Big Brother (Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats)

Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats <info@barnetlibdems.org.uk>

Big Brother

April 4, 2008 12:00 AM
By Councillor Monroe Palmer in Hendon Times

We all want to be safe from terrorists and villains. It is, however, sometimes important not to lose sight of the fact that our liberties also need to be protected. The first measures to be avoided are those that reduce liberties and have no appreciable effect on our safety.

The Governments Counter-Terrorism Bill is one of those useless measures 'too far'. Gordon Brown's Government wants a blanket extension to 42 days on the pre-charge limit for holding suspects. We are right to be worried at the danger of fundamentalist terror. The Parliamentary Bill rightly includes the right to use intercept evidence in limited cases and to be able to question suspects after charge. The Liberal Democrats are not soft on ways of defeating terrorism. However, we are firmly against any need to extend the time in which people can be held without charge. It is currently 28 days. No case has been made that increasing this to 42 days as a blanket extension will be of any use. The authorities have up to 28 days to bring a charge and they apparently manage to do just that.

There is no doubt that a non-proven need to extend to 42 days would harm civil liberties BUT WORSE it would be counter-productive in the fight against terrorism by destroying the trust that exists between the people of all ethnic origins and the security services. So I hope when this Bill gets to committee and report stage in May it can be amended to keep in useful measures and take out the political posturing.

The other political posturing is over the proposal to introduce identity cards. Can many people believe that with the lax standards of Government departments, in protecting data entrusted to them , it would mean that our personal details are 'safe in their hands'. A survey by the British Computer Society of 14 Government departments showed that none of them had statistics of how many errors were on their data bases and had no budget to correct for those errors. Introduction of ID cards are unnecessary and illiberal. They would have an insignificant effect on crime and terrorism. The villains would find ways round the system but Joe and Jane Public, you and me, would bear the brunt of Big Brother surveillance. The money to be spent on ID cards could be better used by putting ten thousand more police officers on our streets and I hereby claim Barnet's share of that real effort to keep us safe and secure.