Tag Archives: terrorism

Mark Pack

European Parliament rejects plans to hand bank details to the US

By Mark Pack | Tue 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 …

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged , and | 4 Comments
NewsHound

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

By NewsHound | Wed 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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Helen Duffett

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

By Helen Duffett | Sat 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.”

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.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Tue 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 …

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Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Mon 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 …

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Stephen Glenn

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #7: The Megrahi Documents

By Stephen Glenn | Wed 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.

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds and Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 30 August 2009

By Stephen Tall | Sun 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

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Stephen Tall

Kennedy speaks out on Megrahi

By Stephen Tall | Fri 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.

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Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Mon 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:

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Helen Duffett

All North West terror suspects released without charge

By Helen Duffett | Wed 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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The Voice

Lembit: “Time to talk to al-Qaeda”

By The Voice | Fri 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

…

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , and | 6 Comments
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