The Terrorism Bill 2005: A threat to blogs/websites?

Update: I got it wrong on the committee stage of the bill. The committee stage of this bill takes place over 2 days, the 2nd and 3rd of November. See this link. Sorry for the mistake.

I confess to having taken my off the ball on this one. I didn't realise the Terrorism Bill 2005 (yes another one!) was in parliament until I heard about the 2nd reading and then was slow off the mark to write about it...

Spy.org.uk have berated the British blogosphere for failing to cover/analyse the Terrorism Bill 2005, which, in addition to enabling 90 days detention of terrorist suspects without charge, they argue threatens websites, bloggers and libraries due to the:

• vaguely defined offences of "inciting or glorifying" terrorism and distributing a terrorist publication, combined with
  
• the power of a police constable, acting on his own opinion that the publication is "terrorism-related", to issue a notice to a publisher to remove or modify an article within 2 days or be deemed to have endorsed the article, thus rendering you unable to raise the defence that it was provided only in the course of providing an electronic service, you didn't know it was terrorism related AND you did not endorse it.

More detail can be found here and at the Magna Carta Plus weblog. Note that the committee stage of this bill will be over on Wednesday 2nd November. Time to make use of WriteToThem...

New "refuse" pledge setup by No2ID

Following on from the earlier 'refuse' and 'resist' pledges, No2ID have set up a new 'refuse' pledge. As with the first one, pledgers pledge to refuse to register for a card/on the database and to donate £10 to a legal defence fund. This time the aim is to get 15,000 signatures by January 8th 2006. The first one achieved its target of 10,000 signatures by the 18th of July and totalled over 11,368 signatures by the time it closed on the 9th October.

British residents who oppose the cards and have not yet signed a pledge are invited to sign either the 'resist' pledge or the second 'refuse' pledge (this one aimed at those who feel unable to run the risks associated with refusing). But please do not sign more than one pledge!

(See also here).

My views on the free market

Jon P writing at the Liberty Cadre, gives a plug to the Magna Carta Plus News blog (thanks Jon!), and he also writes:

One of its contributors is James Hammerton, whom I have come across while perusing a few Libertarian Alliance documents. He is a sort of civil libertarian leftie, opposed to the free market but wants freedom in pretty much everything else...

I suspect he's probably read my critique of libertarianism, I recall someone in the Libertarian Alliance expressed interest in it some time back. I wrote the essay about a decade or so ago. At the time, I would happily have described myself as a Green, having been in the Edinburgh University Green Society throughout my undergraduate days and then its equivalent at Birmingham University during my PhD. As I recall, I wrote the critique during the early days of my PhD, but note my PhD had nothing to do with it! It was written in my spare time.

Anyway since then my views have changed quite a lot. I wouldn't describe myself as a Green now. Re-reading the essay has reminded me by just how much my views have changed. Basically I want to see the state shrunk, and I'm generally in favour of free trade, my reading having convinced me that its generally beneficial.

However I don't believe in cutting the state back to a "nightwatchman" state the way some libertarians do. For example, I support the idea of a citizen's wage, plus I think action is needed to wean the world economy off oil and onto something both less environmentally harmful and less dependent on unstable middle eastern governments. So whilst I might be opposed to total laissez-faire, I do wish to see much freer markets and a much smaller state than we currently have.

Maybe a followup to my critique, considering it in the light of my current views, is in order....

Magna Carta Plus News

For some years now I've been contributing to the Magna Carta Plus website(MCP), and recently I've been in charge of its news service, which has now been revamped as a weblog.

MCP is a civil liberties website and its news service aims to cover developments in civil liberties across the world, albeit with a UK bias. My efforts on civil liberties will focus mainly on the news 'blog there and in contributing further articles to MCP.

This blog will remain in operation, however its focus will move away from civil liberties into other areas of politics.

