h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Surely the nub of this discussion is (or should be?):
Do we agree that Government should be able to erode our freedoms without protest?
If not, then what does it matter who makes the initial protest?
If you don't like the man Davis, who *would* you trust? Anyone?"

I see the argument as being like this?

Is there a serious terrorist threat? Yes
Does it justify the emergency suspension of Habeus Corpus? No.
Does it justify emergency powers? In some respects, yes.
Does it justify holding without charge? For a strictly limited time, yes.
Does it justify indefinite holding without charge? No.
Does it justify holding for 42 days? No
Does it justify holding for 28 days? Undecided.

That's as I see it; the major problem right now is that I've not heard much in the way of debate about why the police need these powers which is what bothers me. What I do know is that the arguments for 42 days were pretty pathetic and occasionally hysterical and even some police have denied they're necessary.

Just to clarify - that story wasn't mine. I just found it interesting enough to quote here. I disputed it myself.

"There is no principle that distinguishes between 28 days and 42."

Sorry, but that's simply rubbish. It's entirely possible for someone to think that 28 days (nearly a month) is a suitable maximum for the police to collect information in order to charge someone and that 42 days breaches that maximum. That is showing principle because it's not simply allowing the government to extend the holding time; it's placing strict limits on it. Even someone who supported 42 days but not (say) 90 days is demonstrating a similar principle. You can argue it's too long, of course (and I've no doubt you will) but you can't possibly argue that it's unprincipled unless you're taking unprincipled to mean anything you disagree with.

>Just to clarify - that story wasn't mine. I just found it interesting enough to quote here. I disputed it myself.

Yes, sorry. I read the post from earlier and noted that. I would have to say that I'd exercise scepticism with regard to that story; if it were true it would have been waved around rather more as an argument by the government rather than "yeah, well what happens if we let someone out after 42 days and they kill someone?" which as far as I can see is about the best they've managed.

"You can see that in this version of this story, the pile of paper was 66,000 foot high and certainly wouldn't have fit in one room in a police station, but it's also a hypothetical version of the story: it says "IF they had printed out..." (my emphasis)."

I'm not sure what you mean here. The "66,000 foot high" thing is a way of describing the amount of data in terms laymen might understand. What's the point of emphasising "if" exactly? Say I take a really huge computer program and to demonstrate how huge it is I describe how thick it would be on paper "if" I printed it out; how would this somehow diminish the actual size of the program because I didn't actually print it out?

"This looks to me like a story that has been making the rounds, changing slightly as it moves from place to place, more because it sounds impressive than because of having any basis in fact."

Again, you're using your own conjecture and then treating it as fact. This isn't a good basis for arguing a position. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with scepticism here but that's not really what you're doing you're simply disbelieving it for the sake of your argument and then carrying on as though you've proved something when you've done nothing of the sort.

The only things that matter here are 1) is the MP in question relating the story accurately, 2) are the police being honest/correct regarding how difficult the data is to decypher and 3) based on what the security services generally know how likely are terrorists to keep incriminating data on their home computers?

Here's another interesting thought:

Let's say we have A Terrorist Suspect. Now, the police decide that they can arrest him and then find evidence to incriminate him later. So they take him into the cells and hold him and begin to try and decypher the stuff on his PC. Let's say they find nothing after 28 days so he's released. In order for this to be a risk we have to assume the following:

1) ATS had the attack planned for around the specific time he was released (if he'd been planning it, say, a week after his arrest then he's already been foiled)

2) The police are going to continue searching for incriminating evidence after his release and if they find any then he can be re-arrested and charged. It's not a case of them having 28 days to get the evidence and then that's it, they're declared completely innocent and it's impossible to re-arrest them; the holding time is simply the maximum time they can be held without charge*.

*This is another crux for me; I've always regarded the best argument for (limited) holding without charge to be the necessity of preventing a suspected terrorist plot rather than a special time limit in which the CPS needs to collect the evidence.

Can anyone clarify exactly why a suspect cannot continue to be questioned after being charged?

