Big Brother Watch

Daniel Hamilton and Alex Deane: Control orders are an affront to justice

Daniel Hamilton and Alex Deane, the current and former Directors of Big Brother Watch, have today written an joint article for Politics.co.uk on the case for abolishing Control Orders and their replacement with effective alternative measures to fight terrorism.

"Control orders are nothing new. They were first introduced in the United Kingdom six years ago in the Prevention of Terrorism Act under the auspices of "protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism".

"Control orders give the home secretary the power to impose more stringent conditions on the movements and daily lives of individuals than those the Burmese military have placed on Aung San Suu Kyi. Those subjected to control orders can not only be placed under effective house arrest but banned from associating with family members, owning mobile phones or attending their place of work - all without charge, without effective recourse to appeal and without knowledge of their accuser."

Click here to view the full article.

One Year On: The Coalition and Civil Liberties

Big Brother Watch has today (11th May) released a research paper outlining the progress the Coalition Government has made on civil liberties issues during its first year in office.

The paper concludes that, while real progress has been made, many of the Coalition's promises to roll back the power of the state remain unfulfilled.

Click here to download the report

Commenting on the report, Big Brother Watch Director Daniel Hamilton said:

"The Coalition has some real achievements to speak off. 

"Ministers should be congratulated for taking steps to scrap ID cards and remove the profiles of the one million innocent people held on the national DNA database.   They should also be praised for doing away with the ContactPoint database of children’s details and reforming the criminal record check regime.

"They do, however, have more work to do. 

"Police stop and search powers remain in place, Control Orders remain virtually unreformed and there has been no opt-out from the European Arrest Warrant.  When it comes to E-Borders, the Summary Care Record and Intercept Modernisation Programme, they have continued to implement the previous government’s policies – warts and all." 

Control Orders - why the delay?

If, as Theresa May has announced today, the Government feels that Control Orders are wrong and must go, and the vastly different Tpims must take their place... then why does it take a full eleven months for that change to take effect?

By Alex Deane

Control Orders lite

Many media outlets are reporting today that Home Secretary Theresa May has “reviewed” Control Orders.

Certainly, they have been watered down and renamed. But, whilst any dilution of these oppressive and unjustifiable orders is to be welcomed, their continuation is completely wrong. The Orders, now replaced with "Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures", or – and this just trips off the tongue – “Tpims” – are Control Orders with a cosmetic makeover. Yvette Cooper is right. What’s been announced today is not the much-heralded (and promised) end of Control Orders – rather, the Government has simply modified Control Orders – meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Control Orders were introduced when the courts stopped the government of the day imprisoning suspected foreign terrorists who could not be deported. That was the explicit justification for them given to Parliament. But today all the “controlees” are British. So what’s the justification for them now?

The current 16-hour curfews will be replaced by an "overnight residence requirement", typically of between eight and 10 hours. And the new powers will be limited to two years and will only be renewed "if there is new evidence that they have re-engaged in terrorism-related activities", which – depending on what will be considered to be “new evidence – is welcome.

But in many ways, the new Orders are worse than at present. These powers will no longer need to be reviewed every year - plainly restrictions against those labelled terrorists without any sight of the evidence against them are now permanent. Furthermore, the “overnight stays”, which might sound like a nice school trip but aren’t, will be monitored by electronic tags. And the rest of the package of unpleasantness is still at hand if the powers at be want to wield them: curfews and further restrictions on communications, association and movement could all be brought in as part of "exceptional emergency measures", the Home Office said.

Control Orders, or Tpims, as you prefer, are an anathema to basic liberty. You’re not anonymous, but your accuser is. They are based on an assertion from the Home Office that there are some known 2,000 people actively supporting terror in the country - of course, we can’t prove anything against you, but we know you’re up to no good - and a further 2,000 ‘known unknowns’; in a highly scientific fashion, the Home Office asserts that there’s the same number again of people they can’t identify, but are terrorists or supporters too. Let’s assume that’s all correct - 4,000 people, of whom 47 have ever been the subject of Control Orders (and of those, seven have absconded). Plainly, it’s absurd.

The orders undermine the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of British liberty since Magna Carta, and effectively constitute punishment without trial. The ability of the executive directly to impose a control order represents a grave violation of judicial independence. Even the former security minister Tony McNulty - one of those originally responsible for the legislation - now admits that control orders are a ‘clumsy tool’ that should be abandoned.

