Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Guardian's new Liberty Central website looks likely to become an invaluable resource for those concerned about the erosion of civil liberties. It features a very useful events page, as well as a powerful aggregator of related content from across the Guardian's output. Here's a sampling of today's stories:
The
identity-card plan has a long history. Michael Howard was in favour in
his days as home secretary in the 1990s and, when Labour came to power,
Jack Straw floated the idea of a "citizen's access card"
For
the past decade, the government's policy on data protection has pulled
in opposite directions. New data protection law gives citizens more say
over what organizations, including public bodies, do with their
personal information – a right covered by Article 8 of the European convention on human rights
Since
Labour came to power in 1997, it has introduced five major pieces of
terrorism legislation: Terrorism Act 2000; Anti-Terrorism, Crime and
Security Act 2001; Prevention of Terrorism Act 2004; Terrorism Act
2006; Counter-Terrorism Act 2008
Tom Griffin is freelance journalist and researcher. He holds a Ph.D in social and policy sciences from the University of Bath, and is a former Executive Editor of the Irish World.
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