UK Can Now Hold People Without Charge For 42 Days 650
the_leander writes "Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. The chances of you getting that money however are slim to none, lets not forget, this is the same country that charges prisoners who have been falsely accused for bed and boarding costs."
Remeber This (Score:3, Interesting)
But remember, despite people bitching about the US' policies, we still have among the world's most stringent policies regarding the rights of the accused. I was always shocked by most UK citizens attitudes regarding free speech and the right of the accused. While they, obviously, abhorred the idea of someone being put to the death they saw nothing wrong with imprisoning someone without charges for 30 days.
At any rate, I'm sorry this happened =/. I had hoped for better from our friends across the pond.
Tories vs Labor (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, the Tories have become the more liberal party like the Dems in the USA and are vehemenetly trying to prevent the degradation of Habeas Corpus principles. The Labor party (which used to be more left-leaning Jimmy Carter type) has turned into a Neocon haven under Blair and Brown.
Re:elected v unelected (Score:3, Interesting)
There are many things wrong with our system, but having some kind of 'second opinion' of government policy is not a bad idea.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The original Prevention of Terrorism Act which allowed for an extension to detention without being charged was originally brought up to tackle acts of terror in the UK (both mainland and Northern Ireland).
The principle sounded fine. What was not so well known ws that some police used to abuse this to pressurise someone under arrest. This would happen when the police would report a suspicion that firearms were involved with a possibility that they may reach terrorists. The additional time would allow for the Police to gather more evidence but it reality, it was more a way of leaning on the detainees.
It may be better than Gitmo, but the principle is stll a slippery slope away from Habeas Corpus. It is also not thought to be particularly helpful by members of the security forces.
Re:With two words, I destroy your argument (Score:5, Interesting)
Abu Ghraib may have been an isolated "incident" (though an awful lot of people would have needed to conveniently ignore what happened there...), but Guantanamo Bay is precisely current US policy.
If you are a citizen in the US, they'll simply fabricate evidence and send you to be tortured [nytimes.com] in one of the less squeamish regimes that the US has links with (eg: Syria)...
Given the amount of illegal wiretapping, the removal of habeus corpus for non-citizens, the policy of torturing suspected terrorists coupled with the ability of the president to arbitrarily designate someone a terrorist, (I could go on and on...), I find the implications disturbing in the extreme.
I don't agree with the 42 days thing, but I think the glass-houses line really does apply here...
Simon.
Re:With two words, I destroy your argument (Score:3, Interesting)
I keep seeing this argument trotted out, and it really needs to stop. Just because my country has done some ass-backward immoral things lately doesn't mean I cannot frown upon stupid acts occurring elsewhere in the world.
You talk of Gitmo and Abu Grahib? Excellent. The more people that do, the better. But, I can also read the news about Britain's detaining people, even citizens, for 42 days without charges or their bizarre need to spy on the populace 24/7 and contemplate just how truly screwed up that is.
My opinions don't magically become invalid just because there's a group of morons in my government right now. You are, of course, perfectly free to completely ignore my opinions.
Re:As opposed to the US ... (Score:3, Interesting)
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones asked Hawash during the hearing "You and the others in the group were prepared to take up arms, and die as martyrs if necessary, to defend the Taliban. Is this true?" Hawash replied "Yes, your honor."
He pled guilty to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban, the same motherfuckers who shielded and funded the evil monsters who flew planes into the WTC, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, killing 3000 men, women, and children, some of whom leapt to their deaths from a thousand feet up rather than burn alive. If that isn't aid and comfort to the enemy, I don't know what is. In previous centuries he would have been hanged as a traitor.
Now of course the tone of the article -- and your post -- is that the guy may have lied to the Court about what he was doing and falsely pled guilty to a charge with a seven-year sentence to avoid taking his changes in front of a jury of his peers on more serious charges. Maybe so. But if he did, that's just first-class stupid, not to mention subversive of any hope that he might be trusted in his other statements (about what he was doing trying to go to Afghanistan, for example). If you perjure yourself in Court, on any matter, you can hardly expect to be believed about anything at all.
So am I bugged that either a traitor or a dumfuk liar with complete contempt for the principle of telling the truth under oath was held for five weeks with "limited" access to his attorneys? Not even a smidge.
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Charles I,
Oliver Cromwell,
George III?
Re:Jose Padilla? (Score:3, Interesting)
He was not arrested on foreign soil, but actually at O'Hare airport in Chicago on his return from a trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. I'm guessing that this, among other reasons, e.g. his citizenship, was why eventually he did win the right to a trial in civilian court despite the President's having classified him as an "enemy combatant." He was convicted at trial and sentenced to 17 years in prison. (He's not a nice person, by the way. He was a gang thug in his teens, was arrested five times between the age of 15 and 21. He served three years in juvie for aggravated battery (a kid he kicked in the head died) and armed robbery. He served a further year in a Florida jail for aggravated assault. Pretty substantial rap sheet for a young guy.)
