George Galloway interviews Afua Hirsch on control orders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD1CF_rGjTw

In his report overseeing the counter-terrorism review, the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, said he supported most of the recommendations.

However, he was critical of the replacement measures for control orders.

"It may be appropriate and proportionate to mandate overnight stays at a notified address," he said.

"But a tag is of limited use here, in the absence of curfew, and neither tags nor curfews are commonly used in criminal cases where residence requirements are in place: generally the police rely on spot visits and intelligence to enforce the requirement.

"In the circumstances I would regard the use of curfews and tags in this context to be disproportionate, unnecessary and objectionable. They would serve no useful purpose."

Lord Macdonald told the BBC ahead of the announcement that the UK had over-reacted to the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks.

He said the country had sacrificed "traditional ideals" of freedom in the push against terrorism, meaning British institutions became a "symbol of hypocrisy" around the world.

The Home Office launched the review in July 2010, saying it would be rapid and would be aimed at reconciling counter-terrorism powers with civil liberties.

However, the coalition has struggled to reach a deal on the future of control orders, which have been used on a small number of suspects who the government says cannot be prosecuted or, where they are foreign nationals, deported.

Security chiefs say the power is an essential tool in cases where there is intelligence that someone is involved in extremism but has not yet committed a crime, such as someone associating with known plotters.

Responding to the home secretary's statement in the Commons, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the review had been" chaotic".

She said it had been "delayed, confused, riven by leaks and political horse-trading".

"It is a review with some serious gaps, which raises serious questions about security and resources and the public and the people who work to keep us safe deserve better than this."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said the government had "bottled it".

"Spin and semantics aside, control orders are retained and rebranded, if in a slightly lower-fat form," she said.

"As before, the innocent may be punished without a fair hearing and the guilty will escape the full force of criminal law."

A followup to the above video but this time, George Galloway interviews Afua Hirsch of The Guardian on this very subject.

Originally broadcasted on 28th January 2011.

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[Plato86]

Don't you brits have a right to habeas corpus, the right to challenge your detention by the police? WTF is going on in the U.K today?

[AnglesM888]

A Nation without GUN'S is a Slave Nation, and i am sorry to see that some so called men of the people are so against people defending them selfs against EVIL...!!?

[Tzimnewman3]

My fear is that in many years this law could be used against the very people it was meant to protect.