"He was involved in a case (when he was in one of the Southern English police forces) where the key to cracking the terrorist plot was on one of the suspect's computer. They printed out every piece of information from that computer including logs of contacts made, and so on. The subsequent pile of paper filled a large room at a police station. Millions of tiny pieces of information."

Actually, there's a huge problem with this story as I see it. If the police are searching through a PC's data for incriminating evidence then they don't print it off and start looking at it by hand, they run computer programs which mine data because it's far far quicker. The only time the police would search through paper is because paper was all they had. In all seriousness I'd inquire into this story further SWL because that sounds pretty suspect.

In fact I retract some of what I said in regard to Dogster's post because I think he may have been using the "if they printed it off" part to argue that they may have used this descriptor to make the data sound rather more than it actually was (rather than just as putting it in layman's terms as I thought). Dogster's still wrong in arguing his case from the point of this definitely being false of course but his case for scepticism looks rather stronger (to me, anyway).

>>Can anyone clarify exactly why a suspect cannot continue to be questioned after being charged?<<

I'd hazard a guess and say The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which introduce tape-redording of interviews amongst other things if I recall after the around the time of the Birmingham 6 .

It's supposed to be, I think (and stand open to being corrected) that if you place charging someone with an offence (for which they can then be prosecuted) *before* you find the evidence with which to charge them it can lead to a search for the evidence to make a suspect guilty rather than the evidence of guilt.

now I realise that what SWL means is finding enough evidence to charge with offence 1 and then proceeding to carry on questioning about offense 2. but the controversy I think stems from this kind of logic.

Srry if that doesn't make much sense I've had a long day and am probably not make a lot of turnip sense.

SWL,

"Just to clarify - that story wasn't mine."

Yep, I understood that, sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

Zagreb,

"That is showing principle because it's not simply allowing the government to extend the holding time; it's placing strict limits on it."

OK, let me reword that. It is a 'principle', but it's not a principle of liberty. And Davis says as much in that article I linked to, he says it's a fine judgement call ("the judgment call is a fine one"). And the thing about a fine judgement call is that different people can make a different one, and that you can easily change your own mind over time. There's no reason why in a few years time Davis might not be supporting 42 days or more. As he says (in that article):

"I have been through the evidence carefully with the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It is clear from the most challenging terrorism investigation Britain has ever faced - Operation Overt, after the Heathrow plot to blow ten transatlantic airliners out of the sky in August 2006 - that 21 days was needed. In that case, the police proved able to lay charges against all the suspects accused of conspiracy to murder - the gravest charge - within 21 days. So, a legitimate case can be made for 21 days, based on police experience in the toughest of cases."

In other words, all the police have to do is stall a bit over an investigation, get the number of days used right up to 28, show this to Davis and he will say that they can have a bit more, because he "can also see that the police need some limited margin for error, because terrorism investigations are unique". If we follow Davis' lead, we will still get to 42 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc., it'll just take a little longer.

"I've always regarded the best argument for (limited) holding without charge to be the necessity of preventing a suspected terrorist plot rather than a special time limit in which the CPS needs to collect the evidence."

Yes, the police are arguing for as long as they can get because it is convenient for them, not because it protects the public. And the government are arguing for it because they think it makes them look tough on terrorism. Neither of those are good reasons.

"I retract some of what I said in regard to Dogster's post"

but I'm still going to comment on a couple of things you said.

"... but terrorists aren't often that competent."

Completely agreed - check out the doofuses who drove into Glasgow airport before setting themselves on fire for example, harming precisely nobody but themselves.

"You don't actually need to be a master criminal to be a good terrorist."

Yeah, but you need to be a little bit competent to be an EFFECTIVE terrorist, and it's only the effective ones we need to really worry about. But let's not you and I get into that argument again...

"The "66,000 foot high" thing is a way of describing the amount of data in terms laymen might understand."

