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On control orders and yet more silliness
Sep. 8th, 2009 01:20 pmA man with dual Libyan and British nationality has had his control order revoked. Naturally, people being the sensible and wise creatures they are, responses seem to be split between “ZOMG LOOK AT THESE DEALS WITH GADAFFI!! ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!” (I’m amazed at the amount of influence people assume Libya has over British politics, I really am) “LET’s MAKE HIM PAY FOR THE IRA VICTIMS” (yeah, can we have a WTF on that one please?) and “ZOMG SOFT ON TERRORISM! U TURN! ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG”
While it is hard to match such eloquent and well reasoned criticism, I am going to endeavour to do so.
Let us start with a recent history lesson.
In these days when threat of terrorism can reduce a grown man to wetting himself and agreeing to just about anything no matter how stupid (the forthcoming law “please put your balls in a vice“ is likely to pass unanimously), the British government (along with just about every government in the world) leaped up and down in unholy glee at the chance to introduce as many draconian and dictatorship-worthy proposals as they possibly could. Far too many of these passed and we’re going to be trying to unravel the fallout of these ridiculous and vile laws and policies for years to come.
Control order arose from that time. Having failed to secure the ability to lock random people up indefinitely without a shred of evidence (not that I don’t think they don’t do such, but they’re not allowed to do it LEGALLY) they managed to create “control orders” which basically allow you to put someone under house arrest indefinitely without a shred of evidence (oh, we’re assured there is evidence. We just can’t see it. Because it’s secret. But it’s there. And it’s really good. They promise. Yeah). Complete with extreme restriction of movement, 16 hour curfews, electronic tagging etc etc etc.
The government was happy. Human rights groups, and the poor sods whose lives were ruined by this, were far less so. So legal challenges were started that went all the way to the House of Lords, our highest court other than Europe.
The House of Lords considered this and unanimously gave their wise and thoughtful legal opinion of “what the fuck is this shit? Cut it the fuck out right the hell now you fascist bastards.” Or words to that effect, I’m paraphrasing. They demanded that if you wanted to impose a control order you needed some kind of due process - a trial, in other words. In open court. Without “my evidence is good but you can’t see it - no rights for you!!”
The government practiced the age old tradition of “ignore it and maybe it’ll go away.” It didn’t. This left the government with the choice of revealing their oh-so-important evidence to justify the control orders or have it slapped down in a legal challenge. They chose, instead, to drop the control order altogether.
They’re likely to do the same with all control orders (whether the victim has Libyan dual-citizenship or not *eye roll*) simply because they do not want to reveal their “evidence.” This could be because it’s super super secret, but my money is on it being super super weak - and if it’s revealed that some poor sod has been all-but imprisoned for the last few years on extremely dodgy evidence (like, y’know, torture victims) then all hell will break loose.
So this is why the government is u-turning - they have little choice in the matter.
Now as to those who are thundering about “weak on terrorism”. I can conceive of no terrorist threat more dire, more terrifying, more detrimental to this country than a law that allows indefinite detention and house arrest of anyone in the country on the simple say-so of the government. No evidence, no trial - the government just assures us they have a good reason. That is a menace against our freedoms far greater than any that can be conjured by terrorists, no matter how driven, evil or crazy they are.
I do not trust any government, any party, to have that kind of power and not abuse it. And it’s not like they have a good record on not abusing draconian powers. I do not trust any government that WANTS these powers. Even if rights and principles mean nothing to the right wing lunatics, surely simple common sense would show what a very bad idea these control orders are?
While it is hard to match such eloquent and well reasoned criticism, I am going to endeavour to do so.
Let us start with a recent history lesson.
In these days when threat of terrorism can reduce a grown man to wetting himself and agreeing to just about anything no matter how stupid (the forthcoming law “please put your balls in a vice“ is likely to pass unanimously), the British government (along with just about every government in the world) leaped up and down in unholy glee at the chance to introduce as many draconian and dictatorship-worthy proposals as they possibly could. Far too many of these passed and we’re going to be trying to unravel the fallout of these ridiculous and vile laws and policies for years to come.
Control order arose from that time. Having failed to secure the ability to lock random people up indefinitely without a shred of evidence (not that I don’t think they don’t do such, but they’re not allowed to do it LEGALLY) they managed to create “control orders” which basically allow you to put someone under house arrest indefinitely without a shred of evidence (oh, we’re assured there is evidence. We just can’t see it. Because it’s secret. But it’s there. And it’s really good. They promise. Yeah). Complete with extreme restriction of movement, 16 hour curfews, electronic tagging etc etc etc.
The government was happy. Human rights groups, and the poor sods whose lives were ruined by this, were far less so. So legal challenges were started that went all the way to the House of Lords, our highest court other than Europe.
The House of Lords considered this and unanimously gave their wise and thoughtful legal opinion of “what the fuck is this shit? Cut it the fuck out right the hell now you fascist bastards.” Or words to that effect, I’m paraphrasing. They demanded that if you wanted to impose a control order you needed some kind of due process - a trial, in other words. In open court. Without “my evidence is good but you can’t see it - no rights for you!!”
The government practiced the age old tradition of “ignore it and maybe it’ll go away.” It didn’t. This left the government with the choice of revealing their oh-so-important evidence to justify the control orders or have it slapped down in a legal challenge. They chose, instead, to drop the control order altogether.
They’re likely to do the same with all control orders (whether the victim has Libyan dual-citizenship or not *eye roll*) simply because they do not want to reveal their “evidence.” This could be because it’s super super secret, but my money is on it being super super weak - and if it’s revealed that some poor sod has been all-but imprisoned for the last few years on extremely dodgy evidence (like, y’know, torture victims) then all hell will break loose.
So this is why the government is u-turning - they have little choice in the matter.
Now as to those who are thundering about “weak on terrorism”. I can conceive of no terrorist threat more dire, more terrifying, more detrimental to this country than a law that allows indefinite detention and house arrest of anyone in the country on the simple say-so of the government. No evidence, no trial - the government just assures us they have a good reason. That is a menace against our freedoms far greater than any that can be conjured by terrorists, no matter how driven, evil or crazy they are.
I do not trust any government, any party, to have that kind of power and not abuse it. And it’s not like they have a good record on not abusing draconian powers. I do not trust any government that WANTS these powers. Even if rights and principles mean nothing to the right wing lunatics, surely simple common sense would show what a very bad idea these control orders are?