On 3 June Gordon Brown attracted easy headlines by announcing his willingness to be tough in security measures to prevent terrorist incidents and would consider further legislation to do so. Among new measures, he mentioned using phone-tap evidence in court, allowing questioning of suspects after charge and, most controversially, extending the permitted period of detention without charge beyond the current 28 days to as much as 90 days.
In fact, new measures were already in preparation by John Reid and have now been published. The one encouraging element in Gordon Brown's contribution is his insistence that "at no point will our British traditions of supporting and defending civil liberties" be compromised but that guarantee has a hollow sound when set against the erosion of civil liberties which has already taken place in the plethora of anti-terrorist legislation already enacted, including the Terrorism Act 2000, Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 and the Terrorism Act 2006. These create a range of new offences targeted at virtually anyone remotely linked to the possibility of terrorism, a term so widely defined as to embrace virtually any kind of hostile activity for political ends.
Anyone suspected of any of these offences can be arrested, charged, brought to trial before the courts, and if found guilty, appropriately punished. Why is this not enough to protect the public? From the Magna Carta onwards, prolonged or indefinite detention without this process has been outlawed not only by our own law but by international human rights law. Every demonstrable terrorist has committed an offence and if it cannot be proved then he must go free; otherwise no innocent person is safe.
Read the full post on openDemocracy's debate on the British constitution (and lack thereof) at OurKingdom.