I do not understand your last point – you are saying that if the police suspect someone is about to carry out a terrorist act but do not at that point have enough evidence for it to stand up in court, they should let them go ahead?

I’m bemused you think anything else would happen; the courts don’t allow people to be locked up just because the police have a hunch. They need evidence in order to prosecute.

My beginning and ending point is the person – I accept that inncocent people may on occasion suffer a limited degree of incarceration as a result of this legislation, but equally I believe lives may be saved.

People – us, the nobodies who face death or disability, trauma or disfigurement – matter. We seem to have developed a culture where everything is relative – a culture in which someones hurt feelings matter as much as a child losing a parent. Well, I am sorry, but I do not agree.

I do not doubt that this legislation may be abused, or that there is the danger that it could be used by rabble rousers to whip up further disaffection among those looking for an excuse to be disaffected, but we do not live in a perfect world – indeed, only God is perfect, is She not?

I do not understand your last point – you are saying that if the police suspect someone is about to carry out a terrorist act but do not at that point have enough evidence for it to stand up in court, they should let them go ahead?

If that is the case, then as much as I admire your intellectual purity, I have no interest in continuing this discussion.

What the hell are the security services supposed to do if they strongly suspect someone is about to walk on to a bus with a suicide vest but don’t have enough evidence at that point to stand up in court – just let them?

Obviously they should let them go, the example makes no sense if the police have no evidence of a crime having been committed or a crime about to be committed the CPS have no power to charge you. The terror extension limits make no difference to that whatsoever.

Your figures re convictions etc IMHO expose your ignorance about the process of detection and conviction – frankly I don’t think it’s a bad rate at all. You will notice that half of those arrested were convicted of some offence.

Er no. There have been 1228 terrorism related arrests, 41 convictions under the terrorism act 183 convictions under other legislation.

I agree the terrorist threat to this country is not diminishing and it would be very naive to think that the threat is too insignificant. The UK has a long established jihadist community that has supported terrorism in other countries. The only difference now is that instead of exporting terrorism overseas attacks are just as likely to be aimed at the UK homeland as well as targets abroad.

I appreciate your view about 42 days being necessary to prevent potential terrorist attacks but don’t you think this is being used as some sort of political football by Gordon Brown? How about using intercept evidence instead of extending the period of detention without trial? There have been instances of the anti-terror laws being misused on completely innocent people (e.g. climate change protestors at Heathrow Airport, snoop on parents to check whether a child lived within a school’s catchment area). And aren’t we in danger of alienating a certain section of society that we need to engage with in order to defeat terrorism?

I’m also less than convinced David Davis resigned simply on a matter of principle. We all know he lost out to Cameron in the leadership contest. He reminds me too much of Michael Heseltine – Thatcher’s main adversary. Remember how he resigned from the cabinet only to challenge Thatcher later? It will be an interesting by-election if David Davis does face a challenger considering 42 days has widespread public support.

Please read up on bureaucracies before you dismiss it out of hand. I’d respectfully suggest you try Googling ‘Parkinsons Law’ for a straightforward enough introduction to the phenomenon.

Three months as originally proposed I believe would be too close to internment and could be abused and cause understandable tensions. Forty-two days, from what I understand, would give the police as it presently stands time to address the complexity of the issue.

The international comparisons serve the purpose of illustrating that this is not the “unique evil” that some commentators would have us believe. As I said, I’m sure my forebears who fought for our country would agree, not least because during that time, almost all German nationals and many British fascists were interned for the duration – another precedent that I believe places this move – with all its legal safeguards – in the appropriate context.

Your position re detention is valid, but in my view wrong-headed – your principals of legal purity bearing little relation to the reality on the ground. What the hell are the security services supposed to do if they strongly suspect someone is about to walk on to a bus with a suicide vest but don’t have enough evidence at that point to stand up in court – just let them? Would you shrug I wonder and say, well, that was the law, or join the chorus of disapproval?

