This entry was posted on
Thursday, January 27th, 2005 at
9:02 am and is filed
under The War on Stupid, Tony ‘King Blair.

I don’t care if it’s in Belmarsh, my own home, or a sodding budgie cage… detention without trial is detention without trial. And I’m simply delighted to wake up in a country that will now allow the same treatment of its own citizens. In the interests of fairness, you understand…

BBC – Clarke set for terror plan fight: Charles Clarke’s “control orders” mean UK and foreign citizens suspected of terrorist involvement could be subject to house arrest, curfews or tagging. The Law Society has already dubbed the plans an “abuse of power”.

Guardian – Wider still and wider: First the good news. The home secretary signalled yesterday he does not want a continuing battle with the law lords – or with the opposition parties – over where the line between security and liberty should be drawn. Instead, Charles Clarke accepted the law lords’ ruling in December that current anti-terrorist law, under which suspect foreign nationals are being held in indefinite detention without charge or trial, was unlawful… The bad news is serious. Where the previous act was confined to foreign nationals with links to groups involved with the al-Qaida terrorist network, the new order will be wider in scope (animal rights extremists, suspected Irish terrorists and others will be covered) and applicable to all British subjects. More seriously still, the orders will be imposed by a politician, the home secretary, on security service evidence that will be both untested and unknown to arrested suspects or their lawyers.

Did you catch that last bit? You don’t even need to be linked to the organisation we’re technically/maybe at ‘war’ with.

There are many links here; I suggest you follow them:
Europhobia – It’s for your own good, you know

UPDATE – Boris Johnson: “Just what the hell does Charles Clarke think he is doing, arrogating the power – TO HIMSELF – to detain people indefinitely without trial?”

UPDATE – BBC – Anti-terror measures: Your reaction