Dame Stella Rimington, a former head of MI5 — Britain's internal secret service — spoke out earlier this month against the government's exploitation of 'terrorism fears' to pass laws restricting civil liberties. That's hardly new news, but when a senior figure from a background in the secret services speaks about it so openly, it makes the rest of us take the issue that much more seriously. One of the objects of terrorism, she states, it to create a climate of fear in which a police state can become a real possibility. Previously she has spoken out about government attempts to increase pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days, and about the introduction of ID cards. That our government should exploit the current climate of fear to do exactly what the terrorists want is cynical indeed!
According to this BBC article, some of the measures brought in by the present Labour government, or planned by them, are as follows:
- A giant database to record the times, dates and recipients of all UK emails, text messages, and phone calls
- The expansion of the police DNA database, which is already the largest in the world per head of population, with samples from some 4 million people
- Laws designed to track criminals and terrorists being used to spy on ordinary citizens. (In one case a local council secretly watched a family to see if they were really living in a school catchment area.)
- The spread of CCTV cameras. Britain now has some 4 million, the highest density in western Europe and probably the world.
- Proposals for "secret inquests" which will exclude relatives, juries and the media. The government says this is to prevent intelligence details leaking out.
International Commission of Jurists slams US and UK law makers
As if to underline what Dame Stella Rimington has said, the International Commission of Jurists has recently brought out a report following a three year global study.
The Geneva-based ICJ is a non-governmental organisation which promotes the observance of the rule of law and the legal protection of human rights. Their report states that Anti-terror measures worldwide have seriously undermined international human rights law.
"Many states have used the public's fear of terrorism to introduce measures... which included detention without trial, illegal disappearance and torture." It also said that the UK and the US have "actively undermined" international law by their actions, and it concluded that many measures introduced to fight terrorism were illegal and counter-productive.
New law could handcuff news photographers
In similar news, photographers staged a protest outside Scotland Yard against a new law which could stop them taking pictures of the police. Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act, they argue, could be used by police to stop and search them in any situation. In a statement, the Home Office said taking pictures of police officers would only be deemed an offence in "very exceptional circumstances. The new offence is intended to help protect those in the front line of our counter terrorism operations from terrorist attack."
According to the photographers, however, even if an officer were in the background of a shot — for example, at a football match or street parade — the photographer could end up on the wrong side of the law.
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