42 days?

[leviathon]

This is a bit old now but the British governmnet has (relatively) recently managed to push through parliament legislation that will allow terrorist suspects to be held without charge for up to 42 days. Supposedly to allow complex police investigtions the time needed to gather evidence, this measure is seen as unnecessary by many high-ranking police officers and it is feared it will create divisions between muslim societies and the police; breaking down the links so crucial to fighting terrorism. So what do you think?

[motivez]

As long as the time they are allowed to hold someone is limited, and they have access to a court system to challenge their detention, as well as a lawyer.. it's certainly not as bad as the procedure being used by the Bush Administration, which is really the opposite of the criteria I listed

I think there should definitely be qualifiers for who's able to be held under the provision, though. They should have to prove to some sort of judge that there is reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in it before being able to enact it, but that they need time to formalize their investigation to bring about charges

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by leviathon

This is a bit old now but the British governmnet has (relatively) recently managed to push through parliament legislation that will allow terrorist suspects to be held without charge for up to 42 days. Supposedly to allow complex police investigtions the time needed to gather evidence, this measure is seen as unnecessary by many high-ranking police officers and it is feared it will create divisions between muslim societies and the police; breaking down the links so crucial to fighting terrorism. So what do you think?

I could certainly see this increasing tension with the UK's Muslim population if they feel as if they are being unfairly targeted simply because of their ethnicity and or religion. tensions already exist due to poor integration of large immigrant groups such as Pakistanis.

The largest threat of course is that this might lead to more of an "us and them" mindset among british citizens and Islamic British citizens. Polarization doesn't usually work out well.


Hopefully this power won't be abused too much.

[leviathon]

Hopefully Dylith, hopefully. But look at what happened in Ireland with these kinds of measures. Motivez, I can understand what you're saying but there will always be room for corruption and mis-use of the terror laws in order to intimidate other suspected criminals. I think the problem is that they need no evidence to detain someone, though in practice they will have some reason to arouse suspicion, and it seems unlikely that 42 days is necessary. The damage to community relations could be huge, and it could create more terrorism or at least extremist thought, than it halts.

[motivez]

Hm, well they should have some sort of evidence against the person and should have to justify it to some sort of judge IMO. If the judge considers the evidence sufficient to warrant further detention, I would have little problem with them being held for a limited time before being charged. If that's not the case, then it's a bad law and should be rejected by the voters

[leviathon]

Originally Posted by motivez

Hm, well they should have some sort of evidence against the person and should have to justify it to some sort of judge IMO. If the judge considers the evidence sufficient to warrant further detention, I would have little problem with them being held for a limited time before being charged. If that's not the case, then it's a bad law and should be rejected by the voters

We don't get a choice, nor do I think we should, but yeah it was passed through parliament not by referendum.

[Dylith]

At least it isn't the same type of administrative detention practices that the US and Israel are using.

[avsp]

The whole thinking behind the numerous new 'terror laws' is wrong IMO.

The 42 days is to find the evidence based on suspicion

No other European country feels the need. We've already got 7 days as standard in criminal cases which IIUC again is longer than virtually every other nation

Any likely terrorism trail will have vetted defence lawyers who wobt be allowed to inspect the all the evidence & both defence & accused will be removed from the court during some of the trail in front of a vetted jury. This is under existing laws.

Already in purely criminal cases we've had anonymous witness'. A recent law lord ruling making this illegal has resulted in plans to rush thru laws making it OK.

Meanwhile we've lost the old original absolute right to silence, the state can appeal sentance, the police can tell anybody going anywhere to turn round & go back based on the cops 'belief' that there may be a breach of the peace down the road, refusal to comply is a crime from which there is no possible defence.