Padilla apparently fell into a "gray area" between someone, say, arrested actually on the battlefield in Afghanistan launching RPGs at a USMC platoon, and someone arrested in a Chicago bus station passing out pro-Taliban literature (but who'd never left the state). That's probably why the Courts and the Administration went back and forth about how to classify him, with some Courts agreeing with the Administration, and some (including eventually the Supreme Court) not. So it goes. This is why we have Courts, to figure out all these gray areas.
One can argue that it's criminally cruel to leave a man hanging for several years while a gray area is cleared up, but that's the fault of Congress, which certainly could have written a clearer statute (the famous AUMF), or even, after the problems with the original became evident, re-written it to make its intention crystal clear. But I think Congress found it more useful to grandstand the issue for political gain and too painful to be forced to make some clear-cut decisions that would have certainly pissed off some people no matter how they decided it. All too typical cowardice.
Re:As opposed to the US ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:At least... (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular, many people were transported for stealing food during the Irish famine, when it was literally that or starve to death with your family. As it turned out this wasn't much of a deterrent; in Australia you'd at least be fed.
Re:Hm. Nice spin on the summary... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd be more appreciative of the House of Lords if I hadn't seen for myself the chinless wonders that sit in it. They'd get better results if they filled it with members of a plumbers' union.
Re:At least... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right. Austrailians would never do anything like that [wikipedia.org]
Re:it's without CHARGE, not without trial (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:5, Interesting)
You or I get held for 28 days - potentially without communication with the outside world, let's not forget that - and when you get out your employer will have given up on you and sought a replacement. Your personnel record will say "Disappeared off the face of the earth one day" - which I'm sure would look just great if an alternate employer contacted them for a reference.
And if you're asked why you left your job - well, I'd love to see the look on the interviewer's face when you say "I was detained under the Terrorism Act and not allowed to contact anyone, so my employer had to find someone else to do the job" but I don't think it's an answer that would do you any favours.
Compensation? What compensation? They'll base compensation on the 28 (or 42) days you were detained, not the repercussions. If the repercussions include "having to sell the house because you can no longer afford it because you lost a £40,000 per year job and had to take a £25,000 per year job", that's your problem.
Re:With two words, I destroy your argument (Score:1, Interesting)
Watch 'taxi to the dark side' and see how the gov't systematically offered no guidelines to non military police trained officers while at the same time exerting a tremendous pressure for 'results' from the detainees.
They essentially created a system where abuse was guaranteed to occur and they can plead plausible deniability.
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We did get rid of him. Shut him quietly away and his son took over. Said son did bugger all because he was a lazy fat drunken gluttonous lecherous oxygen thief, so Parliament ran the country. During this period our Empire in Canada was attacked by the United States; in response we invaded and burned Washington to the ground. We were also at war with Napoleon Bonaparte, whose total defeat ushered in a century of British global hegemony. Not bad going, for a country being run while the king's in the loony bin and the regent's in bed with a hangover.
Re:Hey! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Independent [independent.co.uk] tends to make pretty good guesses about how things will go and they think it'll almost certainly be thrown back by the House of Lords. I'll be praying that they do. If it comes back though, I think it will die in its current form. Brown did everything he could to get this passed including stake the Labour Party's image on it and rumours of backroom deals that are bribery in all but name. If that didn't get him more than a majority by twelve, then hopefully it will fail completely the second time around. Putting our hope in the House of Lords to protect the common people! What have we come to, eh?
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:3, Interesting)
But seriously I hope the sequence of events goes like this:
1. Brown gets defeated by Cameron at next Election
2. Milliband replaces Brown and learns how to shave
3. Cameron has one term where he learns to become unpopular
4. A labour government which is a bit more principled gets elected.
I'm dubious about whether anyone can be principled in party politics though
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Withholding Royal Assent would cause a slight delay and creating a media frenzy. It might be enough to cause some MP's to change their minds, but it would also seriously jeopardize the future of the monarchy.
The way parliament has gotten unfettered power in the UK has been by using the power it did have to hint, threaten or force the monarchs into yielding more and more of their power, and they have not been shy of doing it - the monarchy in the UK is there because the British rather enjoy tradition and because the current monarch is putting on a decent show and not being a bother. If she does start being a bother, it would likely start a process towards the monarchy at the very least being stripped of the last vestiges of influence.
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:4, Interesting)
He wrote back on the one before the vote telling me that "for security reasons, we cannot share the information that we have that makes this extension a requiement, but we only have the public's best interests at heart". I don't expect a reply to my letter post vote.
I also got both of my neighbors to do the same, and they were quite blown away to learn about http://www.writetothem.com/ [writetothem.com]
Nothing changes and until we learn to make a noise in the streets, the politicians won't listen to us.
