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UK Can Now Hold People Without Charge For 42 Days

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-terrorists-have-won dept.

the_leander writes "Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. The chances of you getting that money however are slim to none, lets not forget, this is the same country that charges prisoners who have been falsely accused for bed and boarding costs."

32 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. The Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is that 42 in base 13?

    1. Re:The Question by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nobody makes jokes in base 13...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:The Question by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Funny

      Va Fbivrg Ehffvn, onfr 13 rapelcgf wbxrf.

    3. Re:The Question by phagstrom · · Score: 5, Informative

      For the one or two outsiders who reads this, it's ROT-13 and reads:

      In Soviet Russia, base 13 encrypts jokes.

      Oh wait...am I now in violation with the DMCA?

    4. Re:The Question by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh wait...am I now in violation with the DMCA?
      Depends on where you live. If you happen to live in the US, well, then I can only say, I'm happy to have met you before your relocation to a certain bay.
  2. Jumping the gun a bit.... by Cambo67 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ....as the Bill in question has only been passed by the House of Commons. It's got to go before the House of Lords yet. Many commentators think it is not going to do too well there.

    1. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by mpe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ....as the Bill in question has only been passed by the House of Commons. It's got to go before the House of Lords yet. Many commentators think it is not going to do too well there.

      However there are still 315 people who really should be held for 28 days without charge. Are there enough truely patriotic police to do this though.

    2. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's got to go before the House of Lords yet

      Ah yes, our fine tradition of having decisions by the people we elect overturned by a bunch of unelected lords.

      Nope, nothing wrong with our system at all. Those unelected lords are there precisely to stop bad (but popular) laws from being passed.
    3. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I prefer to think of it as our fine tradition of having legislation sanity checked by a bunch of people who aren't primarily motivated by re-election and "making their place in history".

    4. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by jeevesbond · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not to disagree with you, just wanted to point out that this law is not popular in Britain.

      IIRC the Lords can bounce this back (with good reason) to the Commons, by the time this goes back and forth a couple of times the media will be in a good frenzy about it. The fact that Gordon Brown had to do a deal with another political party to get this through is not going down well:

      But there was uproar in the Commons as the result of the key vote on 42 days was announced after five hours of tense debate - with Tory and Lib Dem MPs shouting "You've been bought" at the DUP benches.

      They claim the DUP was offered a string of inducements - including extra financial help for Northern Ireland - to guarantee its support.

      I for one am hoping this gets pushed back by the Lords.

      --- Back to the article ---

      this is the same country that charges prisoners who have been falsely accused for bed and boarding costs.

      Got a decent reference? Seriously, that link is to the 'Daily Mail', the sensationalism in that paper is renowned. Even its founder (Lord Northcliffe) said its winning formula is to give readers: 'a daily hate'. This is the same paper that pays foreign people to break the law, so they can report about how East Europeans are 'destroying Britain'.

      --
      I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    5. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      Charles I - executed 1649.
      Oliver Cromwell - died in 1658, his regime was overthrown in 1660.
      George III - ruled with a majority in the elected Parliament.

      Seems the system worked during all those cases.

    6. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by call-me-kenneth · · Score: 5, Insightful
      As good a point as any to suggest to any UK citizens about to post a rant about the new police state, destruction of civil libs, etc, that you get off your fat arses and join Liberty? A polite letter to your MP, believe it or not, does have an effect on them - especially Labour MPs who voted for the bill with majorities of 15% or less.

      Those two things will take you about 20 minutes, and when you've done em you can come back here and rant along with me, with a new-found sense of entitlement and smug self-satisfaction at your personal involvement in the issue. Hey it works for me.

      So, yeah, Labour MPs who voted for this disgraceful attack on fundamental rights we've had since Runnymede ought to be utterly ashamed of themselves; they've revealed that they are unprincipled bunch of spineless tossers, and I think there's a line about weasel's and god's clean air from Blackadder that springs to mind, too. Fuck Brown, and fuck this government, too. I've even crossed a personal rubicon whereby I now think a Tory govt would be preferable, something I never thought I'd say.

    7. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by JosKarith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem is that won't stop it.

      Remember the Fox Hunting Ban? The House of Lords blocked the ban, and Tony B.Liar pushed it through anyway on the crest of a popular mandate - it was an election promise, it was a class issue, the lords had only blocked it cos' they were all evil nasty fox hunters etc...