City walls are littered with repellant, sealed, laminated, plastic posters showing where it is illegal for two or more people to stand against a cops wishes

The place is cameraed & microphone up to f*ck, ..., the public & private cameras are being linked with sophistcated face recognition s/w. There are proposals to make compulsary to keep ones face viewable by these machines. Compulsary ID cards are coming, that we are expected to pay for out of our pockets directly not via taxes rumoured cost in the region of £100

There also growing use of 'special constables', (under-trained jumped-up members of the public out for an afternoons power-tripping), whose mindset & cliched behaviour is exactly like that of a Hollywood Gestapo agent (continual fiddling with leather gloves etc) & they infect the real cops with their idiocy.
The ticket inspections on the buses look & feel EXACTLY like a scene from a 'oh! look bad Nazis' film. The only difference is that instrad of running onto the bus shouting 'Papers!' they shout 'Tickets!'

I could go on & on & on with examples of erosion of liberies & growing police-state-like behaviour, ..., its now a daily occurrence for speakers in lamp posts to shout Orwellian type slogans at me & theres CCTV vans driving round regularly also adorned with Orwellian type stuff. Meanwhile there's posters exhorting ppl to report suspected terrorists for things like buying more than one mobile phone at once, (despite phone companies offering exatly such a deal), hiring vans with cash or photgraphing CCTV cameras. Its actually difficult to spend large amounts of cash. Its an extremely alarming situation, ..., & few ppl give a f*ck

Worst of all when David Davis, (shadow home secretary). stands up to really make this an issue by resigning his seat & thus forcing a bye-election to be fought on the 42 days bill in particular & the whole deal in general the PRESS make the issue one about his egoism & personalty clashes with the man to whom he lost the leadership of the Tory pary to.

The PRESS, the f*cking PRESS arent standing up for traditional British freedoms. Its enough to make one give credance to the likes of Alex Jones etc

Equally some of the new measures are a joke, ..., especially the tagging. None of the ppl I know who've been tagged have obeyed it, many get away with it & even if not their punishments are minimal. Doubtless over time the tech will be improved

All these new laws are basically used by cops to hassle the underclass & resentment is building very fast.

With the likelyhood of the coming recession & the inevitable race-riots I feel that this time round the general rioting is going to be massive & the police are going to get their heads kicked in big time.

Plus theres a lot more guns around now than before.

[avsp]

I dont know how Viv & Leviathon feel about all this but I'd like to encourage them to get it together so that on the day ID cars become mandatory large numbers of people crowd into cop shops & openly destroy their cards & demand to be arrested & prosecuted

Overloading the system may be our last hope of combatting this crap

In the meantime I'm voting lib-dem as they're the only party even vaguely opposed to all this needless scare-mongering & authoritarian bull-sh*t

[leviathon]

Originally Posted by avsp

I dont know how Viv & Leviathon feel about all this but I'd like to encourage them to get it together so that on the day ID cars become mandatory large numbers of people crowd into cop shops & openly destroy their cards & demand to be arrested & prosecuted

Overloading the system may be our last hope of combatting this crap

In the meantime I'm voting lib-dem as they're the only party even vaguely opposed to all this needless scare-mongering & authoritarian bull-sh*t

Yep, I had already planned to do something similar to what you suggest shoudld the ID card thing go ahead. I can't understand Brown's motivation, it goes against all labour party principles (a three-word phrase which has become an oxy-moron with Blair and Brown) and it's political suicide when piled up with all the other things, like 42 days, which he is pushing through.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by leviathon

Yep, I had already planned to do something similar to what you suggest shoudld the ID card thing go ahead. I can't understand Brown's motivation, it goes against all labour party principles (a three-word phrase which has become an oxy-moron with Blair and Brown) and it's political suicide when piled up with all the other things, like 42 days, which he is pushing through.

old-skool socialism is basically dead in the party if not the country, ..., i blame the trot inflitraion back in the old days

As for 42 days & ID cards I dont know both seem fairly poplular. Its like ppl are more than happy to be told what is to be done rather than ask for what they think is wise/required.

The lack of political engaement amongst Brits worries me.

I largely blame Murdoch who has constantly sought to shorten attention spans & popularise the view that politics is both boring & difficult whilst those interested in it are effete deviants who are to be sneered at.

