Tag Archives: terrorism

LibLink | Nick Harvey: Forget a cyber Maginot line

By Helen Duffett | Published 8th June 2011 - 2:54 pm

Nick Harvey, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, writes over at Comment is Free about potential threats to digital networks, and calls for a global consensus on cyberspace security:

Threats do not just come from malicious viruses or organised criminals stealing people’s identity or money. Digital networks are now at the heart of our transport, power and communications systems, and our economy as a whole. This reliance brings the capacity for warfare to cyberspace. The consequences of a well-planned, well-executed attack against our digital infrastructure could be catastrophic. In this way, a single networked laptop might be as effective

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged comment is free, cyber warfare, nick harvey | Leave a comment

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 …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged anti-terrorist legislation, control orders, featured, house arrest, ripa | 1 Comment

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

By The Voice | Published 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:

Posted in News | Also tagged civil liberties, control orders, nick clegg | 33 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 …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged anti-terrorist legislation, bbc question time, control orders | 77 Comments

European Parliament rejects plans to hand bank details to the US

By Mark Pack | Published 16th February 2010 - 5:52 pm

Sharing of bank records with the US started in 2001 in an effort to tackle terrorism. However, the European Parliament has rejected new proposed agreement after heated criticisms that too much private information could be handed over without good reason.

The Register reported:

The European Parliament has rejected a proposed interim agreement on SWIFT – under which the US gets access to European bank transactions…

Rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert from the Netherlands said the Council had not been tough enough on data protection and rules in the interim agreement on data protection were not proportionate to the security supposedly provided.

London Lib Dem …

Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged european parliament, sarah ludford, SWIFT | 4 Comments

LibLink … Chris Huhne: Terrorists don’t stand still, and neither can we

By NewsHound | Published 6th January 2010 - 4:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website today, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that, if they are effective and available, body scanners at airports should have been rolled out by the government years ago. Here’s an excerpt:

No one wants to have full body scanners in airports. No one wants to be electronically strip-searched at the start of their holidays. It is an invasion of privacy we would all rather avoid. But the foiled bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound plane over Christmas demonstrates that terrorists still have an unhealthy addiction to air travel, and we have to

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged chris huhne | 11 Comments

Parties on a war footing – but what are they fighting for?

By Helen Duffett | Published 2nd January 2010 - 7:35 pm

New Year, old sabre-rattling. Gordon Brown and David Cameron are parading their leadership credentials, with a view to capturing an entire nation – the UK, that is.

David Cameron made a speech (transcript here) in Oxfordshire today saying that the country needs a change of direction and a new leadership:

“We can’t go on in these difficult times with a weak prime minister and a divided government.”

[See the BBC website for a video clip]

You can almost hear the Tory munitions factory roar as they forge this, strengthen that and defeat the other.

And here’s Gordon Brown on New Year’s Eve:

“The Detroit plot thankfully failed. But it has been a wake-up call for the ongoing battles we must wage not just for security against terror but for the hearts and minds of a generation.”

It’s a common political (and journalistic, and marketing) technique to play to people’s fears, but what next in the Prime Ministerial arms race – Brown and Cameron appearing on the decks of rival aircraft carriers, squeezed into military uniform à la George Bush?

Neither leader, for all their fighting talk, seems to have heard of liberty.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged darrell goodliffe, david cameron, george bush, gordon brown, liberal revolution blog, nick clegg, stephen glenn | 1 Comment

The Tories and control orders: saying one thing, voting another way

By Stephen Tall | Published 17th November 2009 - 6:45 pm

Control orders were introduced by Labour in 2005, and give the Home Secretary powers to impose a limitless range of restrictions on any person they suspect of involvement in terrorism.

As the Lib Dems noted in our proposed Freedom Bill, ‘The restrictions imposed by some control orders amount to house arrest and they can include controls on who a person can meet or speak to; when they can leave their house and where they can go. This undermines the freedom not only of those on control orders but of their families as well.’

Lib Dems are, unsurprisingly, opposed to Labour’s …

Posted in Op-eds, Opposition watch | Also tagged conservative party, control orders, freedom bill, pauline neville-jones | 3 Comments

Erm, Ed, “tea with the Taleban” – perhaps it’s time to get a new speech-writer?

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st September 2009 - 4:57 pm

Reader, it pains me to write this – especially as it means I’m partially agreeing with Iain Dale – but it needs saying. This is what Ed Davey, our shadow foreign secretary said yesterday in his speech to conference:

… it’s time for tea with the Taleban – and tea with the multitude of local tribal Afghan insurgent leaders.

