I don’t normally like “me too” blogging, but proposals to impose control orders on potential terrorists are so contemptible that I should add my puny voice to those of Tim Worstall, Simon Jenkins, Civitas, Samizdata, Blimpish and Laban Tall.
Here’s my observations.
1. Don’t think these proposals will only apply to a handful of people. Laban Tall draws attention to this chilling claim, in the Scotsman:
Speaking after the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced new laws to control the movements of terrorist suspects, Mr Clarke’s adviser, Stephen McCabe, told The Scotsman he saw this extending to other groups suspected of using violence to further their ends. The Labour MP said: "We can envisage this applying to animal rights extremists and the far-Right, for example.”
For example?
2. Charles Clarke says potential terrorists can’t always be prosecuted because “it isn't always possible to bring charges given the need to protect highly sensitive sources and techniques.” But what exactly is the danger here? MI5 agents can give evidence in court in secret. And surely, in gathering evidence in the first place they are putting themselves in danger. Or am I missing something? Could it be that health and safety culture is infecting the security services?
3. Mr Clarke says: There are serious people and serious organizations trying to destroy our soceity. We are in a state of emergency." What? Against the BNP or animal rights activists? And just how great is the threat from Al Qaeda? Is it really greater than that posed during the cold war or by the IRA during the 1970s, neither of which justified suspending habeas corpus? I'll grant that Al Qaeda want to kill thousands of us. But this does not amount to destroying our society. Al Qaeda cannot do that. Only we can.
4. Could it be that what the government is truly scared of here isn’t just the threat of a terrorist outrage, but the chaos that surrounds it? Part of New Labour’s managerialist ideology is a terror of disorder, of not being in control. Could it be this that makes it so more sensitive to the danger of Islamic terrorists than previous governments were to IRA terrorists or the Soviet Union?
5. Even if we accept that there’s a need to intern people, why should it be the Home Secretary that has these powers? Why not judges?
6. Charles Clarke asks us to trust the government to use these powers sensitively and sparingly. But if we could trust each other, we wouldn’t need government in the first place. And surely, there is no proposition for which there is more historical evidence than that we shouldn’t trust governments. And should we really believe that people who think this is intelligent campaigning are to be trusted to make sensitive and delicate decisions about the balance between "national security" and civil liberties?
Yes. There is a small group of vicious men who are trying to destroy our most valued western traditions – it’s called the government.
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