than parents, deciding what is ‘appropriate’ for children and young people. Filtering can give parents a false sense of security and also inevitably leads to the the ‘wrong’ …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Antony Hook

Opinion: Unelected Lords are against the spirit of the European Convention on Human Rights

By Antony Hook | Wed 8th August 2012 - 9:22 am

For as long as philosophers and political campaigners have asserted that certain rights are basic, universal or inalienable, the right to elect one’s legislators has generally figured in those rights.

England’s 1689 Bill of Rights protected the right to elect Members of Parliament without interference from the Crown.  In France the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed the right to vote. In America, five separate Articles of the US Bill of Rights protect voting rights and both Houses are elected under the Constitution.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides:

Article 21

(1) Everyone has the right to take part

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 33 Comments
John Cross

The Independent View: FairCopUK – a new campaign for police honesty

By John Cross | Tue 7th August 2012 - 10:39 am

FairCopUK is a new campaign for the UK police to be required to be honest when explaining what your rights are and what powers they have. I was inspired to set up the campaign by Richard Taylor’s suggestion that the police should not be allowed to lie or mislead without justification.

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Nick Thornsby

Lib Dem policy goes viral as ‘Reform Section 5′ campaign launched

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 17th May 2012 - 11:27 am

“It might surprise you to know that under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, the police and the courts can decide if you or someone else might feel insulted” states the front page of the Reform Section 5 campaign’s website.

But this is unlikely to surprise many Lib Dems, who just a couple of months ago, at our Spring Conference in Gateshead, passed a motion (pdf) which called for the right to free speech to be protected through:

 The repeal of section 5 of the Public Order Act, which creates ‘non-intentional’ speech offences, and the removal of ‘insulting’ from Section 4A of

…

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Julian Huppert MP

Julian Huppert MP writes: What does the Queen’s Speech mean for civil liberties?

By Julian Huppert MP | Wed 9th May 2012 - 4:45 pm

So – how does the Queen’s Speech rate for those of us who care about civil liberties? Well, there’s some excellent news, and some areas where we need to keep working to get the right result.

First, we have fantastic news about libel reform. I am delighted that the Defamation Bill will finally come into being. As Liberal Democrats we have long made the case that our libel laws are out-dated and in desperate need of improvement.  Our current system unfairly favours the rich because the cost of lawsuits means ordinary people find it very difficult to defend themselves against false …

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Carl Miller

The Independent View: A blueprint for social media intelligence

By Carl Miller | Wed 25th April 2012 - 10:25 am

The controversy over the Government’s plans to legislate for Internet surveillance, the ‘Communications Capabilities Development Programme’, has exposed a deep division within the Coalition. Into the dispute that has simmered since some details were first leaked earlier this month, David Cameron himself has weighed in to say that the proposals are necessary to stop crime, whereas Tim Farron has threatened to kill it “if we think this is a threat to a free and liberal society”.

This rumbling outrage surrounding CCDP testifies to the importance of a principled, publicly argued grounding for any kind of intelligence. It is exactly …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Valladares

European Parliament votes through new agreement on transfer of air passenger data to US authorities

By Mark Valladares | Fri 20th April 2012 - 3:45 pm

On Thursday, the Parliament voted on a new agreement on the transfer of EU air passengers’ personal data to the US authorities. The deal sets legal conditions and covers issues such as storage periods, use, data protection safeguards and administrative and judicial redress, and replaces a provisional deal in place since 2007.

The EU-US Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement was adopted with 409 votes in favour, 226 against and 33 abstentions, with two-thirds of the ALDE MEPs taking part voting against due to concerns over data protection safeguards, including rapporteur Sophie in’T Veld (D’66, Netherlands, ALDE), who withdrew her name …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , and | 7 Comments
Mark Valladares

Coming up in Brussels: 17-20 April

By Mark Valladares | Tue 17th April 2012 - 11:21 am

Welcome to another experiment. Due to a late substitution amongst the LDV Editorial team, combined with a lack of material (you’re all out campaigning, as you should be, I presume), welcome to our first attempt to preview forthcoming events in the European Parliament. Let us know what you think or, if you fancy doing it yourself, get in touch.

Well, I say Brussels, but this week sees the European Parliamentary roadshow hit Strasbourg to waste a chunk of money to placate the French for April’s plenary session. So, …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Another day, another good Daily Mail front page

By Mark Pack | Thu 5th April 2012 - 11:25 pm

Trust you’re sitting down, but it’s another day and another Daily Mail front page pushing a positive civil liberties story, reporting on good news from government as another idea from the Conservative part of the Coalition is failing to win favour. It’s becoming rather a habit.

