Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 8, 2008 6:56:19 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Important Figures in UK Politics Stand Up Against Britain's
"Big Brotherization"
'Big Brother' gov't costing UK £20 billion
07 Jul 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2259877/%27Big-Brotherandrsquo-government-costs-us-andpound20billion.html
The cost of Britain’s "surveillance society" measures is now running
at £20 billion [about $40 billion US], a new report reveals today.
The amount is equivalent to £800 per household and includes £19
billion [$38 billion US] for the planned ID card system and £500
million for CCTV cameras.
The report by the TaxPayers’ Alliance was highlighted by David
Davis, the former shadow home secretary, who stands in a by-election
this week on the issue of civil liberties. Mr Davis resigned as an
MP after the opposition failed to defeat Government plans to hold
terrorism suspects for 42 days.
Mr Davis said: “This is yet further damning evidence of Big
Brother’s expensive tastes. ID cards, CCTV, the DNA database and
other measures are a huge waste of taxpayers’ money on policies that
undermine freedom and are utterly ineffective in fighting crime or
terrorism.
“At the same time, the Government has failed to deal robustly with
extremists and terrorists, like Abu Hamza. Yet again, this
government penalise the innocent, and is a soft touch for the guilty.”
Abu Hamza’s extradition was requested in 2004 by the United States,
where he is wanted for terrorism offences.
But despite being convicted of a number of charges in Britain two
years ago, he has still not been deported. The cost to taxpayers is
estimated at £2.75 million in welfare payments, council housing, NHS
bills, trials and legal appeals.
Mr Davis also cited Abu Qatada, known as Osama bin Laden’s “right
hand man in Europe”, who has not been deported to Jordan to face
terrorism charges because of concern about his human rights. The
cost of this is close to £1.5 million.
Yesterday, Mr Davis went head-to-head with a senior member of the
Government for the first time since he shocked Westminster by
standing down as an MP.
He told Tony McNulty, the Home Office Minister, on Sky News, that
the Government had “run away” from a fight with him in the
Haltemprice and Howden seat. He added that 42-day detention would
“not save a single life”.
He said: “It will undermine some of the fundamental principles of
our justice, it will give the terrorists a propaganda coup and it
may actually make the threat of terrorism worse.”
But Mr McNulty replied that the “reserve power” had been carefully
drawn up. He said: “It is not a universal and permanent extension.
Most people get that … David doesn’t for his own reasons.”
Ministers have also denied that the ID card system will cost as much
as the TaxPayers’ Alliance report says. In addition, they have
insisted that CCTV has the backing of the public and challenged
opponents to say which cameras they would “pull down” in the name of
civil liberties.
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Former MI5 chief savages 42-day plan
08 Jul 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2269755/Eliza-Manningham-Buller%2C-former-MI5-chief%2C-savages-42-day-plan.html
Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, today dealt a huge
blow to Gordon Brown’s plans to extend the detention of terrorist
suspects to 42 days.
Making her first speech as a member of the House of Lords, the
former security chief said the Government’s plans were wrong in
principle and in practice. She spoke as the Government’s
controversial Counter-Terrorism Bill, narrowly approved by the
Commons last month, reached the House of Lords. The Bill would
extend the period of time the police can hold terror suspects
without charge to six weeks, up from the current limit of 28 days.
Ministers and some police chiefs say the new powers are needed to
keep Britain safe from terrorist attack.
But Baroness Manningham-Buller, who retired last year as director-
general of the Security Service after a 35-year career in British
intelligence, forcefully rejected that argument.
“In deciding what I believe on these matters, I have weighed up the
balance between the right to life, the most import civil liberty,
the fact that there is no such thing as complete security and the
importance of our hard won civil liberties,” she said. "And
therefore on a matter of principle, I cannot support the 42-days pre-
charge detention in this bill."
She went on to say that measures in the bill giving MPs oversight of
long detention cases would be likely to prejudice any trial of a
suspect that followed.
She said: "I don't see on a practical basis, as well as a principled
one, that these proposals are in any way workable."
David Davis, the former Tory shadow home secretary who resigned to
campaign on civil liberties issues, seized on Baroness Mannnigham-
Buller's comments.
He said: "This new law would actually harm the counter-terrorism
effort rather than assisting it, and this demonstrates only too
clearly that it is an action motivated by politics rather than the
nation's security."
Lady Manningham-Buller is the latest in a string of high-profile
figures from the security and legal establishment to come out
against the 42-day plan, following former lord chancellor Lord
Falconer, former attorney general Lord Goldsmith and Director of
Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald.
But senior police chiefs including Sir Ian Blair, the Met
Commissioner, and Peter Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism
at Scotland Yard, have said the new powers are needed.
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