He has done this deliberately to give himself the ability of deliverying elections to parties that will legislate to allow his power & influence to increase

[leviathon]

Originally Posted by avsp

old-skool socialism is basically dead in the party if not the country, ..., i blame the trot inflitraion back in the old days

As for 42 days & ID cards I dont know both seem fairly poplular. Its like ppl want to be told what to do rather than ask foer what they want

the lack of political engaement amongst the brits worries me

You're telling me, I'm 17 so I see everyday the depressing lack of political awareness among the younger generation. I blame the lack of socialism in the labour party on two things, 1) Thatcher - she fucked absolutely everything up in the country but remained popular forcing a move to the right 2) Blair and new labour - he continued the sickening move of the whole political spectrum to the right and engaged policies that would please Thatcher.

[Joe Castro]

It is a publicity stunt and no more. They just want to appear tough on terrorism. They have made no argument as to why 42 is the number, first they wanted 90, then they settled for 28, now they want 42. It is simply headline grabbing politics.

Now my main problem with this is not concerning civil liberties as it is with most. My main concern is that not only is the legislation noit effective but it is actually counter productive.. This is agreed from the left, George Galloway and Tony Benn say so, but to the right with conservative mp Patrick Mercer who uses this argument, and he should no having served in Northern Ireland when internment of suspects was government policy.
The law will have the same impact as internment. Hundreds of people were arrested for being catholic or just living in a neighborhood which meant they interacted with other suspects, not proven terrorists, just mere suspects. What this did was turn the young boys held to the IRA which they weren't part of before. It was the IRA's number one recruiting sergeant.

This will do the exact same with muslims, youngsters will be held for knowing the wrong people or attending the same mosque. Then instead of countering terrorism it will only give them the conviction that something needs to be done. It will tell them that Britain is not a place to be a muslim and needs to be changed.

In effect it will radicalise the youth who we really ought to be reaching out to. I only hope that after the lords reject this legislation that significant mps will find their conscience and not accept the governments bribes. These bribes include more money to Stormont and a loosening of sanctions on Cuba. While i agree the latter should happen, it should not happen in this way.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by leviathon

You're telling me, I'm 17 so I see everyday the depressing lack of political awareness among the younger generation. I blame the lack of socialism in the labour party on two things, 1) Thatcher - she fucked absolutely everything up in the country but remained popular forcing a move to the right 2) Blair and new labour - he continued the sickening move of the whole political spectrum to the right and engaged policies that would please Thatcher.

I've added loads to my previous post

Thatcher was as much a response to the 'hey its your turn' tory/labour swaps on the 60's as owt else, ..., nothing was getting done

The unions, (esp miners & electriciy workers) exploitation of the yom kippur war didnt help either.

typically union power was increasingly used to further the consumerist desires of their members, ..., hard to imagine anything less 'socialist' IMO

Following the party's failure to oust Blair after Iraq i'll never vote for them

[leviathon]

Originally Posted by avsp

I've added loads to my previous post

Thatcher was as much a response to the 'hey its your turn' tory/labour swaps on the 60's as owt else, ..., nothing was getting done

The unions, (esp miners & electriciy workers) exploitation of the yom kippur war didnt help either.

typically union power was increasingly used to further the consumerist desires of their members, ..., hard to imagine anything less 'socialist' IMO

Following the party's failure to oust Blair after Iraq i'll never vote for them

I go with a different tac, trying to change the party itself. I would definitely agree with your assessment of Murdoch, he's one of the evils that blights our country.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by leviathon

I go with a different tac, trying to change the party itself. I would definitely agree with your assessment of Murdoch, he's one of the evils that blights our country the world.

Fixed

I hope you dont mind the style of this

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

[... snip]These bribes include more money to Stormont and a loosening of sanctions on Cuba. While i agree the latter should happen, it should not happen in this way.

Historically UK admins that are reduced to having to suck-up to the NI MPs dont last that much longer.

I agree with your radicalisation point tho'. To me it exists no matter how long the 'special circumstance' detention period is.