It is a standing affront to the rule of law that, without charge, anyone’s liberty is curtailed. This isn’t a marginal curtailment either.  As I say, those under control orders have their freedom of movement and association limited to the point at which they are, essentially, under indeterminate house arrest. That freedom is curtailed not only without charge, but without even knowing the nature of the allegations against them, let alone the details of those accusations or the name of their accuser, and without any deadline at which such an order will expire.  It is truly Kafka-esque. The fact that it happens to a tiny proportion of people does nothing to justify it; if you are not free, I am not free. Once these things can happen in principle, they can happen to any of us - especially when there is no objective standard to which the state must be held or test the state must pass in order so to control you.

If those who support Control Orders are right in their allegations, then those about whom they speak should be tried, based on evidence. Absent such evidence and such trials, none of these people, against whom nothing to the criminal standard has been (or presumably, can be) proven should be on these orders. Either the state can prove something against you, or it can’t.  There is no in between.

Each time a case actually goes to court, the Government loses and another such order falls. Control Orders should be abandoned immediately, rather than defeated on an ad hoc basis as the Government loses case after case. It is unjust enough to limit the liberty of a person in this way - but to continue to do so, knowing that the case will be decided against the Government when it wends its way to court, but keeping them so ‘controlled’ until then, is morally bankrupt. It entails further months of unjustifiable action in each case, simply on the basis of which one gets to see the inside of a courtroom first. How can that be intellectually justified even for a moment?

The alternatives to Control Orders and the like - the use of intercept evidence and to charge those suspected of terrorism in open court - are outlined in Dominic Raab’s excellent pamphlet for Big Brother Watch, Fight Terror, Defend Freedom, downloadable here.

For now, the injustice remains. The violation of the presumption of innocence remains. No matter how serious a judge claims things to be, or how gravely he shakes his head - no assurance from a judicial source should be regarded as an acceptable substitute for a proper trial process. A judge is no substitute for a jury. It is simply never acceptable for the word of a servant of the state to be enough to lock you up - no matter how senior or supposedly well-informed he may be. There has to be an external, verifiable, testable validation process that stands between the state accusing you and incarcerating you - in this country, we have established an excellent system of doing that - it's called a trial.

So: nobody will be fooled by this childish sleight of hand – except perhaps the Lib Dems, because none are so blind as those who will not see – they can now pretend that they haven’t broken their manifesto commitment.

By Alex Deane

David Davis: ‘Control orders lite’ will not make us any safer

The Times is of course behind a paywall, so you can't access this article unless you're subscribed. Whoops, I reposted it here.

January 25 2011 12:01AM

Control orders lite’ will not make us any safer

Unless we sweep away this authoritarian policy, the radicalisation of Muslims will continue

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will announce to Parliament tomorrow the conclusion to six months’ deliberation by the Government on its counter-terrorism policy. “Deliberation” is probably too calm a word.
They have had a fierce struggle in Whitehall to defend a series of policies that were denounced by both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in opposition because they were ineffective, authoritarian and, in some cases, a stain on our national honour.

To her credit, Mrs May has swept away some of the most obviously unwise policies. She has abolished ID cards, curbed the grotesque misuse of “counter-terrorist” stop-and-search and indicated the end of 28 days’ detention without charge.

But the most shameful policy, control orders, has been the most fought over and most fiercely defended. It was created when the courts stopped the government of the day imprisoning suspected foreign terrorists who could not be deported. That was the reason given to Parliament. After a long battle, Parliament grudgingly accepted this but I suspect that it would have been rejected out of hand had it been clear that the policy would be used principally to detain British citizens and British residents. Today all the “controlees” are British.

Why are control orders so terrible? They are a series of measures, many of which — house arrest, internal exile, restrictions on movement and communication — we associate with regimes such as the Soviet Union and South Africa under apartheid. Worst of all, they are imposed after a secret trial process in which the “suspect” is told neither the specific allegation nor the evidence. It would be hard to imagine a procedure that was more of an affront to our judicial traditions.

