There's a "non-severe" end of severe?
The only threat to this country is having an incompetent fascist like her near the top.
Jacqui Smith resurrects 42-days after Lords rejection
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has introduced a one-line bill* which could be rushed through Parliament against any individual the police wished to hold for 42 days. The House of Lords last night threw out her attempt to extend detention for suspected terrorists to 42 days. The clause was removed from the Counter Terrorism Bill …
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT Dan
One-line bill?
Better correct that, it's a one-page bill. A one-line bill would be "All your civil liberties are belong to us."
The government can rush the one-page bill through if they've declared a national emergency. I can't remember off-hand exactly under what conditions they have can declare national emergency but I do remember they've been broadened under previous crime and terrorism bills and I believe parliamentary majority is not required.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT Richard
stupid woman
her original plea gets rejected by the House of Lords so she comes up with another one to do exactly the same thing!
Bloody stupid b'tch, she is not bigger or more important than the Lords. she should crawl back under her taxpayers-paid-for-stone and bio-degrade like the scum she is
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT dervheid
"They don't like it up 'em!"
When I was young (and foolish) I used to believe that The Lords was an undemocratic gaggle of hereditary inbreeds and a waste of space in the democratic process.
How wrong can you be.
Gawd bless 'em.
You almost feel sorry for Jaqui, scrabbling around for the tattered shreds of the '42 days' and posturing like some spoiled brat.
Showing her true colours there!
Sorry? NOT!!
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT Hollerith
Does she not listen?
Those opposing the bill, including many NuLabour cronies in the Lords, had very good arguments as to why it was a bad idea. She can't just kep parroting 'we need it the risk is severe' and expect, in the face of the evidence, that we'll finally be bludgeoned into submission. We have assessed the risks, and feel the risk to our commonwealth of liberties is greater than this season's crop of misguided loonies who think (in the face of the evidence) that killing civilians is a way to change the minds of governments.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT David Grierson
Pah!
So they have a 1 liner bill which can be pushed through parliament saying "we want to be able to hold Mustaffa al Terrorist because he's a very naughty boy."
That'll bode well for any intended prosecution won't it?
When a case can get thrown out for undue press coverage d'you reckon that publishing in Hansard might impact upon any future proceedings?
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 09:53 GMT Julian I-Do-Stuff
Parliament Act
What we need is a new Parliament Act; whilst 1911 may have been OK, reducing the Lords' ability to block legislation to two parliamentary sessions over one year is makes it just too easy to force stupid things through (even if they have no logic, are not even plausibly necessary AND are opposed by most of the people one might think would be in favour - in this case police, ex-attorney generals of the same party, SIS, etc.)
[It should probably include a "reverse-Salisbury" provision too: Parliament should not be able to force through a bill explicitly contrary to manifesto commitments (which was it - the university fees? - that they promised would not be introduced... then did)]
...apologies, that's far too sensible, what I meant to say of course was: twats/What Ho! the Lords.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 10:08 GMT david wilson
We're at the severe end of severe?
And yet it *still* seems like the bulk of the terrorist plots are carried out by people who can't make things explode, or who are penetrated by the security services before they can actually do anything.
I can't wait until we're at the mild end of severe.
The only obvious argument for longer pre-charge detention is in the hope that someone who kept quiet for a month will somehow become talkative in the next fortnight, or to keep someone locked up who you're confident is guilty until sufficient evidence turns up to charge them.
Once someone has been in custody even for a few days, any co-conspirators still at liberty will likely have moved, changed identities, and altered their plans, unless they're extraordinarily thick.
If the bulk of the threat is from some kind of bomb or another, since there's no shortage of potential targets (basically anywhere with people gathered together), changing plans in the face of a potential security breach must be fairly easy.
If it's a matter of getting enough evidence to charge someone with something serious enough to warrant their continued detention, if you're desperate to keep them in custody because you're sure something is going on, you can always charge them with some kind of conspiracy and worry about the case falling apart months or years later at trial.
At the moment, it doesn't seem that there's much fallout if some grand terrorist plot trial turns into a bit of a damp squib. Unless such events become too frequent, I don't expect that situation will change much, and if there was some real emergency, most people would likely be even less concerned about the people who eventually have charges dropped or are found not guilty. It's hard to see what future circumstances would warrant an instant law change just to keep some dangerous person inside.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 10:56 GMT Al
A cunning plan....
The 42 day bill will be held until something bad happens, and then brought in during the predictable 'foaming at the mouth' jingoism afterwards. Cue the press howling that any attempt to oppose the new terror laws being 'an insult to the victims', blah blah blah, and Ms Smith wins.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 10:57 GMT Nomen Publicus
Jacqui Smith - silly name
If Jacqui Smith _really_ believes what she says about 42 days why has she given up? Sure, it would be a lot of hard work to force through this terrible bill, but governments have done so in the past.
