Government Discussion Document Ahead of Proposed Counter Terror Bill 2007
Spy Blog has set up this sub-Blog, to encourage people to analyse and comment on the Labour Government's latest plans for even more repressive "Must Pretend To Be Seen To Be Doing Something" legislation.
John Reid, who, thankfully, is in his last month as Home Secretary, made an Oral Statement to Parliament on Thursday 8th June 2007:
I start from the position that it is desirable to reach a consensus on national security wherever possible, so I want to ensure that there is extensive consultation before any legislation is introduced. Today's announcement is only the start of that process. For good reasons, previous counter-terrorism legislation has been fast-tracked through Parliament. We have an opportunity here to do things differently. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Minister for Security, Counter Terrorism and Police and I have already met members of the Opposition.Today, following these meetings we will outline the main areas and direction of measures that we wish to pursue. We will then conduct further discussions and consultation, after which we will produce further detail, including a full Bill content paper, which will inform further discussion. It has been said to me, and I accept, that the devil is often in the detail of proposals, so we will then share draft clauses before introduction and seek the scrutiny not only of Opposition parties but of the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights on key areas of the legislation.
I have also today asked Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, to undertake a report on what is proposed. In addition to discussions that we will have in Parliament,with colleagues on my own Back Benches and in the Opposition, I am also committing the Government to discussing fully with those organisations that have an interest in the proposed legislation—the police, representatives of the judiciary, civil liberties groups and communities.
Note that the Labour Government does not seem to be keen to actually involve any ordinary members of the public in any of these "consultations".
The "community" consultations, with Islamic religious and community leaders in the aftermath of the July 2005 London bomb murders. was worse than useless, they are all even more disillusioned with the Government now than they were before.
I hope that the House will accept that this is a more comprehensively consensual approach than we have ever taken before. It is the best way to approach establishing national security measures. To begin the consultation, I have today produced a short document; copies will be placed in the Vote Office and it will be available on the Home Office website.
The text of this document (the original .pdf file is available from the Home Office website here) is reproduced according to each section, in the blog postings below.
Spy Blog will comment on some or all of these sections, and we encourage others to do so as well.
If you fear direct contact with the Government, as well you might, you do not have to sign your real name to these comments, and you can take the appropriate steps to hide your true IP address data from our logfiles (and those of the the people monitoring this website)
We will summarise the comments in our response to the Home Office.
If we wait until the publication of the Draft Bill etc, it will be too late to influence the new Home Secretary, and his or her civil servants and political advisers.