Out of fewer than fifty “controlees”, seven have escaped. One was reported to have been killed recently in Pakistan. Another turned up at a Liberty AGM and got within close range of the Justice Minister, the future Attorney-General and the head of counter terrorism at Scotland Yard. Had he really been a suicide bomber it would have been the highest-profile hit on government since the Brighton bomb. The public should not believe that just because people are under a control order that they are in any sense under control.
But even beyond the incompetence and illegality of the policy is a hideous Catch 22. Year after year whoever is head of MI5 tells us of the alarming rise in “people of interest”: those sufficiently radicalised to become potential terrorists. The number started at 1,600; they stopped giving a number when it passed 4,000. This growth in the threat, by an astonishing 25per cent a year, is a symptom of a flawed strategy. One reason that radicalisation of Muslims is running so high in Britain is disaffection with policies that appear to victimise them. This is not a minor issue. US Intelligence views radicalised British Muslims as one of the main global terrorist threats.

Heavy-handed measures such as control orders feed recruitment by our enemies and suppress recruitment of friends — as intelligence officers, agents or informers. That makes it difficult to carry out the sort of conventional intelligence gathering that we did in Northern Ireland.

The only way to deal with this is very visibly to sweep away its primary causes, including control orders. A halfway house, or “control order lite”, will not do it. Regrettably that seems to be exactly what we are going to get.

These policies are symptomatic of an attitude among counter-terrorism experts more prevalent here than almost anywhere in the democratic world: a preference for disruption over prosecution. In the US, for example, it is a requirement of federal law that all domestic terrorist cases are pursued to prosecution. In Britain this does not seem to be the case, although we have a 92 per cent success rate when we do take terrorist suspects to court. This would be easier if, like everyone else, we used intercept evidence in court, another policy we appear to balk at.

The greatest single problem with control orders is that they have become a substitute for the judicial process, whose primary aim is to prosecute and put terrorists in prison.

Many of these problems would vanish if control orders were brought within the normal judicial process, as a form of police bail. It is not unusual in criminal proceedings, while the police are collecting evidence, for courts to allow various restraints on suspects — for them to be restricted from associating with other criminals, or to have to stay in the country. This is justifiable as part of prosecuting a crime and because it is part of an open, rather than a shadowy process. We should implement such a procedure for terrorism cases as a replacement for control orders. If we did, nobody could accuse us of dropping our commitment to the rule of law.

I understand that this was rejected in the Counter Terrorism Review. Instead we are likely to see a range of modifications to the policy that, while they are worthwhile, will not resolve the problem. Doing away with house arrest and internal exile, allowing the use of computers and mobile phones, are all valuable improvements, but they will not cut the Gordian knot of our current tangled policy. They will neither return us to the rule of law, nor will they cut the radicalisation of young British Muslims that is the greatest single threat to our safety today.

David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden

Which, I think, is all completely correct. The only thing I'd stress in addition is that when the media en masse stressed the judicial anouncements about the supposed seriousness of individual Control Order cases yesterday, they fell for the outrageous misdirection that lies at the heart of the case for Control Orders. In my view, it doesn't matter how serious a judge claims things to be, or how gravely he shakes his head - no assurance from a judicial source should be regarded as an acceptable substitute for a proper trial process. A judge is no substitute for a jury. It is simply never acceptable for the word of a servant of the state to be enough to lock you up - no matter how senior or supposedly well-informed he may be. There has to be an external, verifiable, testable validation process that stands between the state accusing you and incarcerating you - in this country, we have established an excellent system of doing that - it's called a trial.

By Alex Deane

Hat tip: PM

supposed

Clegg's speech: a waste of time

I attended Nick Clegg's speech this morning, and discussed it on Victoria Derbyshire's show on Radio 5 Live today. Over at Public Service I have written an article which puts the argument more fully. In case you're interested, I thought I'd reproduce it here:

Perhaps against our better judgment, I and a number of other civil libertarians trudged through the rain to listen to Nick Clegg's speech at the Institute of Government today. What a waste of time it was.

One appreciates that today is the Deputy Prime Minister's birthday, but there's still no excuse for giving a speech so entirely without substance as this. Effectively, this was the governmental equivalent of the boy who cried "wolf" – he called a press conference, but had nothing to say. As I said with praise at the time, the mood music on offer when the coalition was formed was extremely encouraging – but now, fully seven months on, it is profoundly depressing for anyone who cares about freedom to find all-but exactly the same music on offer, with no substantive additions at all.