Your figures re convictions etc IMHO expose your ignorance about the process of detection and conviction – frankly I don’t think it’s a bad rate at all. You will notice that half of those arrested were convicted of some offence. If the rate was any higher, I would begin to get worried. We don’t live in a police state, you know

I find the arguments on my side of the debate mostly as unconvincing as I find those of Unitalian. More than that, we’re all just repeating ourselves, making little or no attempt to have a dialogue, except on the most irrelevant trivia.

What difference does it make what the French or the Dutch do about terrorism? I thought we were discussing the matter of our freedoms, not the freedoms of other nations. If you told me tomorrow the Spanish are locking people up for the evil eye, that wouldn’t make me want to emulate them; if you told me they’d abolished prisons, I wouldn’t want to emulate them then either.

What difference does it make what “senior figures” say? What absolves you of thinking things through for yourselves? Politicians are drawn from our ranks. They are by no means the best and brightest. This is equally true of civil servants. More importantly, all of these figures have perspectives and interests warped by their day to day lives and the internal politics of their situations.

Nor are rules of thumb convincing, least of all when they cast entities like the police in off-the-peg roles. The notion that the police are trying to expand because “that’s what bureaucracy does” is a dangerous simplification. It isn’t necessary to resort to seaweed and weather legs to analyse the processes at work around us.

If you aren’t prepared to think, why bother? Or is this exercise in impotent one-up-manship what passes for serious debate? You wouldn’t think that the two rival positions are “we are a nation in desperate crisis, besieged by terrorists” and “we are a nation in desperate crisis, besieged by our government.”

You’d think both sides would be more interested in understanding the situation, and trying to come up with alternatives, rather than this exhibition match atmosphere. It makes it very hard to believe in the sincerity of the various authors.

I have to say though i found this bit utterly hilarious

In fact, the sheer weight of convictions and guilty pleas in terrorist cases has actually opened the door to a more useful discussion than was previously possible with those who were sceptical about the scale of terrorism in the UK.

The UK police terrorism arrest statistics (excluding Northern Ireland) from 11 September 2001 – 31 March 2007 show 1228 arrests were made:
1165 arrests under the Terrorism Act 2000

669 released without charge

Of those charged:
41 Terrorism Act convictions to date

link, interesting figures considering the debate is centred around the investigative process.

To answer you specific questions

were you opposed to 28 days too?

yes

14?

yes

Is there any period of detention that you would agree to,

I would agree to all people having the same rights under the law, as such i would release those arrested under terrorism offences after the same period of maximum time i released everyone else.

What i do not like is the fact the government initiates powerful legislation that closes off data encryption ‘loopholes’ but uses that very argument to erode the rights of everyone. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act part iii was explicitly written to make it an offence not to hand over an encryption key.

It is quite ludicrous to suggest that anyone in possession of an encryption key but with no desire to hand it over would be swayed by a months or three months detention as opposed to 72 hours. It is equally ludicrous to suggest that the time required to decrypt the data (assuming its possible) can be determined by an arbitary political decision – especially as publicly available cryptography continously develops.

If the police have someone they suspect of having encrypted terrorist material they have the legislation to charge them and remand them in custody. They have a law the deals with that specific problem.

or would you rather the terrorists walk free to kill and maim rather than inconvenience the odd individual from time to time?

This should be beneath you.

What utter and complete drivel.

The police have been accused of exaggerating the terrorist threat, supposedly for political purposes.

No they have not. They have been accused of exaggerating the case for Police purposes. Let us be quite clear about this.

The only true function of any bureaucracy is to expand itself. It is not, frankly beholden to anything other than itself. For obvious reasons of self aggrandisement and lucrative senior positions.

Which is why we are, where we are, with the boys in blue. They have a rachet on terror, one that politicians, cannot apparently break, and one which citizens must.

The Catch22 that the Security Services hold, is that any failure, can be blamed elsewhere, and not back at them.

Can you see the problem? Failure to catch a potential terrorist is not their failure. It is always our failure for not giving them sufficient powers. So do nothing in a preventative role, then blame the public for not being tough enough. This is a self fulfilling loop, I think. The failure in the loop is obviously the word ‘preventative’. But they don’t do that, do they?