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

Posted in News | Also tagged | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

Good news on civil liberties from the Daily Mail

By Mark Pack | Tue 3rd April 2012 - 10:59 pm

Wednesday’s front page:

Posted in News | 18 Comments

Opinion: even football supporters have civil liberties… don’t they?

By Gary Shearer | Tue 13th March 2012 - 11:52 am

There I was with a couple of mates when a group of police officers appeared and started filming us.

None of us had a criminal record, nor were we doing anything remotely suspicious. We were not drunk, we were in a public place and there was nothing untoward going on around us either.

Our only crime was to have visited a football stadium to watch a match.

To rub it in even further, not only was one of the officers recording video for almost the entire 90 minutes another stood right next to her and took dozens of pictures.

At first I thought the …

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Michael Hall

Opinion: Civil Liberties or taking liberties?

By Michael Hall | Tue 21st February 2012 - 11:29 am

On 11 March we will debate at our Spring Conference in Gateshead an innocuous- sounding motion about Civil Liberties, but it needs to be looked at carefully to see if it is not more about letting people take liberties, than protecting our right to protest.

I know the Liberal Democrats do not support anarchy and mob rule, but you could be forgiven for thinking they do if you just read the motion, to be moved by Dr Julian Huppert, the MP for Cambridge and summed up by Tom Brake MP for Carshalton and Wallington.

I cannot see why the offence of aggravated …

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Richard Clare

Opinion: Stop the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer

By Richard Clare | Wed 18th January 2012 - 1:55 pm

Recently Sheffield Hallam student Richard O’Dwyer lost his court case against extradition to the USA for running a website that provided links to websites where users could illegally pirate copyrighted TV material. He will be lodging an appeal with the High Court and he cannot be extradited without the specific permission of the Home Secretary Theresa May.

Richard’s actions were not a crime in the UK because his website did not host the files but rather hosted links to the websites that did host the files, like Google does. Quite simply, it goes against the terms of the Extradition Treaty …

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Sam Barnett

Opinion: In the name of the Olympics

By Sam Barnett | Wed 4th January 2012 - 3:28 pm

With the summer 2012 drawing ever closer, it is no surprise that the amount of column inches devoted to the London Olympics is increasing. What has surprised me, though, has been how much of this coverage has been of the controversies that seem to be multiplying around the Games, and just what may be done in the name of the Olympics next year.

Flatly, I am worried that the Government is importing dodgy methods of event management to Stratford and the rest of London. The security measures recently announced are especially concerning. I hope no Liberal in Britain is reassured by …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
James Baker

The Independent View: Selling our NHS data is not putting us in control of our health records

By James Baker | Mon 5th December 2011 - 2:55 pm

Back in 2010 there was a wave of optimism amongst civil liberties campaigners, especially those of us concerned with protecting privacy from an over-bearing database state. Not only did the coalition agreement set out a promise to scrap ID cards and its associated population register, there were other promises too: “We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason” and then on page 25 of the coalition agreement the statement that “We will put patients in charge of making decisions about their care, including control of their health records”.

In our briefing document ‘Privacy Under Threat’ …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 25 Comments
Nick Thornsby

Henry Porter: Why we should believe Nick Clegg when he promises to restore liberties stolen by Labour

By Nick Thornsby | Mon 14th February 2011 - 6:53 pm

In yesterday’s Observer, Henry Porter, who has written widely on civil liberties ‘stolen’ by the previous government, talked to Nick Clegg about the government’s recently-announced Protection of Freedoms Bill. As you probably gleaned from the headline, Porter is generally extremely enthusiastic about the Bill, though he takes the deputy prime minister’s advice to “hold the government’s feet to the fire” by listing some additional illiberal measures which he would like to see removed.

Here’s a short excerpt from the piece:

Negotiation over the bill has been long and intense, especially with the Home Office and police over the deletion of innocent people’s

…

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Mark Pack

Freedoms Bill published: now you can marry at 6:01pm

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th February 2011 - 10:25 pm

Earlier today, the Protection of Freedoms Bill was published which, in the words of Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, “brings to fruition proposals which were first drawn up by Nick Clegg four years ago, and demonstrates our commitment to rolling back unnecessary and intrusive laws introduced by Labour”.