Mr Clegg spent a great deal of time talking about the expansion of Freedom of Information, which although hardly revolutionary is significant and welcome, and on libel and defamation reform, on which there was some substance. The trouble there is that that latter issue falls squarely in Ken Clarke's patch, not Clegg's, but – his desparate team must have thought – so what? The DPM desperately needed something substantive to say. And he'd obviously been denied any meat – at all – on the issues everyone was there for, i.e. our profoundly illiberal anti-terror legislation, under which hundreds of thousands of people are stopped and searched at random without a single terror-related arrest, people are kept under detention for a month before they're even charged, and individuals can be put on control orders indefinitely. All of this, he said, fell under the purview of the Home Secretary, and he wouldn't presume to say anything about it – peculiar, one might think, for the man supposedly in charge of the Freedom Bill, especially on the Control Orders front.

The case for action on this is plain, and not only because the Liberal Democrats were so clear and principled on the issue before the election. Control Orders are completely immoral. If you're a victim of this pernicious form of house arrest, not only are you denied sight of the evidence against you, you're not even told the nature of the accusation. So there's simply no way to defend yourself from it. When the Government can restrict liberty like this on a whim, it is not enough, on the one hand, to speak in head-shaking, deep-toned, pseudo-profound terms about the "grave threat" we face, and on the other offer assurances that the police and security services "know what they're doing" (just ask Jean-Charles De Menezes or Ian Tomlinson what they'd make of such assertions). At times like these, faced with an objectively less significant threat than this country faced throughout the 1970s, the kneejerk reaction on show from the last government is truly the greatest threat posed to our free society.

Such a threat is far from merely theoretical. Blame my barristerial background, perhaps, but I'm old-fashioned enough to believe in the presumption of innocence, and in trying people accused of crimes in courts, then finding them innocent or guilty. Such basic principles were gravely harmed by the last government, and once such bright line principles are breached then the freedoms of all of us are threatened.

Though he talks a good game, Clegg has hitherto done and is doing precisely nothing to reverse this illiberality. There were lofty words on offer on covert surveillance for absurd things and on our DNA database, the largest per capita in the world, with the details of more than an innocent people on it. There was even a single line about limiting the power of representatives of the state to enter private property.It was all rather familiar [for BBW followers...]. But on absolutely none of it was there any specificity. So one fears that the delays, reviews and empty speeches (co-ordinated with a suspiciously well-timed parade of supposedly impartial grandees coming out against Control Orders, and a remarkably coincidental escalation in the terror level we are told we face) are taking place as a prelude to substituting effectively the same kinds of regime on all of these issues. This is why, for example, one views Clegg's preferred formula, "Control Orders cannot survive in their current form", with such suspicion. We are very likely, I fear, to see a cosmetic change offered as a sop to the Liberal Democrats, with no real genuine action at all.

I do not allege that Clegg is actually happy with this. Perhaps he is making all manner of uncomfortable compromises. But is he actually right to do so? Of course the Lib Dems are enjoying the trappings of power, but Mr Clegg has to ask himself – is he truly the Deputy Prime Minister, or not? If he is, then this kind of delay by others on his fundamental manifesto pledges, leading to his excuse-riddled inaction, is simply inexcusable. If he's not… then what's he doing in the Coalition?

By Alex Deane

Control orders are a sideshow

Over at The Guardian's excellent Comment is Free blog Big Brother Watch supporter and book contributor Dom Raab MP has written an excellent piece on the need to end Control Orders.

"Hawks in both parties must recognise the control order regime is broken. MI5 has stopped giving "numeric" assessments of the terrorist threat, but in 2007 it estimated there were 4,000 suspects in Britain. That level has not declined. Against a soaring threat, use of control orders halved: we now have eight, the lowest number since their introduction. One in nine has been quashed by the courts. One in six "controlees" has absconded. So, if control orders are the safety net to stop 4,000 terrorist suspects slipping through, that net is small and flimsy with gaping tears.

"As the terrorist threat rose in the UK, terrorism legislation expanded just as fast – yet in the last four years the number of terrorists convicted has plummeted by 90%.

"The real haggling on counter-terrorism should not be between Conservatives and Lib Dems, doves and hawks, but between ministers and the most entrenched interests in Whitehall. Control orders remain a sideshow of minimal security relevance, compared with Britain's glaring failure to use the justice system as a weapon to jail terrorists – the only way we can guarantee they won't threaten the public"

Click here for the full piece.

