I am really suprised nobody is talking about..

Point-by-point: Terror debate

Here are the main points so far from the debate over whether to extend from 14 days to 90 days the length of time police can detain terrorist suspects without charge:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4421518.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4422086.stm

90 days' detention time limit: Defeated by 322 votes to 291, majority 31
Backbench compromise of 28 days' detention: Passed by 323 votes to 290, majority 33

Guess like the france thingy..not enough 'mericans involved.

 

Well good to see blair got a good stuffing. Shame that the libreals and conservatives sold out of civil liberties anyway, just to a lesser degree. 14 days was abd, 28 days is awful.

1 day is too many.

 

We hold our's indefinitely. Years, if need be. I would love the debate be between 14, 28, and 90 days. I would be happy with 90 days over what it is now.

 

i am pretty happy that Blair got defeated, glad we can hold onto the civil liberties we have left, all is needed now is a defeat on the I.D. card bill

 

If I could find work and affordable housing in Blighty...

 

No man, I'm serious. But I'd get gyp for my bike, I'd be offered half of what I'm paid now in salary, with housing costs making the NYC area look affordable.

 

i agree, the cost of living here in the UK is riduculously expensive, in comparison to most of the world

 

It all perplexed me

The police say they needed these powers, but left it open for the rebutal of 'Give them more resources' .
The goverment said that it was to protect us from terror ?.. mmm a bit vague that.
The opposition declared a 'police state' yeah asking for these 'powers' in a cross party vote instead of hauling people randomly off the street [at will] is really verging on a police state.
Then it is said 'charge them with a lesser crime to keep them in custody' eh ? and this would not be a even worse 'recruiting sergeant' ? charging someone with something 'just because' would be worse than keeping a innocent person [behind bars] with no charge .

I think the 90 day limit should have been voted with a resounding YES, this has been a farce ...see you all next year.

'arrest' you in the morning.. we can't find anything on you at this time.. bye bye, back home for tea..perfectly reasonable 99% of the time but the police don't have hindsight do they ? and [unlike columbo] can't say 'wait a minute' and pop back to pick up somebody who later is identified within another investigation.. those fraction of suspected who clearly should have been charged in the first place ..would be long gone or dead [having carried out there plot] or washed there hands of any involment ..

Blair never got defeated, the police did.

This is what is so irksome... the vast majority of people would be released within 1 or 2 weeks.. anytime in that situation will be a chore [to put it mildly] .. but what other solution is there ?

Anbody ... any other solutions ?.

 

90 Days is worse then South Africa during Apartheid....


In Rhodesia it was 6 Monthes....


Did anyone else find it interesting that The Sun was 100% behind this?

(Murdoch and Blair are bedfellows)

 

Oh, they can hold civilians and behead them, but we cannot hold these terrorists for a few days and ask them questions...?...

 

No, da. That would be racist.

 

Ah, I get it...

 

Mathew, when i say one day i mean to arrest someone without enough evidence to support a calim is wrong! It's crazy. So they're gonna go around arresting people they dont like, if they keep the public in this hysteria it'll be political opponents sooner or later.

 

It is not a given that 90 days woiuld be used.. each week a judicial review is given to each case...if it is not substatiated that it is valid to keep you ..then you are released..thats why i think charging somebody for a lesser somewhat conveniant 'crime' just to keep them in, is wrong.

The Times is also a murdoch owned paper..they are not so rosey about it all [or 100% behind the this]

Clarke: defeat was my fault
Home Secretary tries to deflect blame for terror defeat away from Tony Blair
Westminster live Terror plans attacked
End of Teflon Tony Debate The Rebels Q&A Leading article MPs scuffle

The only reason the Sun is..is because of the type of people that buy it. They are the type that see 'good and 'bad' ..terrorists bad 'lock them up' . One of the mothers who lost her son, said that she would like 'them' to be locked up for 900 days.. you can't argue with that ..even if it is quite obviously [even in my eyes] crazy.

I would say Murdoch panders to different demographics and different political leanings..to sell newspapers .

In Rhodesia it was 6 months ?.. is it the same type of procedure/legislation .. ?.

The whole point is to take suspected 'terrorists' out of the loop after having had a suspicion [based on 'inteligence'] rather than proof and enough to charge somebody. Take them off the streets and then investigate [and substantiate guilt or innocence]. I can see the issue you have with this..but you can't deny the difficulies posed.
It would be nice if it was as easy as you presume.
Nobody knows the time frame or possible plans of these people.
This type of crime hold difficulties not present in 99% of crime, it is a pre-emptive strike.. not like it is after the fact [and a bit late in the day].

They are not going to take people off the street they do not like, it would be much easier to do it covertly AWAY from the hysteria of the media and the public.
Much as i would like Michael Howard or George galloway off the streets and in some whole somewhere..this is clearly not going to happen

 

I think 4 weeks is plenty of time to give investigators to get enough info together to charge a detained terror suspect. Unless they are just detaining people on rumors (like some kind of witch hunt) with hardly any evidence to start out with, in which case they shouldn't be detaining these people in the first place.

 

Yeh, but who draws the line? I just think it's a worrying power to be able to detain people at will without trial, i mean for god sake 800yrs ago it was outlawed, we've actually gone backwards 800yrs with these powers.

 

I share the same concern..i was not blindly agreeing with this. The political implications of error even the presumption of error is to great for some kind of wich hunt.. Think how the police and goverment went about this....carefully.

No computers
No international travel [that did not take weeks/months]
No networks of terror..

We do not know what goverments actualy did behind the rhetoric of what they grandly wrote down for history. You can't believe there was no amount of 'fitting up' back then..just because politicians and apposes spout 'history' lets not forget the actuality of the power the state/church/royal family had back them and upto relatively recently.

Remeber after 7 days they have to justify their action [the police].
They have the media spotlight and 'civil liberties' groups watching every move and ready to back 'innocent' detainees .. A VERY delicate line is being walked when detaining people in this way.. Not something to do lightly..
None of the comparisons such as northern ireland / police state etc hold up if you look at the proposal carefully [away from percieved notions]..

This would have been the upper limit in my eyes [90 days].. i could not support any longer than that..

I can see events [7/7] pushing the goverment into a certain amount of opportunism..but on the other hand it could be a radical solution to a problem faced by the police [remember it is there wish , not the goverment]..what better opportunity and climate . I understand that sounds a little grotesque and i thing more careful thought and reasoning was put into it than that.. i am just pointing out the obvious need for a review of the whole procedure and time limit.

I have to say i did think about ''was 90 days too long''.. at first i though YES.
Then i found out the average time it takes to process these type of investigations is 90 Days.. It was not plucked out of the air.

I have not checked if the new 28 day limit has a sunset clause...

 

Well we can't just consider how laws are going to be used now, but years from now as well. I think the potential for abuse of this is great.

 

There are laws that could used so horrid.. even radical right wing politicians would cringe at.

Thankfully these have about a inch of dust resting on them..and subsequent laws [international.E.U] make them pretty much if not fully obsolete.

Lots of laws have the potential for abuse i can see that.. but i think in our climate [even looking 20 years ahead] it is unlikely. Any goverment wishing to impose laws can just use the Parliament Act
We don't live in the type of country were it easy to abuse laws [as much as you may think].. am i being naive ?.