42 days

Great to see that the attempt to increase the internment limit for terrorist subjects to 42 days has been shelved. It seems that we should once again be thankful to the House of Lords for being the voice of reason in the halls of government – a consequence of the heriditary nature of the Lords, or more just a benefit of the oversight of a second house? Either way I am glad that Labour has chosen not to pursue it. Probably wise not to distract from their seemingly well received efforts regarding the economy of late.

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3 Responses to 42 days

  1. Charles says:

    It’s a pretty minor victory really. We already have 28 days which is pretty bad compared to just about every country in the world.
    No one really believes that a ‘terrorist’ will be held in prison for 28 days then upon release go and push the big red button that sets of a bomb whilst the police stand around saying ‘if only we’d kept him in for two more weeks’.
    What bugs me the most is the ease with which the tools of totalitarianism are being put on the statute books by a democratic government that has run out of ideas. We soon wont even need a coup to turn this into a fascist state. All the pieces will be in place. Detention without charge, trial without jury, total surveillance, thought crime, etc.

  2. dave says:

    I’m sure if you’re being help of suspicion of “being bad” then it will be cold comfort for you knowing that your stay will *only* be 28 days…

    *only* 28 days of sleep depravation and good cop / bad cop tatics, endless interviews, time alone in a cell etc.

    (Not that I’m saying that the good police and security services of the land would ever use torture techniques to break a person of course)

  3. mike says:

    Absolutely, 28 days is still waaay too long. You make an interesting point about the mechanisms for a fascist state; I found it interesting that those ambiguously written terror laws were so easily bent to freeze the assets of Iceland as a part of the financial crisis. But of course that would never happen with the vaguely written anti-terror laws with anyone British. Oh no wait, they get misused all the time:

    Misuse of terror law ‘undermines police’

    Town halls using anti terror powers to bug residents

    Misuse of anti terror laws lawful (sorry, I mean Police did not misuse anti-terror law)