You can download Dom's excellent Big Brother Watch pamphlet 'Fight Terror, Defend Freedom' which makes the case for restoring the core freedoms of the British citizen, whilst using the justice system – including intercept evidence – to adopt a more robust approach to prosecuting those seeking to perpetrate terror in Britain by clicking here

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Prime Minister: Control Orders "need replacing"

The Prime Minister David Cameron has issued a statement confirming he believes the controversial Control Order policy implemented by the previous Labour government "hasn't been a success" and "needs a proper replacement".

With this statement, it appears that the policy - at least in its present form - will be discontinued.  The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who was said to be wavering on his support for the abolition of Control Orders, announced that the coalition will publish alternative proposals "very soon".

While Big Brother does, of course, welcome this news we shall be watching carefully to ensure that Control Orders are not simply replaced with yet another illiberal and ineffective policy.

Big Brother is watching you...

Hold steady, Cleggie

According to multiple news reports this morning, it appears as if Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg may be close to abandoning his opposition to Control Orders. 

Mr Clegg's rumoured volte face follows a twenty four hour period in which former Conservative leader Michael Howard and House of Commons Intelligence committee chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind have announced their support for the continuation of the policy.

At this critical juncture, it is worth reminding Mr Clegg and his party of their clear, explicit, binding and non-negotiable pledge in their 2010 general election manifesto:

"[We will] scrap Control Orders, which can use secret evidence to place people under house arrest".

Indeed, Mr Clegg issued the following broadside at the Labour Party during that very manifesto launch:

"It's a measure of the authoritarian streak of the Labour party that it didn't refer once to liberty in its own manifesto.

"Civil liberties and individual freedoms are part of the DNA of the Lib Dems. It makes a compete mockery of the claim by Gordon Brown that he can speak for progressive voters in other parties when his own party has turned its back on one of the cornerstones of progressive politics.

"The division between the Lib Dems and Labour on civil liberties is as wide today as it was at the height of Blair's authoritarian populism".

To date, Nick Clegg's personal and public pronouncements have shown him to be nothing if not a commited civil libertarian.  He admirably led his party's advocacy for civil liberties from his time as Shadow Home Secretary to his election as party leader and can claim much credit for forcing issues such as the abolition of ID cards to the very top of the political agenda.

Let's hope he is not swept away by the very same "authoritarian populism" he criticised Gordon Brown for.

Hold steady, Mr Clegg.

Michael Howard is wrong on Control Orders

According to news reports this morning, the former Conservative party leader and Home Secretary Michael Howard has joined the illiberal triumverate of David Blunkett, John Reid and Charles Clarke in opposing the abolition of control orders. 

Michael Howard's position on this issue comes as no surprise whatsoever, given that he was the Home Secretary to first attempt the introduction of ID cards way back in 1996.

Control Orders give the Home Secretary the power to impose more stringent conditions on the movements and daily lives of individuals than those the Burmese military have placed on Aung San Suu Kyi.  Those subjected to Control Orders can not only be placed under effctive house arrest but banned from associating with family members, owning mobile phones or attending their place of work - all without charge, without effective recourse to appeal and without knowledge of their accuser.

Speaking to Telegraph, Howard he "could not think of another way of ensuring people are safe from terrorists"

At Big Brother Watch, we can think of few less effective ways of ensuring people are safe from terrorists.  The figures speak for themselves.  Of the 45 orders imposed to date, seven of the individuals have absconded and the remainder have been discontinued.

It is a standing affront to the rule of law that, without charge, anyone’s liberty is curtailed – their freedom of movement and association are limited to the point at which they are, essentially, under indeterminate house arrest.  This Kafkesque conception of justice is simply incomparible with any country which wishes to see itself as a liberal democracy.  

David Cameron would do well to ignore Michael Howard's utterances on this issue - and those of the past Labour Home Secretaries whose record on civil liberties he has himself described as "woeful".

The alternatives to Control Orders and the like are outlined in Dominic Raab's excellent pamphlet for Big Brother Watch, Fight Terror, Defend Freedom.

The case against Control Orders

Following on from an article by Robin Simcox which supported the use of Control Orders as a law enforcement tool, Big Brother Watch's Alex Deane has written for Critical Reaction offering the opposing case.

 "Each time a case actually goes to court, the Government loses and another such order falls. Control Orders should be abandoned immediately, rather than defeated on an ad hoc basis as the Government loses case after case. It is unjust enough to limit the liberty of a person in this way - but to continue to do so, knowing that the case will be decided against the Government when it wends its way to court, but keeping them so ‘controlled’ until then, is morally bankrupt. It entails further months of unjustifiable action in each case, simply on the basis of which one gets to see the inside of a courtroom first. How can that be intellectually justified even for a moment?

