@ Anonymous Coward (Nov 7th)
<<we listen to all you self appointed civil-rights watchdogs point fingers and blame as soon as you find out someone they had in custody kills people in a terrorist act.>>
If there wasn't enough evidence to charge them, they should be out. Torture (and holding incommunicado for close questioning for months at a time *is* torture) only ever gets the answers the torturer wants. Longer periods of detention probably will make the charge figures look better, but only because innocent people will confess to whatever it is the torturers want to hear.
<<Just because you're not important enough to be told every little bit of the case file, not trustworthy enough to be allowed to see what evidence or methods of collection were used to bring these folks in>>
But I am - I am a citizen of the UK, and there should be no secrets from me. I have an interest in knowing what is being done in my name, and why, when it affects other people's rights, and my ability to assess what my government is doing, unless a proper war is declared.
<<doesn't mean that there isn't a damn good reason to lock these people away.>>
In that case, charge them and put them before a court. The court has powers to protect all sorts of information, so sensitive information can be kept away from the media.
<<Lawyers have made sure that no state secrets will survive any trial. Anything that agents have worked hard to uncover, rings of racist jihadist b@stards setting up their mafia-like networks slowly being exposed by undercover operators, will be blown wide and publicly open, so further investigation becomes impossible.>>
But that is the problem - I only have the word of the police and the security agencies that these people exist. There is nothing that I can reliably call independent evidence (and I am a university researcher - I know how to read reports) that there is any risk to me or anyone else that is bigger or more likely than it was before the Twin Towers (which wasn't even in the UK!!). I lived through the Irish situation, where there was a known and significant risk to the public, with far more information available than there is now. However, on the topic of Ireland, the disgraceful practice of internment seems to be a hint at where some people would like us to be heading.
<<Common sense would tell you that there's more to any story than your drive-by media reports. but there, as here, the "free" media is only free from it's government interference. Nothing says they can't and aren't bought. A prince who owns a set of 747 jets wouldn't have trouble influencing an editor or owning an entire outlet would they?>>
Common sense means nothing to me - it is common sense that the Earth is flat. Give me evidence, and give me a *proportionate* response. Panicking about the influence of 747-owning princes is not helpful.
<<People need to pull their heads out. If you can be so suicidally paranoid about your own government and businesses, why can't you try to apply that same attitude towards all other nations' government interests and businesses?>>
I don't understand what you mean. I *am* paranoid about other countries and their companies, especially those from the USA!
<<Or is it easier to follow the herd and follow the well paid and trendy naysayers who pave the way for their boss's visions at the expense of yours?>>
No-one is considering my point of view exactly *because* they are following their boss's. Freedom comes before policy, and people before government - who in power is saying that?
Fear is a useful thing in the short term. When you start defending otherwise indefensible policies because you are afraid, you are no longer thinking for yourself. In order to analyse a situation, you need reliable data and an open debate. We are not getting that, and fear, as demonstrated in your post, is the driver of all policy. In that case, I trust no-one who is telling me anything.