Y Safle

I didn’t write this, but the author gave me permission to repost it here, saving me the trouble of gathering similar data. He declined to be named.

Just look at the climate of fear and anxiety that is being cynically exploited by this government to brow-beat us into exchanging our liberty for security. Some examples of laws/policies created, extended or under consideration include:

RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)

This extends powers to allow up to 600 public bodies to snoop on phone/internet/email and other personal records. This allows the information to be shared indiscriminately across government and some non-government bodies.

ASBOs & control orders

These allow authorities to restrict movement of individuals or groups if they are deemed to be causing alarm or distress to other individuals or groups. In the case of control orders, further restrictions can be implemented including house arrest even if no crime has been committed but there is suspicion that a crime may be committed. It can be issued based on hearsay evidence: this is not the standard for proper criminal proceedings. Violating an ASBO automatically results in jail-time of up to 5years even if the original cause of the ASBO is not a prosecutable offence

Biometric passports and ID cards

In the case of ID cards, it starts voluntarily in 2008 and then compulsorily in 2010. Once compulsory, the individual has to immediately inform the authorities of every change in status (name, address, marital status) with hefty fines up to £2500 imposed for each separate contravention.

ID cards will have an identifications registration number (IRN). This will be basically a unique number for every man, woman & child that will be tied in to other databases like the DVLA, local council, travel databases, banks, ISPs, medical records, and the like. The card will be required for bank transactions, accessing local services, jobs applications, cross-border travel and so on.

Additionally, with the possible creation of a dedicated swipe-able machine for ID cards, its use may be extended in the very near future to shopping, using public transportation and any other conceivably everyday activity possible. The home office minister will have the power to withdraw your ID card; effectively rendering you persona non grata.

Note this one: passports issued as from October 2006 will be biometric and will have their details automatically and compulsorily added to the ID card database. To get around this, a number of people who have ‘lost’ their passports are applying for new ones before this date to avoid getting on the database.

Civil Contingencies bill

How similar to Hitler’s (Godwin’s Law exemption requested) Enabling Act and the constitution-shredding US Patriot Act.

It allows ministers to obtain absolute power by declaring an emergency. They don’t have to release any information to anyone including parliament for 7 days about the nature of the emergency. Even at the end of the initial period, the powers can be automatically renewed, for as long as the emergency exists. The minister is absolved from any penalties if the reason for the emergency is found to be non-existent or is in fact not an emergency.

Amendment to Mental health laws

These allow compulsory detention and treatment of mentally-ill patient who refuses medication. It removes the somewhat impartial “treatability test” for personality disorders thus widening the scope of definition and treatment of personality disorders to include controversial behavioral disorders and equally controversial treatments. The problem is who does the defining, and what ideologies, biases and beliefs inform their definitions?

SOCPA Act

All offences are now arrestable. Anyone arrested can be put on the police DNA database, by force if necessary, even if they are not charged or cautioned following the arrest.

Vehicle tracking database

A ‘24×7 national vehicle movement database’ that will log every car on UK roads and retain the data for at least two years is being built using a network of road cameras and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform bill

(Despite the lack of publicity, this must be a concern) – surely a tyrannical dictator’s dream come true because it can be used to amend or repeal or introduce legislation without parliamentary scrutiny. It can be used to delegate legislative power to anyone without any apparent limit. Further, it can be used ultimately, to alter or abolish almost any rule of law.

Various anti-terrorism laws

Under which two innocent men have been shot, one losing his life. Numerous publicised police anti-terror raids which culminate in the terrorised victims of the raid being released without charge. An old man manhandled & detained for heckling Blair at a political meeting.

600+ peaceful protesters detained during the 2005 Labour conference freedom of speech curtailed via unreasonable exclusion zones particularly around Westminster where no one is allowed to protest without express permission from the police commissioner. A woman questioned for sitting down to read an article critical of Blair on the public pavement outside Downing street gates.

A woman arrested, charged and convicted for reading aloud, at the Cenotaph, the names of dead British soldiers in Iraq. A man arrested for carrying a placard in Whitehall corridors with a quote from George Orwell about the nature of deceit and truth, and a long list of innocent people similarly victimised.

How close is Britain to a police state? While there is a relatively low manifestation of this possibility, what must be clear is that a “war on freedom” has been declared on the innocent population of this country by a few elite and that a control grid is largely in place. The seeds of our eventual enslavement have been sown… or what?

Ministers must wait to hear whether an unfavourable High Court ruling on the use of control orders for terror suspects will be overturned.

One would think, listening to Tony Blair and his cronies, that the problem of terrorism is something new to this country, and that never before have we faced the problem of dangerous people willing to cause harm in the name of some idealism that masks the wickedness of their actions.

I suppose Blair has never been to a Guy Fawkes party. Although being a politician, you would think he had some understanding of the gunpowder plot.

There is nothing new under the sun, and Islamic terrorism is not really anything new. So why then are we subjected by attack after attack on hundreds of years of civil liberties that have accrued to the people on the grounds that the political government is itself less a terrorist than an essential means to govern a free people.

Why is their any debate over whether due process should be denied to people suspected of terrorism. If there is evidence of a crime, let them be prosecuted. If there is no evidence, then they are innocent until proven guilty, and should have their liberty.

If we do not accept this principle, how long until we start locking up some other part of our society in similar circumstances? We could start with paedophile suspects. The public will accept it, even if we cannolt prove that these people have done anything wrong. Then it could be animal rights activists, and then we could turn on Scots, say - or postmen. Maybe with a few more steps between, but once we compromise on due process we no longer have a safeguard against facism.

And that too is not a new problem

Get rid of the control orders. Innocent until proven guilty.