Click here to view the article.

The Coalition must abandon Control Orders

Over at the New Statesman, a post about the Coalition and Control Orders well worth reading:

faced with the challenge of repealing New Labour's draconian anti-terrorism legislation, ministers seem likely to fall at the first hurdle.

The government's counterterrorism review is expected to approve the continued use of "control orders" - better described as a kind of house arrest. Indeed, the coalition is known to have imposed two new control orders since taking office in May. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has already rebuked the former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald, who is overseeing the review, for warning that he would publicly denounce any decision to retain the orders. Like all too many of her predecessors, Mrs May has been captured by the Whitehall securocrats, who jealously guard the powers awarded to them. The discovery of the cargo bombs plot has strengthened their hand in recent days.

Yet control orders remain an illiberal and ineffective response to the continued terrorist threat. In the five years since the Labour government introduced them, the case for their repeal has strengthened. The orders undermine the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of British liberty since Magna Carta, and allow punishment without trial. The ability of the executive directly to impose a control order represents a grave violation of judicial independence.

But not only have control orders undermined liberty, they have also endangered public safety. Of the 45 men subjected to control orders since 2005, at least seven have absconded, including Zeeshan Siddiqui, who was allegedly a close associate of the London Underground bomber Shehzad Tanweer. Spurious talk of a "balance" between liberty and security masks the reality that control orders have advanced neither. As Benjamin Franklin presciently argued: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither and will lose both."

The advocates of control orders would be more convincing if there were no liberal alternative. But there is: to permit the use of intercept evidence and to charge those suspected of terrorism in open court. The Liberal Democrats' manifesto was admirably clear on this point: "The best way to combat terrorism is to prosecute terrorists, not give away hard-won British freedoms." Since then, the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, has reaffirmed his opposition to the "Kafka-esque" control orders. Should he and the other Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers now fall into line, their reputations will suffer irrevocable damage. Nick Clegg claims that his presence in the government has pushed Conservative ministers in a more liberal direction. On control orders, he has a chance to live up to this boast. The issue is also a test of Ed Miliband's promise to remake Labour as a party of civil liberties. He must resist the influence of those MPs who are never happier than when attacking the Tories as "soft on terror". Even the former security minister Tony McNulty - one of those originally responsible for the legislation - now admits that control orders are a "clumsy tool" that should be abandoned.

This is absolutely right. Control Orders, under which you’re not anonymous, but your accuser is, are an anathema to basic liberty. They are based on an assertion from the Home Office that there are some known 2,000 people actively supporting terror in the country – of course, we can’t prove anything against you, but we know you’re up to no good – and a further 2,000 “known unknowns”; in a highly scientific fashion, the Home Office asserts that there’s the same number again of people they can’t identify, but are terrorists or supporters too. Let’s assume that’s all correct – 4,000 people, of whom 45 have ever been the subject of Control Orders. Plainly, it’s absurd.

It is a standing affront to the rule of law that, without charge, anyone’s liberty is curtailed – their freedom of movement and association are limited to the point at which they are, essentially, under indeterminate house arrest. That freedom is curtailed not only without charge, but without even knowing the nature of the allegations against them, let alone the details of those accusations or the name of their accuser – it’s truly Kafka-esque. The fact that it happens to a tiny proportion of people does nothing to justify it; if you are not free, I am not free. Once these things can happen in principle, they can happen to any of us – especially when there is no objective standard to which the state must be held or test the state must pass in order so to control you.

None of these people, against whom nothing to the criminal standard has been (or presumably, can be) proven should be on these orders. Each time a case actually goes to court, the Government loses and another such order falls. Control Orders should be abandoned immediately, rather than defeated on an ad hoc basis as the Government loses case after case. It is unjust enough to limit the liberty of a person in this way – but to continue to do so, knowing that the case will be decided against the Government when it wends its way to court, but keeping them so ‘controlled’ until then, is morally bankrupt. It entails further months of unjustifiable action in each case, simply on the basis of which gets to see the inside of a courtroom first. How can that be intellectually or morally justified even for a moment? The Liberal Democrats explicitly pledged to scrap them prior to the election. They should have their way, rather than being coerced into the unedifying spectacle of defending them on television as Jeremy Browne did on Question Time last night, looking about as convincing as - well, as an aircraft carrier without any aircraft.