Completely meaningless gibberish. What font size? Margin size? Double sided or single? Differences in these could easily change that number by 4 times either way, so why quote such a precise figure? There's only one reasonable answer to that: it's a rhetorical trick designed to impress us both by the sheer magnitude (imagine a stack of such paper) and by its precision (they must really know what they're doing). And if someone is trying to make you think a certain way by trickery, you shouldn't trust what they say even in those cases where you don't see the trick. Alternatively, if they really believe what they're saying, you shouldn't trust them because they're obviously too thick to critically evaluate anything.

Morning all,

Interesting how the thread about Davis degenerates into stories or fables about piles of paper.........

In my view our Civil Liberties have been steadily eroded by the various actions of this government for years. We are the most watched, most 'controlled' population since East Germany and the Stasi.

This is done by and at the order of a government which regularly collects information on us as individuals and then loses uncrypted CD's with it all on, loses Laptops and leaves security information on trains. Do I trust them , or any of their arguments for greater control? Absolutely not.

Do I think Davis is right, Absolutely yes.

Thank God for one politician who stands up and says THIS IS WRONG.

Novo

This view might be naive but it touches on something Zageb said earlier. Aren't we now at the point were this Government is keeping us scared so as to look tough and effective. Don't worry Tough Gordan will keep you safe from all those terrorists who are bound to blow you and yours up unless you vote for me.

I do not deny that the terrorist threat has increased due to our disasterous invasion of Iran and our involvement in Afghanistan for heaven knows what reason. But, realistically, given the powers the police and security forces possess, the advance of technology, even the use of sniffer dogs, are we in any more danger than we were during the IRA campaign or WW2. I think not.

What has happened to our collective spine. Are we willing to give up hard won civil liberties, and they are easier lost than gained, to pander to the political manoeuverings of a party desparate to cling on to power.

I just do not believe that once the police have arrested a suspect and released them without charge that that is the end of the surveillence. Or is it easier to lock them up for six weeks and ramp up the overtime reading 66,000 ft of paper. This morning the chair of the local Government Association is criticising councils, not the security forces note, for using technology to trap dog walkers for letting their dogs crap in the park.

Maybe we have become so risk averse, so in thrall to Elfin Safety that we would rather live with a Stasi protecting us. All very well until it's your turn to be suspected.

Afternoon WA

The problem nowadays is that few people hold to the rights and liberties so hard won by our forbears. Either they don't care, or are too liberally minded to realise the slippery slope we as a nation are on. Folk in general are too busy 'getting and having' without a thought.

It puzzles me what those alive now, who lost family members in WW2, seem to be unaware of what was being fought to protect, and what that sacrifice was for.

In my view 'society' has become obsessed with the rights of the individual, whilst not caring a fig for the collective rights of the society as a whole.

Looking back there can be little doubt that we are more in danger as a result of government action, than we are protected by it.

Novo

WA: "our disasterous invasion of Iran"

This message posted from the future?

My Bob I hope not. Whoops.

"In my view 'society' has become obsessed with the rights of the individual, whilst not caring a fig for the collective rights of the society as a whole."

This seems a bit of an odd statement, given that the argument here is between individuals' rights not to be locked up without trial, versus the 'greater good' *cough* style goal of collective security.

Hi Bouncy,

Yes it does , doesn't it.. bad English. What I am trying to say is that within the laws passed over the lifetime of the govt. we seem to concentrate on the individual rights (HRA I suppose is involved )rather than considering what is best for us all.

But I accept your point! Brain is still on holiday!

Novo

Having thought more about this I still agree that Davis is acting partly out of principle but is still effectively and asa main cause attempting to pile prolonged pressureon Gordon Brown.

Thiong is that is his job as an opposition MP and in that respect I say well done and fair play. I think he is being hypocritical when you take into account his other stances but who here isnt guilty of some contradictory actions from time to time?

The more I think, the more I wonder if I haven't missed another plank in David Davis's reasoning...

*Takes Deep Breath* What if the plan was afoot to ditch David Cameron, in the near future? possibly through fallout over the whole civil liberties issue? Suddenly, step forward a man now known to all as a politician of principle! David Davis!

Also, if he's suddenly now afraid that we are sleepwalking into the surveillance society, where was he when the vote went through on the nod to compel us to carry ID cards?