Karmasmurf88
06/13/08, 08:31 AM
Wow...
Just as the American Supreme Court finally gets its act together and defends habaeus corpus (see here for a British perspective: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/guantanamo.georgebush), the House of Commons over here decide (by a miniscule majority of 9!) to extend terrorist detention without charge to 42-days. Desperate to claw back some political credibility after weeks of crappy opinion poll ratings, Gordon Brown threw all his political muscle into winning the vote (but note, not the debate), including back-room deals and concession packages. Call me old-fashioned, but thats not the way an open democracy should work. And yes I understand that we need protecting from terrorist attacks, but surely the terrorists want to deny us our civil rights and liberties- why is the government doing thier 'work' for them? The word 'terrorism' is notoriously sketchy and can be easily misconstrued- striking miners and protestors could poitentially be included within a liberal interpretation of its definition- and the Bill itself allows for the 42-day rule to be envoked in order to hold subjects- even if the terrorist attack occured somewhere else in the world! This means that the police over here could (potentially) hold someone without charge for 42 days who is merely related to or loosely associated with a terrorist on the other side of the world. Sure, safeguards have been introduced, and concessions made- but just because there are safeguards does not give justification to the law itself!
Lol, rather large rant there. What does everyone else think?
Just as the American Supreme Court finally gets its act together and defends habaeus corpus (see here for a British perspective: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/guantanamo.georgebush), the House of Commons over here decide (by a miniscule majority of 9!) to extend terrorist detention without charge to 42-days. Desperate to claw back some political credibility after weeks of crappy opinion poll ratings, Gordon Brown threw all his political muscle into winning the vote (but note, not the debate), including back-room deals and concession packages. Call me old-fashioned, but thats not the way an open democracy should work. And yes I understand that we need protecting from terrorist attacks, but surely the terrorists want to deny us our civil rights and liberties- why is the government doing thier 'work' for them? The word 'terrorism' is notoriously sketchy and can be easily misconstrued- striking miners and protestors could poitentially be included within a liberal interpretation of its definition- and the Bill itself allows for the 42-day rule to be envoked in order to hold subjects- even if the terrorist attack occured somewhere else in the world! This means that the police over here could (potentially) hold someone without charge for 42 days who is merely related to or loosely associated with a terrorist on the other side of the world. Sure, safeguards have been introduced, and concessions made- but just because there are safeguards does not give justification to the law itself!
Lol, rather large rant there. What does everyone else think?