Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The concessions are a scam

The other day I posted and pondered upon how the so-called concession on 42 daya detention without trial would work given that any discussion of a case in Parliament that would be allegedly be required for their to be vote would inevitably prejudice a subsequent trial, not to mention jeopardise any investigation anyway.

We now have details of the concessions from the Home Secretary and it seems the way around that problem will basically be that the Home Secretary decided that there is a "grave, and exceptional terrorist threat" and he or she then goes to Parliament and says "trust me, would I lie to you?". How precisely this protects peoples' civil liberties I' not sure.

However, on Planet Lala, where Brown and Smith have currently set up home, it appears that this Parliamentary "oversight" whereby MPs have to vote on a matter of trust, and will of course inevitably err on the size of caution, is more than enough to protect the civil liberties of the nation.

One other thing that was raised in the comments of my previous post was that this would require a recall of Parliament in recess. Apparently that is exactly what will happen. I'm not sure what will happen if the MP's are out of the country with their families. It's coming to something though where we have not only sleepwalked into a surveillance state but we're now sleepwalking into a Stasi one.

Do these people have no sense of history and the warning that times gone by send us about such things?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree completely. These Nodding Dog Labour MPs are so scared of an election if they oust Brown they have all fallen into line. The prospect of 2 more years with their snouts in the trough is more important to them than the liberty of the people of this country. Shame on them all.

Anonymous said...

The problem being, many Labour MPs can see their careers coming to an end if they vote against the Government.

Principles and historical lessons go out the window when the pay cheque and expense claims are threatened.

Although Dave is against 42 days I have not heard him say that any future Conservative under his leadership will reduce this time of detention if it becomes law.

silas said...

Combined with;
the recent and on-going case of the man being arrested for downloading the Manchester Manual from the US Department of Justice's servers;

the continuing attempt to foist ID cards on the population despite there not being a single viable reason to do so;

the decision to make viewing images of legal sexual practices illegal;

and the apparent plan of capturing and retaining all electronic communication in the UK,

I'm having some difficulty remembering I'm not in East Germany. Although, as Mark E Smith said of the place, "it's like Middlesbrough" and fortunately, I don't live in Middlesbrough.

Old BE said...

In the meantime, Straw is still trying to get his Enabling Bill through.

Anonymous said...

Has parliament discussed the conditions that people will be held in for the 42 days?

Paddington Green anti terror block has no natural light.
Suspects are not allowed access to family, friends, TV and Newspapers, even books may be denied.
It goes without saying that they are denied Habeas corpus for 6 weeks and may never go before a court at all, with no explanation of why they were locked up in the first place.

I get the impression that the public think this is ok as they have an image of a ranting bearded Mid East/Asian type in their minds. An image that is promoted by this awful government.

Anonymous said...

"The problem being, many Labour MPs can see their careers coming to an end if they vote against the Government."

If they showed some fucking balls (not Ed) then some of them /might/ keep their jobs in a couple of years. If they keep towing Browns line and keep their snouts in the trough 'till the next election then I FUCKING GUARANTEE the cunts will all be out of a job.

Z.

Anonymous said...

Planet Lala? Oh that will explain where Marvel got the idea from!

On a serious note, this is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever put before a British Parliament, and the majority of us are allowing our MPs to sleeepwalk into building the framework of a nasty dictatorial regime. Most have no concept of how these powers could be used by any future unscrupulous governments.

Anonymous said...

I would posit that the answer to your final question is 'no'.

Anonymous said...

Its bad enough the the "senior judges" reviewing requests to allow further detention are doing so without access to most of the evidence that the police are building. A vote in parliament without access to any of this information or the opportunity to speak to the people being held means that it is a blind crap shoot. Releasing partial evidence to the House would, even if such a release were to be legal, would certainly be used by defendants to claim any jury with eye, ears and a TV set had been fatally contaminated denying them a fair trial.

Its not just ZanuLab have no sense of history, they just don't understand their own laws.

Anonymous said...

Would this mean that MP's would the be getting extra pay for being "on call" during the recess?
I know which way I'd bet.