Re:it's without CHARGE, not without trial (Score:2, Interesting)
As for councils...Brr. We've got a similar vicious weed over here called a Homeowner's Association. Why free men would ever tolerate such an offense against liberty is unknown to me. I comfort myself by cherishing the thought that when the 8.0 earthquake comes and civil society is in ruins, these pasty-faced mealy-mouthed purely parasitical goons will be the first to have their clean water ration reduced, so as to keep an ample supply for the women, children, and more useful animals.
Re:Hey! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, "only" 650,000 from March 2003 - March 2007. Well done indeed.
PS. Linear extrapolation would give ~800,000 by this March.
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would say most people either enjoy the tradition, or do not care either way. I would side with the minority who would like to see the monarchy removed complete from the apparatus of power.
Being UK born, but lived in Germany for the last 11 years I still find it embarrassing to come from a country that still, in the 21st Century, has such an undemocratic process (ie include the house of lords). I am jealous of the fact that Germany (like most (all?) modern democratic states) has 2 elected houses, and a single, written constitution. Also, IIRC, if all the MPs turn up at the same time they can all sit down at the same time (!!), unlike in the Houses of Parliament. (But it does still amuse me that the Queen is more German than I am
Re:it's without CHARGE, not without trial (Score:3, Interesting)
How the hell would you know? Work for the CID, do you? Twenty years experience in criminal investigation? I think you're just pulling a figure out of your ass. You might as well assert that four weeks is long enough to fix bug X in the Linux kernel, without having read a line of code. The people whose job it is to know these things -- who do it for a living -- have asserted that it's not enough time. Unless you've got some actual, you know, evidence to contradict them, I'd say they ought to get the benefit of a presumption of being right about how fast they can do their job.
That's not to say that some other concern (civil liberties) might trump the question of enough time to work out whether so-and-so was involved with crime such-and-such. Maybe there are other such concerns. But your flat assertion that the police damn well ought to be able to figure this out inside of four weeks is not an argument one can accept without better evidence (not including theories that boil down to "it seems reasonable to me...").
We shouldn't worry about anything while we're not as bad as North Korea?
Nope. Try again, with more subtlety. The assertion is that you should rank the threats to your liberty in order of size and nearness, and allocate your limited resources accordingly. How do you think the North Koreans got where they are? By being distracted by bogus threats ("The eeeeeevil capitalist running dogs are going to get you!") and not catching a clue about the real threats ("Here, let's just have Dear Leader decide where you work...where you live...where you travel...what you eat...how much you eat....whether you eat...")
I'm OK with getting thrashed about possible detention limits going from 28 to 42 days...provided that you have already taken care of, say, all those surveillance cameras, the "no-go" zones in Islamic neighborhoods, your inability to defend yourself inside your own house with deadly force against burglars, the surrender of much of your sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, the fact that the government tells you how and when and what kind of health care you're going to get, and your only recourse if you don't like it is to write a stiff letter to the Times.
It's a nice quote from Niemoller, but what you'll notice is that it does not begin with the following stanzas:
When they came for the murderers
I was silent.
I wasn't a murderer.
When they came for those who rape children
I was silent.
I did not rape children.
And so forth. Niemoller's prose assumes that all the categories of persons in it are innocent. That is not a reasonable basis for criminal justice or national security, because not all persons are, in fact, innocent. Some of the people picked up by the police and held for questioning are very nasty people who really do want to set off a bomb next to your cafe chair filled with nails, so that the shrapnel takes the top of your head off and your mother will have to identify your body by your school ring, because most of your face is missing.
The question is, then, how do we distinguish between the innocent and guilty? Between those who really deserve Niemoller's gentle empathy and those vicious animals that must be locked in cages if we are to spare your (or my) mother endless grief? That's where the discussion must start.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember the Guildford Four / Maguire Seven? (Score:5, Interesting)
As it happens I rewatched the Daniel Day movie In The Name Of The Father a short time back. It's odd to see, and recall from real life, the aghast reactions to the "Prevention of Terrorism Act" which gave UK police the unprecedented (and almost immediately abused) power to hold suspects without charge for an entire week - 7 days.
That was long enough to obtain at least 11 false convictions pretty much straight away. The modern UK police must be softies, if it takes them six times as long to extract a confession from whomever they decide to detain.
Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The hereditary peers were mostly just old members of the British aristocracy whose great great great granddad had done something that amassed them huge amounts of wealth, probably at the expense of the common British people of the time. Those that did not get rich by screwing the common British people got rich by screwing the common people in foreign lands and built us an empire instead.
I know that the House of Lord performs a valuable function as a check on the power of parliament and often prevents ridiculous laws from being rushed through on a wave of hysteria whipped up by the press, however it can do that just as well without being full of people whose only contribution to modern society is being vastly rich. The House of Lords as it now stands is mostly full of retired politicians, senior lawyers and a few remaining hereditary peers so I think performs its function much better than it used to.