      But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We handed him a precedent to sweep aside the objections of the only body that could act as a brake on his ambitions. And paid the price years later when he took us into an illegal war - a price that is still being paid. What makes you think that Tony's understudy is going to hesitate for a moment to use the same power to force his own pet projects through?

      --
      'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
    8. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by vidarh · · Score: 5, Informative
      The difference was that the hunting ban didn't see anywhere near the same kind of opposition in the Commons. In this case Gordon Brown had to rely on the DUP, and the only other non-Labour MP to vote for it was Ann Widdecombe, while 36 Labour MP's also voted against it.

      If there's enough of an uproar about it, it won't take much before some of those voting for it starts worrying about their re-election and vote against it if it's sent back to the Commons.

    9. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by alan.briolat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wow - I think that is the only time I've ever seen somebody try to trump tabloid "evidence" with a blog post...

      Not saying that I disagree with the point that the Daily Mail is junk =)

      --
      I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
    10. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny
      So essentially you're saying it is like Microsoft Windows. That should go down well here.

      Well, let's rewrite the analogy in more /. terms. The Americans - and many other countries - have monolithic constitutions. Ours is modular - a mass of different reform acts and statutes and precedents, on top of the Monarch E2 microconstitution. Britain's running on Hurd, thank you very much.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    11. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by jimicus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      However there are still 315 people who really should be held for 28 days without charge. Are there enough truely patriotic police to do this though. You jest, but I don't think your average MP understands the seriousness of the matter. S/he gets wrongly held for 28 days, then at the end of it they go back to whatever it was they were doing and there's no harm done.

      You or I get held for 28 days - potentially without communication with the outside world, let's not forget that - and when you get out your employer will have given up on you and sought a replacement. Your personnel record will say "Disappeared off the face of the earth one day" - which I'm sure would look just great if an alternate employer contacted them for a reference.

      And if you're asked why you left your job - well, I'd love to see the look on the interviewer's face when you say "I was detained under the Terrorism Act and not allowed to contact anyone, so my employer had to find someone else to do the job" but I don't think it's an answer that would do you any favours.

      Compensation? What compensation? They'll base compensation on the 28 (or 42) days you were detained, not the repercussions. If the repercussions include "having to sell the house because you can no longer afford it because you lost a £40,000 per year job and had to take a £25,000 per year job", that's your problem.
    12. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by Dark$ide · · Score: 5, Informative

      The bill can't become law before the House of Lords votes on it. It's then sent back to the Commons to change the stuff that the Lords don't like. Only after the bill has passed both houses does it then go to Her Majesty The Queen for Royal Ascent. If the Lords keep rejecting it then the Commons can invoke the Parliament Act to force it through.

      --

      Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.

    13. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Interesting
      "have an unelected monarch who is a militaristic nutter pissing around in America largely out of spite and who then descends into mental illness but you can't get rid of him because he claims to be appointed by a god"

      We did get rid of him. Shut him quietly away and his son took over. Said son did bugger all because he was a lazy fat drunken gluttonous lecherous oxygen thief, so Parliament ran the country. During this period our Empire in Canada was attacked by the United States; in response we invaded and burned Washington to the ground. We were also at war with Napoleon Bonaparte, whose total defeat ushered in a century of British global hegemony. Not bad going, for a country being run while the king's in the loony bin and the regent's in bed with a hangover.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    14. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by P+Fayers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      69% of the UK population in favour of 42 days detention without charge - if you believe the results of a YouGov Poll (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2107480/42-day-terror-detention-British-public-overwhelmingly-in-favour-,-poll-shows.html)

      Which brings us back to the point that one of the benefits of the House of Lords is that it's populated by people who don't listen to public opinion.

    15. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by Jellybob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What do your lords use for guidance over there?

      From what I've seen of their reactions to things in the past, common sense. And it's a damn good thing as well, since the commons seems to have lost most of theirs in the battle to get themselves reelected.
    16. Re:Jumping the gun a bit.... by speculatrix · · Score: 5, Informative

      the fox hunting bill was a massive smokescreen for the Civil Contingencies Bill, now an Act, which took away some fundamental rights. Even now, many people have not heard of it despite it giving the government the right to do anything they damn well please merely by asserting there is some kind of emergency!

  3. As opposed to the US ... by NoMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... where it's currently 6+ years and counting.