Jacqui Smith knows the terrible flaw that lurks at the heart of the bill. What happens on day 43? Someone who is _so_ suspect that a judge and parliament will agree to extended detention is released and will immediately appear in every headline proclaiming their innocence.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 10:57 GMT Pete
Time is money
The time limit on detentions supposedly reflects that amount of time the fuzz need to investigate a situation. This is a function of the number of man-hours applied to the particular case, not the number of times the sun sets. If the police consider something to be important enough, they should assign more people to work on it. If there aren't enough people available - or enough money to pay their overtime, that's not the suspect's fault and they should not be held merely for that reason.
Instead of extending the length of time anyone can be held, a government that seriously thinks there's a need to expend more effort on some cases should be required to apply that effort in a shorter time, rather than to detain innocent people if it's not convenient to "process" them quicker. Let's see how seriously they take these so-called threats by having them assign more money to these investigations, not by imprisoning people on no charge until they get round to doing some detective work.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 10:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
We need to repeal 'control orders'
If someone is a terrorists there should be evidence and a trial, we can't simply let Jacqui Smith pull a control order out of her ass and start restricting people's rights just on her word alone.
Enough already, we need to get back to the basics.
No punishment without Judicial process, freedom of speech, innocent until proven guilty, probably cause before search, the right to protest,etc.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 11:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Stuart Harrison.
You say "I'm guessing the next move is to start dismantling the upper house so they can push through any bill they damn well like."
I see your comment and raise you The Parliament Act. GodEmperor Tony Bliar shoved this little gem through and it has already been used to override the Lords overturning of ill-conceived NuLabour legislation in order that "the government" (whoever is in, so not just NuLabour - wonder if the GodEmperor thought of that when he forced it through?) can decide to ignore the Lords if the old duffers dare to disagree.
And aint it funny how Bliar was going to get rid of the House of Lords until they let him have The Parliament Act... hmm. Anyone would think he just expected them to roll over and vote his way. Oh well, guess the old gits (dictionary definition = "awkward or obtuse person") are good for something.
Mines the one in that nice dayglo orange reserved for "threats to national security" (*) everywhere.
.
.
(*) That is, anyone who dares to question The Party^H^H^H oops so sorry, the Government...
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 11:35 GMT Charlie Clark
@Mr Hat-and-Coat
Govtard - like it.
@ The rest of you. We're all a bit pinko liberal today, aren't we? Can't we get some nice redneck flames on how good Guantamo Bay has been at obtaining evidence and preventing terrorism?
It should go back to 48 hours. It's a bit sick that we're celebrating the fact that detention without trial hasn't been extended to 42 days but it's still four, fucking long weeks. It's the job of the secret services to take out the really dangerous and naughty people even if the break the law doing so and not the responsibility of those civilians in uniform aka the police.
Oh, and can we have a reminder that MI5 officially reckons that the IRA is currently still a bigger problem than any putative jihadist, despite repeated attempts to fasttrack discontented Asians into radical fodder.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 11:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
If...
... they can abuse anti-terror legislation to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks and to snoop on people who try to get their kids into schools outside the borough, couldn't they also use it to slap 42 days' trial-free detention on, for example, cannabis-smoking politicians who try to change the law on cannabis?
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 11:35 GMT scott
42 days later
Danny Boyle could have a field day with this one.
Our hero - Jacqui - is the sole survivor in Westminster. Picture the scene. She's walking across Westminster bridge, the tatters of her bill blowing in the wind. She's shaking her head woefully. "Oh, if only they'd listened to me"
From over the horizon - she sees a mass of dark bodies, although they seem eerily to move as one. Everyone except her have turned into flesh eating, bearded terrrists! Aaaargh - run for your life, Jacqui! Run for your life!!!
She tries taking refuge in the Commons. No good, they've breeched the security by taking jobs as cleaners. Up to the Lords she goes. The House is filled with slow moving pseudo corpses, drooling with their hands outstretched.
"Phew, they haven't got up here. The old dears are still the same as ever".
Alas, Jacqui fails to notice that in any great zombie movie, the safest place is...in the pub.
Jaqcui gets ripped apart by the fogeys. Fade out, The End
Roll credits.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 11:35 GMT Adrian Jooste
Is she a left over from the bush administration or what?
This woman is something else. Just like the reclassification of cannibis, she has completely ignored any information that contradicts her fascist view and goes ahead and does what she wants anyway. Oh the boys over the pond must envy G. Brown so. Palin is there best attempt and she seems like a political genius in comparison.
