Slashdot Mirror
UK Seeks To Hold Terrorism Trial In Secret
hazeii (5702) writes in with news about a secret trial set to take place in England. 'A major terrorism trial is set to be held entirely in secret for the first time in British legal history in an unprecedented departure from the principles of open justice, the court of appeal has heard. The identities of the two defendants charged with serious terror offences are being withheld from the public, and the media are banned from being present in court to report the forthcoming trial against the two men, known only as AB and CD.'
I know you may still be annoyed at the US for breaking away from the Empire. Attempting to lure them back by imitating their practices is however NOT a good idea.
Sincerely,
The rest of the world
for the first time in British legal history in an unprecedented departure from the principles of open justice
Wrong
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
OH MY FG!
Recall when Duncan Campbell, Time Out reporter Crispin Aubrey and former SIGINIT operator John Berry faced witnesses from the UK intelligence community:
Colonel 'B'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The UK court system has reverted to 1977 and the Official Secrets Act 1911 to try and stop the press from reporting again. All this has been tested in the UK press and legal system before. Secret courts did not save the GCHQ from Time Out article "The Eavesdroppers".
If the case is so "major" and is legally sound, let the press in to see the UK justice system at work. The same issues where faced over Ireland, UK gov staff working for the Soviet Union, the first super grass efforts (well connected informers getting reduced time).
How a secret national security trial will legally challenged in open court after a conviction for the tactic of "major terrorism" will be interesting.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Oh give it a rest, will you? Queen were actually quite good, although their lead singer was a rather odd character.
My theory is because currently terrorism still has a bit of 'awe' factor behind it. Treating these cases like any other case would diminish that. The emperor has no clothes, and they are terrified at letting us see what precisely is going on, and what we're giving up civil liberties over.
Terrorism is the vehicle by which the authoritarian elements in society (on both sides of the pond) can use to gain more power and exert control over the populace. Since 9/11 (and I'm sure 7/7) the state has granted itself more power at the expense of personal privacy.
Allowing us to see that in reality it's not an extraordinary case, that plotting to murder people over ideology shouldn't be treated any differently than plotting to murder people indiscriminately -- takes that avenue away from them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a "secret court"
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And the global dictatorship is slowly being pieced together.
And citizens do nothing, amazingly. People with any knowledge of history should be scared shitless - I know I am.
And soon it'll be too late to do anything about it...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You don't know they brought back capital punishment. And if they told you, they'd have to kill you.
Secretly.
My theory is because currently terrorism still has a bit of 'awe' factor behind it. Treating these cases like any other case would diminish that.
If that's the case, then we've gone backwards in the last year. I was incredibly relieved when the CPS decided to charge Lee Rigby's murderers with murder, rather than elevating them to terrorists. This meant that they could be shut down when they started sprouting their insane bullshit - which is what happened during the trial.
When that happened, I thought we'd started to reach a turning point - that terrorism wasn't a simple way of getting us to agree with policies - and I haven't received or heard any of the ridiculous ACPO* "suspect your neighbour" leaflets. We do have an election coming up next year, so maybe that's the reason.
The sane way to deal with this would be to charge them attempted murder, thereby making any political statements irrelevant to the trial.
* The ACPO is tentatively a non-profit organisation, but they do like to lobby and earn cash for selling records at 11667% of cost (£70 for a 60p cost)
What else could you expect from a country, reigned by the QUEEN?
I would expect it all, and I would expect it now.
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It is obvious that we lost some wonderful and brave people on 9/11. We also lost some expensive buildings and the suffering of many people may ruin the lives of many families for life. Sometimes 9/11 is compared to Pearl Harbor. But in all seriousness 9/11 does not compare to Pearl Harbor at all. During that attack we lost ships and sailors and airmen that we would need to save our nation and the pain to our nation included the threat of loss of the nation. The 9/11 attack was not a major attack in that sense. I don't think many people viewed 9/11 as threatening to collapse the entire nation. The idea that for purposes of trial we label 9/11 as a major attack doesn't sit well with me. Yes, we do have a lunatic, cult like, group of incompetents who would like to crush us. But we see them more as idiots than a military threat. I think the term idiots is justified as none of the enemy will improve their place in life from the wretched little fight that these folks have put up. In the end these people live at our leisure. If they really were a "major threat" then we would have gone to the big weapons and simply erased them from the face of the Earth. Covert actions by our government may be far more dangerous than a bunch of religious primitives running about with AK47s.
And, pray tell, how do you know the accused are terrorists? That the government has clear evidence that they are terrorists? Or that there are any credible witnesses at all?
You don't. In truth, you don't know anything at all. Because the whole proceedings are secret and hidden from you.
The government could drag you before the same secret court tomorrow, and none would be wiser. Think about it before you so enthusiastically throw away your rights. Secret trials because of "terrorism" can be used to hide many sins and subvert inconvenient rights.
There will be a jury - though one may be sceptical about how unprejudiced they will be - and the judge will be responsible for ensuring real fair play. The issue is, of course, about trust of these institutions given there is no chance for the gawping public to follow the details of the case. Given the inability of the public to accept jury verdicts when the they are 'sure' that the opposite answer is the right one, one has to doubt that the gawping public offers a great deal. I admit I'm thinking out loud here - I really don't know the right answer, I'm just not 100% sure 'open justice' really doesn't descend into witch hunting on a regular basis.
That is not the problem of a secret trial. The real problem of a secret trial is the presumption of guilt and the defendants must prove their innocence. That presumption of guilt is basically being "LOUDLY" and "PUBLICLY" declared tainting all possible juries. The trial has to be secret because they are guilty and 'er' 'um' because they are guilty. The judge in upholding the secrecy has publicly declared their guilt. So the trial is not longer a trial of guilt or innocence simply a secret declaration of an pre-agreed punishment to be handed out. The whole point of public trials to to force government to publicly prove it's claim because we don't fucking believe them until they do so and every time government fails to prove it's case it is because it is lying.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This might be the most dangerous parallelogram in history!
Seriously. The last 20 years have seen British political life descend into the level of parody. Are we going to find out in another 20 years that the entire political class starting with Tony Blair was infected with some disease that ate their brains?
By the way, it is not the case that England has never had secret trials before. There used to be the Star Chamber, (prior to 1398 to 1641) :
That did not end will, and neither will this.
Of course he doesn't - if he had enough mental capacity to realise that, he wouldn't be on slashdot showing the world what a hate-filled asshat he is, tilting at brown windmills that only exist mainly in the mind of him and his racist ilk.