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For Freedom
As another man claimed to have terror links to Osama Bin Laden is released on bail, we wonder how the need to protect Britain from such individuals can be squared with the struggle to protect citizens from illiberal surveillance measures.
There's some good stuff on liberty on David Davis' campaign blog. Warning that his campaign is not just about the 42 days detention act the government squeezed through parliament last week, he says:
"It is about the relentless erosion of our fundamental freedoms over the last eleven years."
"The growing power and reach of the state has not made us safer. It has made us less secure.
"The growth of the database state has not protected our privacy. As data fiasco after data fiasco demonstrates, reliance vulnerable databases has left our personal data more exposed than ever.
"The surveillance society has not improved public protection. Violent crime has doubled under this government, whilst neighbourhood spies check rubbish bins and conduct surveillance on school runs.
"And freedom of speech – the hallmark of any democracy – has been stifled by repressive laws. Peaceful protesters have been prosecuted for demonstrating outside Downing Street, whilst extremists have been left free to incite violence and vitriol against Britain for years."
Davis asks for views on all the issues above, and more. Unfortunately, he doesn't have comments on his blog: Please, get this sorted.
Conservatives have questioned Davis' sanity and pride in resigning his parliamentary seat in order to fight an election on the issues he outlined above. The left is furious that its traditional territory has been seized by a character previously thought to occupy the "hang 'em high" authoritarian wing of the Conservative Party. However, he appears to have the backing of the public and we are grateful that someone of his prominence is putting the debate to the public for once.
It is, after all, a complex issue and one with conflicting demands. Nearly 70 percent of Brits supported the 42 days detention of suspected terrorists - the same figure is said to support David Davis' stance on wider liberties. Indeed, as Davis' potential opponent in the election, former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie put it, the average Brit would be happy if terror suspects were put away for 420 days, never mind 42.
It may be that we're perfectly happy as a nation to see suspected terrorists searched, spied on and locked up, but the government's past form on this issue suggests to us that measures designed to protect the nation from terrorists are all-too-often used to harass individuals on non-terror related issues. An agreement with the Americans to speed the extradition of terrorists (in their direction) was used to send white-collar criminals to face trial in the States, for example. Councils and police have used measures introduced under anti-terror legislation to spy on citizens suspected of fly-tipping and speeding. The world's largest DNA databases has been compiled by testing practically anyone the authorities care to question, innocent or guilty.
This is a clear abuse of our trust in government. And then there's the case of fanatical cleric Abu Qatada, who was released on bail yesterday. He had spent - on and off - five years in prison as the government fought to boot him out of the country. On Tuesday, a judge ruled that he had to be released, as the government failed in a final attempt to have him expelled to Jordan, where his lawyers claim he would face an unsound conviction.
Abu Qatada has been described as Osama Bin Laden's right hand man in Europe and has been convicted of terror offences in the Middle East. He entered the country illegally on a fake passport. A judge believed him to be a "truly dangerous individual", at the centre of a number of terror networks in Britain.
Yet he has never been charged, never mind convicted. Many, perhaps most Britons call for the government to damn the Human Rights Convention and send Abu Qatada back to Jordan. Yet the the European Convention on Human Rights, properly interpreted, is our last line of defence against further government wrongdoing. It's not the Convention itself which is flawed, but the way it has been contorted to protect dangerous fanatics with no right to be in the country, rather than the ordinary post-war Europeans it was written for.
So how to square the need to keep the likes of Abu Qatada and the equally distasteful "U" off the streets with our obligation to human rights? It is not enough to describe Abu Qatada as simply a "controversial Muslim cleric" as an apologist called him in the Guardian yesterday. He's clearly a deal more than that, but in the eyes of the law, that's all he is, unfortunately. If we wish the government do him ill, we must be aware that the authorities draw no lines between foreign, terror-inspiring fanatics who are here illegally and indigenous wrongdoers. It's hopeful that Davis seems to want to address this issue.