Terry Pratchett wrote about this. In an ideal Police State we’d all sit around a table with our hands above the table, and then we’d go to bed.

There are better ways, other than buying into 1984, I suspect.

Oops I misread this (missed the quotation marks). You can read my reply as a reply to your source, sorry!

Your remarks make it sound as if you are involved with the security services. It is completely understandable that as a member of the forces charged with keeping us safe, you might feel that these measures are justified if they help you succeed.

But our safety from terrorists is not the only concern in our society. There is also the matter of our safety from the great power of the state. No-one wants the terrorists to succeed, but neither should preventing terrorist successes become an excuse for giving up our rights and ushering in a police state, no matter how well meaning at first.

And that is why some of us would answer to your last point: “Yes, I’m prepared to risk some terrorists walking around free until we have real evidence on them, to keep the freedom from state oppression we currently enjoy.”

“Comparisons with foreign jurisdictions are regularly rolled out, but as often as not they are looking at apples and pears. The assertions are often simplistic, selective and at times plain wrong. In this country, a suspect must be produced before a court within 48 hours of arrest. Whatever the fate of the Government’s 42-day proposal, this will not change. To suggest, as some do, that what is being proposed amounts to internment or the suspension of habeus corpus is extraordinary and misleading.

The police have been accused of exaggerating the terrorist threat, supposedly for political purposes. The fact that this is untrue doesn’t matter – it creates a perception that resonates with some in the Muslim communities. In fact, the sheer weight of convictions and guilty pleas in terrorist cases has actually opened the door to a more useful discussion than was previously possible with those who were sceptical about the scale of terrorism in the UK. Will extending pre-charge detention put that at risk? My experience is that, as long as police actions are explained as soon as possible and result in convictions in due course, they receive the overwhelming support of all communities. I firmly believe the risk to community relations is overplayed.

When I was asked, in 2005, by the home affairs select committee how many terrorists I had been obliged to let go through lack of time to investigate, I inwardly despaired. It was the wrong question. We should look forward, not back. The fact that we have been able to convict more than 60 terrorists in the last year or so is irrelevant.

The better question would have been: “Is it likely that there will come a time when the present 28-day limit is insufficient?” The answer would have been, “undoubtedly”. That is why we should legislate now, and not in panic in an emergency.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/03/do0301.xml

Your comparison with remand is misleading. There is an utter difference between the processes, and under the Inquisitorial system the investigation continues apace over the period of “remand” you refer to.

BTW, were you opposed to 28 days too? 14? Is there any period of detention that you would agree to, or would you rather the terrorists walk free to kill and maim rather than inconvenience the odd individual from time to time?

As I have pointed out before, all this hoo-ha about it being the longest period without charge is disingenuous: almost everywhere else in Europe they have a system whereby they can hold you without the equivalent of a “charge” for years.

Erm no they can’t. Procedural Comparisons of our Common law system with those of Civil systems in Europe are meaningless unless you give very specific context.

As a comparison i remember reading a comment on another forum around the time the suspects in the Meredith Kercher murder were ‘detained for up to a year’ that there wasn’t any fuss over that period of detention. Such a comparison is idiotic; in England they’d have been remanded in custody. The commenter was making simplistic comparisons at face value. Similarly during the McCann saga the word ‘arguido’ was taken completely out of Portuguese legal context and interpreted as we would the word ’suspect’. The reality is Portuguese jurisprudence functions on a completely different framework to ours, and the word arguido has no comparison in our legal system.

We already have the longest period of detention with respect to terrorist cases of any country in the western world; we even show poorly when complex comparisons are made with the rest of Europe.

The point about Germany and France detaining people without trial was first raised by Ian Blair. He was trying to sell the idea that ‘they already detain people for a long time’. In actual fact they don’t. Whilst people can be held for up to four years in pre-trial detention in France, the nearest comparison to our legal system would be holding them in remand for that period of time.