Key provisions of the Bill include the enactment of some previously announced decisions alongside some new, additional proposals:

  • an end to the routine monitoring of 9.3 million people under the radically reformed vetting and barring scheme
  • millions of householders protected from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
  • the scrapping of Section 44

…

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Prateek Buch

Opinion: Liberal Democrats in government are protecting free speech and other cherished civil liberties

By Prateek Buch | Sun 9th January 2011 - 4:50 pm

The Institute for Government was the setting for Deputy Prime Minister’s keynote address on the Coalition Government’s plans for protecting civil liberties – and for those of us keen to see Britain’s tarnished international reputation on personal freedoms restored, Nick Clegg’s speech was enough to brighten even the most dismal of days.

Nick began with a nice touch, telling us why his belief in civil liberties sprang from an upbringing that “made sure that my brothers and sister and I grew up certain of one thing: you must never take your freedom for granted.” This personal insight helped set …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments
John Howson

Opinion: Control orders – not the only problem with restrictions on liberty

By John Howson | Sat 8th January 2011 - 10:55 am

How far do we want to permit detention without trial? If Control Orders are regarded as an unacceptable deprivation of liberty under Article 5 of the ECHR legislation, what are we to make of police officers who summarily impose long curfews on those arrested but not charged with any offence?

Fanciful as it may seem, it is perfectly possible for a police officer to arrest someone, take them to a police station, have an interview with them, and then release the person on police bail for four weeks but impose a curfew from 9pm to 6am requiring the person to …

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The Voice

Nick Clegg: “A liberal approach to freedom, a British approach to freedom”

By The Voice | Fri 7th January 2011 - 1:25 pm

Nick Clegg today set out the principles which will drive the Coalition’s plans to uphold civil liberties while protecting national security, and outlined reforms to Freedom of Information laws and English libel laws. You can read the full speech below — here’s the conclusion:

So, to sum up: the restoration of every day liberties; counterterrorism measures that uphold liberty while protecting security; free citizens able to see into, and speak out about, the organisations that affect their lives. It is a liberal approach to freedom; a British approach to freedom. It forms an important part of our programme to rebalance the relationship between the state and its citizens. Our Labour predecessors will be remembered as the government who took your freedoms away. We want to be remembered as the ones who gave them back.

And here’s the BBC News report in which Nick talks about the ‘dilemma’ the Government faces in working through how to replace Control Orders:

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Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011: making progress on core LibDem beliefs

By Mark Pack | Wed 22nd December 2010 - 11:45 am

Over the festive season we’re running a series of posts on the main Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011. You can find all the posts as they appear here.

Getting economic policy right may be at the heart of the government’s long-term fate, and crucial for the country, but even if everything goes right the benefits are long-term ones – so to keep the coalition working well over the next year will require a steady supply of other good news and much work on internal communications.

Ask Liberal Democrat activists why they are active in politics and why for the Liberal Democrats …

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David Parkes

Opinion: On Broken Promises

By David Parkes | Wed 1st December 2010 - 2:45 pm

I’m sure many of you, like myself, watched Vince Cable’s interview on the Politics Show last week where he denied breaking any promises to oppose a rise in tuition fees, with a certain feeling of discomfort. But now I think the time has come to discuss a change in narrative.

Lib Dem MPs and Ministers (including up until now Vince Cable,) have a reputation for giving straight-forward honest answers to journalists questions without coming across as evasive or revisionist. However, with the tuition fee pledge to deny a promise was ever made and as such never broken is not a …

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The Independent View: the Liberal Democrats can deliver civil liberties

By Tim Gee | Thu 4th November 2010 - 4:25 pm

One of the lasting legacies of the Liberal Democrats in power will be the efforts to push through what has been named the ‘Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill’.

A somewhat younger looking Nick Clegg made this the subject of his party conference speech back in 2006 when he was shadow home secretary.

Returning to conference as Deputy Prime Minister in 2010, Clegg triumphantly declared that “In November, we will publish a Freedom Bill to roll back a generation of illiberal and intrusive legislation.”

The Liberal Democrat draft addresses some of the most obvious anti-campaigning laws. For example it proposes …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Worth a second outing: Great Liberal Speeches: sacrificing the constitution on the altar of public security

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message.

I was one of the contributors to Great Liberal Speeches. Here is my introduction to the selected speech from George Tierney, followed by the speech itself. The issues are arguments are still very pertinent …

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Mark Pack

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

By Mark Pack | Wed 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

…

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