The alternatives to Control Orders and the like are of course outlined in Dominic Raab's excellent pamphlet for Big Brother Watch, Fight Terror, Defend Freedom.

By Alex Deane

My speech to the Libertarian Alliance: Anonymity is not a Crime

I gave this speech this weekend and thought that readers might be interested. It's a bit long and I look like the left side of my face is slowly being cooked by the lighting, but it's not a bad speech I think.

Topics covered:

* Intercept Modernisation Programme

* Stop and Search

* ID Cards

* Control Orders

* NICE databases

Topic I would have covered if I had time, and will be addressing again very soon indeed: European Arrest Warrant

By Alex Deane

Why Theresa May should stand firm tomorrow

An interesting reaction both here and on Facebook to my post about tomorrow's speech by Theresa May. Tomorrow - a day, and as the West Wing knew too well, a word that stands for the future. It's an argument I've had before, but I thought that I would take a moment to set out my thinking here.

The Yemeni bomb plot could not have come at a worse time. Just as the Government - already showing deeply worrying signs of bureaucratic capture and authoritarian reactions to headlines - comes to decide on the next steps to be taken in counter-terrorism, a plot like this is discovered.

In reaction to it, serious commentators like Matthew D'Ancona effectively advocate the abandonment of the Government's commitment to a freedom agenda, saying - and I quote - that "this campaign for civil liberties is a gift for Al Qaeda." They would have us resume business as usual, as things were in the Blair/Brown years.

But to do so would be to lose all sense of proportion. It seems almost forgotten by the scareocrats that the attack was actually foiled, that it was relatively uncommon, that nobody was injured; moreover, much more importantly, it is entirely overlooked by the authoritarian lobby that our forebears withstood appalling actual harm without caving into such pressures. Members of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet were pulled from the rubble of the Grand Hotel, in an attack in which five people died, but her Brighton conference went on and liberties were not curtailed. Likewise, in the course of the "Troubles", the IRA killed thousands. And yet, faced in the present-day by this small band of ineffectual thugs, D'Ancona and co would have our Home Secretary abandon the path of freedom upon which she and her party pledged to embark when offering themselves as candidates at the ballot box a mere few months ago.

Let's be plain about what's at stake. Detention without trial for a month. Random stop and search, under which the police can demand your papers, bullying the law-abiding and demonstrating who's in charge, interfering with your basic freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of speech. Control orders, anathema to any democratic society, under which the freedom of the individual can be curtailed - in principle, in perpetuity - without him knowing the details or even nature of the charge against him. When you cannot know the nature of the accusation or the name of your accuser, it is of course impossible to rebut the allegation concerned. Certainly, it doesn't affect you at present - after all, first they came for the 45 people who have been subject to such orders to date. But who's next? And when the charge never has to be justified to any objective standard, don't be fooled - it could happen to anyone. It could happen to you. Let us not hope that, then, others would not turn away from you as D'Ancona and co turn away from those whose liberty is thus curtailed now. Finally of course, the ridiculous end of privacy and freedom and dignity that is the circus at modern airports. All these things matter enormously. May must not shirk on any of them.

Values held only in good times are without worth. Indeed, they can be positively harmful, providing a false sense of freedom in a society in fact all too willing to resort to knee-jerk curtailment of rights at the first sign of trouble. As our American cousins, at the polls toda,y remind us, "Freedom is not Free." It will cost more to defend, it will be difficult, yes, it will involve more risk - but our values are worth defending and freedom is a cause worth fighting for. It is the lot of democracies to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, to put aside some tools even though they might help - it is a very slippery slope when you start abrogating freedoms, and the retention of them - even when the going gets tough - is what makes us different from the terrorists we face.

Stick to your guns, Ms May.

By Alex Deane

David Davis will vote against the Coalition if Theresa May keeps Control Orders

Just announced on Daily Politics. Developing...

By Alex Deane

Heading for a f*****g car crash

Big Brother Watch's position on control orders which gives the Home Secretary the power to impose more stringent conditions on the movements and daily lives of individuals than those the Burmese military junta have placed on Aung San Suu Kyi is clear and unambiguous: they must be discontinued.

