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Internment without charge being touted by ACPO and Gordon Brown

Another attempt to sneak back to some sort of internment without charge, has been reported by The Observer newspaper today.

"Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police"

Do the political pundits who are giving their opinions on this dreadful matter recall the detailed background arguments over the "90 days detention without charge" political campaign prior to the passage of the controversial Terrorism Act 2006 ?


The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in meetings between Brown and senior police officers. Whitehall sources said the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the UK.

This is the usual Sunday newspaper connivance with anonymous Whitehall sources is spinning this story just like they did under the Blair regime - so much for Gordon Brown's promises to be more open and spin free than Tony Blair's NuLabour cabal, which he, of course, was a key member of.

Ken Jones, the president of Acpo, told The Observer that in some cases there was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 'as long as it takes'. He said such hardline measures were the only way to counter the complex, global nature of terrorist cells planning further attacks in Britain and that civil liberty arguments were untenable in light of the evolving terror threat.

Jones, a former chair of Acpo's counter-terrorism committee, said: 'We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes. We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit. We understand people will be concerned and nervous, but we need to create a system with sufficient judicial checks and balances which holds people, but no longer than a day [more than] necessary.

'We need to go there [unlimited detention] and I think that politicians of all parties and the public have great faith in the judiciary to make sure that's used in the most proportionate way possible.'

We have no faith in the judiciary, when, as is usual in recent Labour legislation, they have virtually no leeway for independent judgement within the wording of the statute law. The judiciary would not be judging the merits of any case for extended detention without charge on any actual evidence, so they would just be another bureaucratic rubber stamp.

There may or may not be public sympathy for real terrorists who are treated in this way, but there should be no tolerance whatsoever, when innocent people are caught up in the nightmarish Kafkaesque bureaucracy
.
How can you ever "clear your name" from false accusations or mistakes, if you are held for days , weeks , months or years, without any actual evidence being brought against you, which you can challenge in court ?


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