ID card roadshow in Edinburgh tomorrow

Apparently, the government's identity cards "roadshow", a charm offensive the govt is using to try to win over the public on the proposals, will be hitting Edinburgh tomorrow according to the Glasgow No2ID website:

On Sunday 11th September, it was announced that the Home Office would be starting a 7 day "biometric roadshow" to try to sell the concept of ID cards to the British public. The roadshow started today with Andy Burnham MP, minister for ID cards, visiting Manchester Airport on Monday to show off the Home Office's dreams for biometric technology - BBC story (appeared Sunday afternoon).

The Home Office are trying to keep news of these events secret before they occur. On Monday afternoon they flatly refused to let me know if there were any plans for the roadshow to come to Scotland. The Home Office did not make a press release about the Manchester event public until it had already started.

Despite the Home Office refusing to tell us about future dates and venues, we have learnt that the roadshow will be at the Gyle shopping centre in Edinburgh on Wednesday 14th September. Andy Burnham will be there from 11:00 to 12:00.

If you can possibly get to Edinburgh on Wednesday to join in a small protest, hand out a few leaflets and challenge a minister to answer some of the questions that they have been avoiding, then please let me know. Or just turn up, if you prefer.

Sorry about the short notice, but the Home Office are trying to keep this quiet. We need all the help we can get - please get in touch: glasgow@no2id.net

More on the Stockwell tube shooting

This story seems to get more and more disturbing as times goes on. Whilst of course we've still to have the report from the inquiry and thus don't yet know the full facts, the recently leaked documents suggest that almost every aspect of the story we were initially told is incorrect.

According to this BBC report on the matter, the leaked documents suggest that Mr Menezes did not jump the barrier at the station, but entered normally, picked up a newspaper and proceeded to the platforms. He only ran when a train was near and was sitting down when the police boarded the train, he stood up after the police shouted "police" and was then restrained by one officer whilst another shot him. He was not wearing a bulky coat and nor was it the case that he ran when police challenged him.

This account suggests that until the police boarded the train, Menezes was not aware of being followed. It also suggests that he did not do anything unusual, indeed he was simply going about his business, and the only reason for the police to think he was up to no good was that he emerged from a building under their surveillance and they thought he was one of their targets.

Now it seems to me that for a decision to shoot to be justifiable, the police needed to have evidence that the suspect had a bomb on him or under his control at the time they were surveilling him. Nothing I've read so far suggests they did, and it looks more and more like the only reason they had for shooting him was misidentifying him as someone they're looking for. If this is borne out by the inquiry then heads should roll.

The Stockwell tube shooting (contd)

The maintainers of the Spy.org.uk blog commented on my earlier article about this:

The Times reports that the innocent Brasilian Jean Charles de Menezes waited for, and caught a Number 2 Bus from near his home too Stockwell Tube Station, and was "under surveillance" for more than 20 minutes.

Do the Operation Kratos "rules of engagement" value the lives of Bus passengers less than those of Tibe passengers ?

Why was this alleged suicide bomber allowed to board a Bus ? If he was not considered to be a "threat to life" on the Bus, then why was he considered to be one before he got to a Tube train ?

These are indeed important questions. If the police considered Mr Menezes to be a suicide bomber in the process of carrying out an attack then surely they should have stopped him before he got on the bus, or even as soon as he left his house? It is possible of course that it wasn't until after he got off the bus that the police thought he might be a suicide bomber, but this is a vital question and demands an answer.

There is also the question of whether the police did enough to identify themselves as police when they challenged Mr Menezes. The eyewitness accounts suggest they did not shout "police" or "armed police". This might be a factor in explaining why Mr Menezes ran.

There plenty of questions that need answered here. I hope the inquiry will answer them and that if the police are found to be at fault then those responsible face the music and that procedures are altered if necessary.

Nevertheless, I think that shooting to kill someone who is in the process of carrying out a suicide bombing attack is the right policy (if there is no safe alternative). And where possible we should try and stop these people before they set out to blow themselves up in crowded areas.