This pompous bigot needs to be relocated to a position where she can put her personality to better use and still serve the public in some constructive way, like being a night bus driver...
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Severe end of severe?
Fewer people have been or injured in the UK by would-be terrorist <strike>twats<.strike> plots since 2005 for the past several years than by dogs. And frankly, I'm not that terrified of dogs, which strike me as the mild end of mild threats. Though our own version of the pitbull in lipstick is starting to get me down.
What hyperbole would she drag up for a a semi-pro organisation like the IRA, or the PLO, or smart and enthusiastic amateurs like the Red Army Faction, which even taken all together with their many chums and a variety of statal and para-statal backing seem not to have brought down more than minor inconvenience on us in the 1970s and 80s, while we preserved most of our liberties.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Jacqui's wacky world view.
Number of days you can be locked up without charge.
Canada # 1
USA ## 2
Russia ##### 5
France ###### 6
Ireland ####### 7
Turkey ####### 7.5
UK now ############################ 28
Smith ########################################## 42
Data courtesy of www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/
This woman obviously knows something that is so scary that she is not willing to share it with the rest of the world. This is totally off the scale type scariness, hard to live with, impossible to share. Does she sleep at night; is she sane? Have our spooks been told.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
alternative words
Has this woman never played scrabble?
Severe end of severe... would be er... simply severe.
No wonder they need 42 days to fabricate, sorry collect evidence when the home secretary can't even use a fairly simple english word appropriately in a sentence.
"The need is particularly severe" would have done.
I think Jaqui is at the Stupid end of Stupid!
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:31 GMT Anomalous Cowherd
@ Putin would be proud of her
No he wouldn't - he'd be horrified. The maximum detention without trial in Russia is 5 days.
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/pdfs/pre-charge-detention-comparative-law-study.pdf
And can I second "They don't like it up em": more power to our unelected overlords! Long may they flaunt our democratically elected betters with their unfashionable "long term" view.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:31 GMT Graham Marsden
@Dan
> The government can rush the one-page bill through if they've declared a national emergency. I can't remember off-hand exactly under what conditions they have can declare national emergency
For more information (at the risk of a Godwin!) see the "Enabling Legislation" which allowed Hitler to seize power from the Reichstag in 1933...
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:40 GMT Sarah Bee
Re: what is it with...
Sadly it's because women *have* to be tougher than everyone else to get to the top, because it's still more difficult for women. Which means the only women who get to the top at present are the most terrifyingly ambitious and hardened ones. The wrong ones, basically.
I still can't quite explain Palin, though. Holy good gravy.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 12:45 GMT Richard
Ignore David Davis
I wouldn't pay any attention to David Davis. If you spend some time doing some real digging, you'll find that his high profile supporters are all people who stand to gain from the passing of said bill.
David Davis' stunt is a cunning reverse-psychology vote grabber. It runs like this:
Davis: I shall not be part of this liberty stripping system any longer!
Public: Good! What will you do?
Davis: I shall resign, and force a by election! The people shall show by their vote if they want this bill out or not!
Public: Absolutely! We'll vote for you!
*** Election passes ***
Davis: Now that I'm in, and the conservatives run the country, this 42-day thing isn't such a bad idea....
Public: But... you said....
Davis: Stuff that. You were gullible. Carry on... *** parliament act stamp ***
Shami Chakrabarti is another faux libertarian. One day she'll be all "this takes away human rights!" and the next day you'll find out she was at the top table of a Fabian Society meeting that decided they should push to ban people using the word "chav". Can't have it both ways Shami.
-- Richard
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 13:10 GMT Mark
Sadly it's because women *have* to be tougher
I deny that is the case.
It's *easier* for women to get ahead when they act tougher.
Because men can't socially act against that like they can men.
This doesn't mean they HAVE to be tougher than men to get ahead.
For those who cannot get the idea that women ARE humans just like them, acting tough doesn't help.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 13:51 GMT Brian
Neues Arbeit - Kraft Durch Dummheit
Well, here we go again - the stupid woman with the shoulder pads (they're for mounting the Schutzstaffel flashes when it's safe to reveal the truth) feels it's safe to ignore the will of the people and common sense with this disgusting little bill.
Herr Braun must be proud of her.
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Tuesday 14th October 2008 13:51 GMT Scott
Serve end of serve
Like old Jackies the stupid end of stupid, let it go woman you can't have everything your own way sometimes you have to miss Eastenders so we can watch european football.
sorry thats my thought can't watch what she wants at home so at work she'll have it her own way, even if that means locking people up for a month and a half without telling 'em why? yer free country my arse.
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