Simplistic comparisons between a Common law system and and an inquisitorial Civil law system regarding long periods of detention with judicial oversight during an investigation will always skew the results and show the Common law system to be lacking. The Civil law framework is geared from the OUTSET to function in that manner, their philosophy of law is FOUNDED on that.

You may as well start complaining that their legal systems don’t allow for complete dichotomy with respect to interpretation of factual evidence as our adversarial system allows.

You’re comparing apples with oranges; the amusing thing is even if you tie down the range of variables as much as possible, ie detention specific to terrorism, detention before formal trial proceedings have begun (however you wish to define that), we STILL come out with a far far far longer period of detention compared to the rest of Europe despite their entire judicial systems being set up for and having safe guards in place for that kind of investigative process.

Forgive me, but I don’t think you’re examining your assumptions critically enough.

You say Jihadis are a tougher enemy, but if so, how can it be that the government has stopped every attack (unless you count the spectacularly inept attempt on Glasgow Airport?) Were the security forces just not really trying with the IRA? What does it mean for Jihadis to be a tougher enemy, if we can already hold all of them at bay with no major incidents for 3 years? Perhaps we should teach the secret to the security forces of Russia, Israel, Pakistan and Sri Lanka?

Secondly you seem to buy into the idea that any loss of personal freedom is justified if it saves lives. This is in direct contrast to the basis we’re told we fight wars on, where any loss of life is justified if it saves freedom. Certainly its hard to see what our ancestors thought they were fighting for it wasn’t to preserve the historic state and rights of Britain. At some point we have to show some courage and say, “It is worth the risk of dying to preserve my freedoms.”

This idea that 42 days is the price of evading al-Qaeda rule is farcical. We have one of the world’s most powerful armies. There is virtually no support for a radical Islamic agenda in the country. There have been no successful attacks on us for three years. Where are the invading armies, poised to sweep us aside unless we start putting people in prison for six weeks without charge? This doesn’t survive even cursory analysis.

You should consider the effects of internment; it wasn’t just how long they held them for that was ineffective, it was that it polarised the community. Many of the people the government interned were innocent. It appears the only major threat vector is radical elements of the British Muslim population; the recruiters for al-Qaeda must be thrilled at the idea that innocent, moderate Muslims who would otherwise have had no interest in their message, will potentially spend weeks in gaol and come out wanting revenge.

The truth is we’re giving away our freedoms one step at a time, on measures which would be ineffective in combating a real threat, but will doubtless be devastatingly effective against the imaginary threat the Labour party has conjured up.

As I have pointed out before, all this hoo-ha about it being the longest period without charge is disingenuous: almost everywhere else in Europe they have a system whereby they can hold you without the equivalent of a “charge” for years. It seems to me, that given the numerous plots – 7/7, 21/7, the Atlantic Aircraft plot, the Tiger Tiger attempt, the Ministry of Sound plot, to name but a few – plus the 2000 or so individuals under investigation, 42 days out of someone’s life if they do prove to be innocent is worth the life of you, me, or any other of the innocents who are so easily forgotten in our armchair pontificating. What of their rights, I wonder, but then I am shouted down and told it is not the point – well actually, if it isn’t, what is?

I lived through the IRA bombings, coming rather too close to a number (I can’t be sure, but believe I also alighted the tube train at Kings Cross that our 7/7 friend got on to).

You will recall that internment was used at one point in NI, with its indefinite period of detention. It didn’t work, but 42 days is a far softer form. And frankly Jihadis are a far tougher enemy – they are not organised, they are not fighting for land, they are prepared to kill themselves. These are not, on the whole, people who can be taken in to government, given concessions – and nor should they be. They have NO legitimate grievance within the UK. They are on the whole neither stupid nor poor. Iraq, Palestine, and the rest are convenient excuses, but the truth is they are fighting for an idea – to which we either resist or surrender. In the circumstances 42 days does not seem an unreasonable price to pay – a position with which my forebears who fought and died fighting for this country I am confident would agree.