    Oh wait, I forgot - they're not being held by the police, and they're not actually in America. My bad.

    --
    What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  4. Great... by zebslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't need terrorists anymore, we are doing their job for them. Thanks Gordon.

  5. Re:At least... by NoMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No fair - the ones sent to Australia were already charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced; and at least they were still in the Commonwealth & subject to British/colonial law & legal process.

    Only barbarians would ship their alleged criminals to some overseas outpost then claim they had no recourse to the laws of the country...

    --
    What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  6. With two words, I destroy your argument by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Guantanamo bay"

    or how about: "Abu Ghraib"

    The US certainly has no moral high ground. They rape, torture, and sexually humiliate *suspected* terrorists, in a foreign land, out of sight of the people because they're so ashamed of what they do in the people's name.

    If (I'm not, but *if*) I was a suspected terrorist, I'd take 42 days maximum in a standard UK jail, held under standard UK law by standard UK law-enforcement over indefinite detainment in a foreign military prison, with no legal status, and denied the right of habeus corpus. I'd prefer to be jailed in the UK rather than tortured and sexually abused by the US military.

    Just saying. I continue to hope that the American people abhor and remove this stain on their countries honour, but it seems to be getting worse, not better.

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:With two words, I destroy your argument by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I guess my point in all this was people like to point at Gitmo and so forth and be like "OMG US IS TEH SUXXOR" but the fact remainds if their government was confronted with a similar situation it's highly likely they would ot he same. Or worse. Then your point was poorly made. Very poorly made.

      The UK suffered at the hands of terrorists (these terrorists mainly funded by US organisations like Noraid, actually) for several decades. Nothing like Gitmo was ever set up - people committing acts of terrorism were in fact denied the status of terrorists and charged as common murderers, then locked up in civilian jails if found guilty under the normal due process of law.

      Now the UK was hardly blameless in the actions that started the terrorism, but it tried to maintain a diplomatic solution (even engaging with the political wing of the terrorist organisations) that eventually more or less worked. Throughout "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, even though the military were called in to keep order, all suspected terrorists were processed through a civilian court.

      There is no possible defence of the existence of Guantanamo Bay. None. Yet it remains the policy of the US government. The contrast between the UK and the US approach to terrorism is actually quite startling.

      Simon.
      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
  7. Re:At least... by invader_vim · · Score: 5, Funny

    So you're saying that in 200 years, the descendants of the Guantanamo Bay inmates are going to thrash the Americans at all their sports?

  8. Re:Tories vs Labor by thermian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Tories opposed it because they need contentious issues to argue over, not because they wouldn't do it themselves.

    Note that they also argue against the governments attempts to have private health bosses take over failing hospitals, even though it was the Tories who started the privatisation of publicly owned services in the first place.

    Personally I don't think there's much difference between the Labour Party and the Conservatives any more. That's no big deal, in spite of what whichever one isn't in power says about the others failings, they end up doing almost exactly the same things.

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
  9. It's a long, long time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Lords are only allowed to send Bills back to the Commons twice. They have no power other than to force debate and thought. It's not part of the "unwritten constitution", it's the Parliament Acts of 1911(Liberal) and 1949(Labour). The British constitution is mostly written, it's just written all over the place.

    I would ask the grandparent how much he would like to be imprisoned for a month and ten days, only to be dumped back on the streets having no idea of why, no legal right to be told why and a scant chance of limited compensation. Can you imagine the effect on your family, your job, your reputation? This allows the state to destroy individuals with only limited checks and balances.

    There isn't a day now where I don't thank god for the House of Lords injecting, unbelievably, some sanity into Parliament.

  10. Re:At least... by Xophmeister · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only barbarians would ship their alleged criminals to some overseas outpost then claim they had no recourse to the laws of the country... You give barbarians a bad name.
    --

    Christopher Harrison

  11. Re:it's without CHARGE, not without trial by actiondan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP Act)?

    It was supposed to be used against terrorists and organised crime but is now finding use against minor criminals such as litter droppers.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7369543.stm

    In one memorable case, a council invoked it to spy on a family to see if they lived close enough to the school they wanted their child to attend.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm

    I have no confidence that this new power to hold people without charge will be restricted to circumstances where it is absolutely required. The actual text of the act is remarkably vague on when and how it should be applied.