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Archive for the ‘National Politics’ Category:
Don’t believe all you read…..
Today we had two examples of how we have to careful of what we believe to be true and not over reacting to stories of alleged terror plots. There was the case of the two school boys who were acquitted of “planning” to blow up their school, and a supposed hit list of prominent targets was admitted to be a complete fabrication. . Certain newspapers like “The Sun” have had to apologise after the hoaxer admitted that he had made it all up.
The threat of terror attacks is bad enough without the twin issues of authorities and media over reaction.
Admittedly the police have a very tough job but even they have to be careful that they don’t act prematurely or just over react with little evidence of an actual threat. The most recent example being the two school boys. They were exonerated but what about the Pakistani students who were recently arrested in a very public way and then released without charge but were then promptly thrown out of the country.
No apologies, no refund of the fees or expenses the students families had spent, nothing but silence from the authorities. No apologies either from the politicians who gleefully went on numerous TV programs talking about the “success” of the operation. Most vocal was the infamous Phil Woolas who kept on talking of “clean skins” – terrorists who with no previous record. He seems to forget the possibility that they may be “clean skins” because they are actually “clean”.
This fear can be amplified by the hysteria whipped by irresponsible reporting by the media. Which then of course builds to pressure on authorities to act etc……
I was involved in a “workshop” where the scenario was put to us of an Asian mother being disturbed by the company his son was keeping; what would we do? I said I would talk to the boy, talk to his friends and try and to get the family talking. The moderator seemed shocked and said “….and you would tell the police?” I said no, he asked why not? Fairly simply because I would have to be convinced that the police would not jump in all guns blazing. The number of arrests that lead to actual charges for terrorism are minute (3 out of 701 according to the BBC) and I told the moderator of some cases including the student who left a stressed message on his mums answering machine; she immediately called the police who promptly seized all his stuff including his PC. The student called a few days later to say hello, his mum explained her distress, he just said he had been stressed out by exams and had gone to stay with friends in another university. He directly went to the police where for his pains he was arrested on terrorism charges based on things he had been looking at on the internet.
It took him over two years to clear his name! We must not forget the “lyrical terrorist” a 20 year misguided young woman convicted for the stuff she had downloaded from the internet or the poor researcher at Nottingham university who was arrested while writing a MA dissertation on Al Qaeda! Again cleared of all charges but then re-arrested on “immigration” charges.
I fully accept that there is a real and present danger from terrorism and that everyone, especially the security services have a tough job but if we want to keep a society free, which after all is what the terrorists are trying to destroy, then we all have to be measured in how we act, re-in forcing our belief in due process, innocent until proven guilty and the rights of us all to be enquiring citizens.
10,000 “requests” a week to invade your privacy
The figures were published in the annual report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy. It showed that nearly 10,000 “requests” were being made by various public bodies to snoop in to your privacy. Now arguably the security services making requests could be justified but the sheer scale is mind boggling.
The reason I have put “request” in quotation marks is because at this level of activity there is a tendency for the request to become routine and allowed rather than the whole point of the process which is to ask if it is really necessary; therefore instead of acting as a hurdle the process is just something that has to be done with the result unaffected by the content of the request.
In my view these figures are just further proof how amazingly a LABOUR government has been the most draconian in British history in its relentless attack on civil liberties. Gordon Brown had a chance to distance himself and provide a fresh start instead he launched in to his failed macho rush to further increase the time someone can be held without charge.
We were in a family discussion the other day and one of my cousins was being teased about being a “fundamentalist”, he replied he had rights, he turned to me for support. I said unfortunately his rights such as they were would not protect him from being locked for 28 days, and even then he may be charged with something and not be told of what it was. If he was lucky and he was told what he was charged he could be charged for anything from “associating with” to “supporting” banned groups based on as flimsy evidence as his internet surfing records. Even if he did clear himself by then he would probably be bankrupt and unemployable.
I am afraid I am one of those lily livered liberals who believes that if one reacts to a threat by curtailing the freedoms that signify the society as a free society then the terrorists have won because we have changed for the worse.