The Assault on Britain's Civil Liberties

Introduction

• The legal definition of terrorism includes acts of civil disobedience that harm no one, potentially including organising a mass emailing or faxing of an organisation;

• The government can outlaw an organisation without proving wrongdoing, criminalising not only membership of that organisation but also organising protests in support of that organisation. It is even an offence to wear clothing in public that make the authorities suspicious you might be a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.

• The police, security agencies, inland revenue and customs and excise can monitor who you email or phone, which websites you visit, and the location of your mobile phone whilst switched on(read sections 21 to 25 at the page linked to here) without your knowledge and without a warrant authorisation, or effective oversight. The govt is also wants this data stored for extended periods for retrospective searches by the police, etc.

• The government can detain foreign nationals indefinitely without trial if the Home Secretary certifies they are "suspected international terrorists".

• Authorised officials working for local authorities or the Department for Work and Pensions can demand any information they deem relevant about a customer from banks, credit card companies, utility companies and phone companies without a warrant and without the customer being notified if they think the customer might be involved in benefit/tax fraud.

• The police can access confidential information held by the govt or other public authorities without a warrant or any other oversight for the purposes of (deciding to initiate) any criminal investigation. This information can even be shared with other polices forces overseas.

• In England and Wales, the health secretary can require confidential patient information to be handed over to any person or oganisation he specifies.

• For various crimes a defendant has to prove his innocence.

• The human rights laws cannot override legislation passed by its national parliament even when it has been found to be incompatible with those human rights laws.

There's more to come, such as another attempt at removal of the right to jury trial for complex cases and cases where the judge thinks the jury might be intimidated, the removal of the double jeopardy rule for serious crimes and extradition to EU countries without any evidence being presented to British courts for offences that need not exist in British law and where the charges can be altered after extradition has occurred.

The attacks

Further commentary