Upon the installation of the coalition government, an immediate announcement was made that the policy was being reviewed, yet swift action to abolish control orders has not been forthcoming. An article in this morning's Independent suggests the review process has been far from smooth. Indeed, the ordinarily-courteous David Cameron is rumoured to have told colleagues they are "heading for a f*****g car crash" as they attempt to "reconcile competing political pressures and security advice".

Civil liberties concerns aside, David Cameron would do well to look at the actual success of the policy.

Of the 45 imposed on indivduals to date, seven have absconded and the remainder have been discontinued. If someone is judged to be enough of a risk to have a control order imposed upon them, then it surely follows they should be tried in a court of law.

The coalition's review of control orders must find in favour of discontinuing this ineffective and unfair practice.

By Daniel Hamilton

Book launch this evening: ‘Fight Terror, Defend Freedom’ by Dominic Raab MP

This evening will see the launch of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch’s new publication, ‘Fight Terror, Defend Freedom’ by Dominic Raab MP.
 
The launch of the book will take place between 5:00pm and 6:00pm today in the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament.  
 
Mr Raab, who was an international lawyer prior to his election to Parliament, will introduce his publication, followed by a panel discussion including former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis MP, Centre for Technology Policy Research Jerry Fishenden and Big Brother Watch Director Alex Deane.   
 
Commenting on the launch of the publication Raab said:

“Today’s publication of the National Security Strategy, highlights the flaws in the last government’s approach to counter-terrorism. Too much time, money and effort was wasted on ‘sound byte’ security. Too many of Labour’s measures, like ID cards and prolonged detention without charge, were unnecessary or irrelevant to our security. 

 “The government has a golden opportunity to break with this flawed approach. We should be defending our freedoms, like free speech and the presumption of innocence. At the same time, the justice system is an underused weapon in the fight against terrorism. We should be strengthening our capacity to prosecute terrorists – not least by lifting the ban on using intercept as evidence.” 

Alex Deane, Director of Big Brother Watch said: 

“The case for action is now irresistible.  Dominic Raab’s publication shows the injustices being done every day in this country.  Stop and search and control orders are being reviewed – why?  Why review something when you know it’s wrong?“ 

Click here to download a copy of the booklet.

A review of the current playing field for civil liberties

I have written an extended piece for the website Critical Reaction reviewing the various outstanding civil liberties issues under the Coalition. Part 1 is here - Part 2 is here.

By Alex Deane

Damian Green's speech at Big Brother Watch event, Conservative Party Conference 2010

Big Brother Watch was proud to host Damian Green's speech on the fringe at the Conservative Party's Conference in Birmingham this week. Here's the text.

"British freedoms for British People"

Thank you for that introduction. It painted a bleak picture of the authoritarian state built up under thirteen years of Labour rule.

What struck me after my own arrest, and my successful campaign to have my DNA taken off the database after I was cleared, was the anger in the letters that came in from those in a similar position. Former army officers, magistrates, grandmothers in small towns who had never dreamed of offending, were all united in their distrust of the police and the authorities more generally. These are the people we have always thought of as the backbone of respectable society. Alienating them from the law enforcement authorities would be a disaster.  This is one of the quiet ways that New Labour lost Middle Britain.

And even Labour’s new leader seems to agree. Ed Miliband claimed in his Conference speech last week that he wants to ‘reclaim’ liberty for the Labour Party. He has admitted that:

“I've said throughout this campaign that I believe New Labour was at times too casual about the liberty of individuals.[..] We made mistakes over ID cards and 42-day detention and how we handled stop and search powers. ”

Words are cheap. Will we see action from Ed Miliband?

Control Orders

Yesterday brought the news that another person subject to a Control Order has been released after the Government declined to make known to him the reasons that he has been detained.

It is a standing affront to the rule of law that anyone’s liberty is curtailed without knowing the details of the charges against them.

It is good that the Government has once again been made to give way by the courts but Control Orders should be abandoned immediately, rather than defeated on an ad hoc basis as the Government loses case after case.

After all, it is unjust enough to limit the liberty of a person in this way - but to continue to do so, knowing that the case will be decided against the Government when it wends its way to court, but keeping them so "controlled" until then, is morally bankrupt.  It entails further months of unjustifiable action in each case, simply on the basis of which gets to see the inside of a courtroom first.

Big Brother Watch will continue to press on this issue until the Government finally deals adequately with the consequences of the comprehensive defeat that it has suffered.

By Alex Deane 

This article is also available at CentreRight