When I first saw it reported that Ed had called for “tea with the Taleban”, I assumed it was a paraphrase ad absurdum – a bit like David Cameron’s ‘hug a hoodie’, a phrase he never actually uttered. But, no, I’m …

Posted in News | Also tagged afghanistan, bournemouth 2009 conference, ed davey, iain dale, taleban | 9 Comments

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #7: The Megrahi Documents

By Stephen Glenn | Published 2nd September 2009 - 12:45 pm

The Megrahi case has ripped apart the peace of the Scottish Parliamentary recess, with even some former Lib Dem leaders taking a differing view to our leader in Holyrood. Today the UK Government and Scottish Parliament have released papers relating to the discussions that have gone one over the last two years. It ranges from correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood, to memos of meetings with Libyan officials, to the compassionate release request listing medical conditions.

These start chronologically with the first letter from then-Lord Chnacellor Lord (Charles) Falconer to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond outlining the Memorandum of Understanding that Westminster had set up with Libya regarding a number of judicial issues. The Memorandum was drawn up to look at increasing bilateral co-operation covering, amongst other things, commercial and criminal issues. The legal issues were not exclusively about Mr Al Megrahi, but looking at the bigger picture of co-operation between the two nations at large. However, Lord Falconer did say that nothing could be ruled in or out, but that co-operation and consultation between Westminster and Holyrood would be carried forward.

However, it the path of the UK’s justice secretary Jack Straw’s correspondence that sheds a lot of light on the situation, especially considering the Labour response in Holyrood.

Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, alex salmond, bill rammell, david miliband, devolution, jack straw, justice, kenny macaskill, libya, lord falconer, scottish parliament, snp | 4 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 30 August 2009

By Stephen Tall | Published 30th August 2009 - 12:05 pm

2 Big Stories

Sunday Times: Lockerbie bomber ‘set free for oil’

Today’s Times has the big story:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release. The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

The Lib Dems Ed Davey – who has been leading the campaign for full disclosure over Mr Al Megrahi’s release – is quoted by the paper:

This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”

Brown’s surprise Afghanistan trip scuppers Cameron

Posted in News | Also tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, afghanistan, barnet council, david cameron, duncan macdonald, gordon brown, jack straw, kenny macaskill, libya, nick clegg, oil, sandy walkington | Leave a comment

Kennedy speaks out on Megrahi

By Stephen Tall | Published 28th August 2009 - 8:20 pm

While Nick Clegg has publicly disagreed with the SNP Scottish executive’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has joined David Steel in declaring his belief that the decision was the right one. Charles’s local paper the Ross-shire Journal reports his views:

The Justice Secretary faced an unenviable decision, in which neither of two practical options represents a good outcome. The whole tragic, tangled web of Pan Am Flight 103 raises profound issues of principle and of process.

“The most regrettable aspect of what has happened is that the appeal was withdrawn, and there is now no clear route to try to resolve all the doubts which surround the Lockerbie bombing and Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.

Posted in News | Also tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, charles kennedy, ed davey, gordon brown, kenny macaskill, libya | 9 Comments

Brown’s silence on Megrahi: “absurd” says Clegg, “right” says Steel

By Stephen Tall | Published 24th August 2009 - 1:45 pm

Nick Clegg has today condemned Gordon Brown for issuing no statement following the release on compassionate grounds of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi:

Although the decision to release Megrahi was a Scottish one for which Gordon Brown was not personally responsible, the fallout puts the UK at the centre of an international storm.

“In these circumstances, it is absurd and damaging that the British Prime Minister simply remains silent in the hope that someone else will take the flak.”

He went further on this lunchtime’s BBC Radio 4 World at One, openly criticising the decision of the Scottish Executive, saying, “I find it difficult to accept that someone convicted in a British court of law should be released as he was.”

But speaking on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today Programme his predecessor Lord (David) Steel – a former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament – defended the Prime Minister’s stance:

Posted in News | Also tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, david steel, nick clegg | 43 Comments

All North West terror suspects released without charge

By Helen Duffett | Published 22nd April 2009 - 1:12 pm

All 12 men who were arrested two weeks ago in terror raids in the north west of England are to be released without charge.

However, nine of the men are to be deported for breaching the terms of their entry into the UK. Greater Manchester Police have released them into the custody (oxymoron, surely?) of the UK Border Agency.

The police raids, which were hastily brought forward and led to the resignation of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick are now under renewed scrutiny.

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary said,

“This is yet another embarrassment for Jacqui Smith coming hot on the

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Posted in News | Also tagged bob quick, chris huhne, jacqui smith | 1 Comment

Lembit: “Time to talk to al-Qaeda”

By The Voice | Published 30th January 2009 - 1:20 pm

The BBC reports on Lembit Opik’s plea for the West to speak to al-Qaeda:

It is time to talk to al-Qaeda. Having been through this in the past, I know this is right. Declaring war on terror does not deliver peace. The random killing of hundreds of civilians has obviously secured headlines from the perpetrators. As long as this cycle is repeated, we have relatively little chance of achieving closure on the terrorist methodology.

“For those people that want revenge, it’s hard. But then the crime will have created its own ricochet. That would distract from any chance of strategic solutions

…

Posted in Europe / International, News | Also tagged al-qaeda, ed davey, lembit opik | 6 Comments

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