It seems the law and order madness which is overwhelming our green and pleasant land knows no boundaries or limits. Previously, Heather has commented on the bare faced idiocy which masked it self as an opinion column in the Times and this is supplemented by the madness spouted by Lord Carlisle – from the now badly named “Liberal Democrat” party.

In a news item titled “Raise detention limit, urges peer” the BBC report :

There is a case for extending the 28-day limit on questioning suspected terrorists, the government’s terror legislation watchdog has said.

Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile of Berriew is due to report to the home secretary on whether the limit should be lengthened.

He told BBC One’s Politics Show he had concluded that in a “small number” of cases, “a 28-day period between arrest and detention may be insufficient”.

Amazing. If there is still anyone out there who thinks we are merely sleepwalking into a police state, please take note. We are jogging and building into a full blown run.

The whole issue of internment detention seems to be locked into an insane circle. It sickens me to my core that I find myself agreeing with the terminally irritating David Cameron on this, but at least his opinion is just weak and pathetic:

But Tory leader David Cameron said “no new evidence” supported an extension.

You see, he is right but he says it like a weasel.

This is not a good policy. The current legislation which allows you to detain an innocent person for 28 days before you even charge them with a crime is shocking. To use the “terrorist” bogeyman is an underhand tactic at best, the threat from terrorism, while real, is insignificant compared to the dangers we face daily. The threat from the lost civil liberty is immense.

It seems that Toutatis has guided this blog over the last few days and our posts are heading in a set direction (rather than the aimlessness which seemed to annoy Al Kafir Akbar). The right wing windbag Lord Rees-Mogg lamented the removal of the requirement of prima facie evidence before some one could be extradited for trial, saying how this was an important right. Over the weekend we saw how a man was detained, despite having an overwhelming amount of correct documentation, as an illegal immigrant (the offence of being black in a public place seems to have returned to haunt us) and today the posts about the madness of stop and search laws. Brazenly risking a slippery slope fallacy (its not a fallacy if the slope is slippery), it strikes me this is all symbolic of the same problem. We are willingly allowing the state to control and intrude into our lives so we can spend our time watching Big Brother (the irony is not missed here…), X Factor, programs were celebrity no-marks cut hair or cook food and so on.

People do not want their inane drivel about the latest celeb to go bonkers to be disturbed by having to worry about burglary, murder or terrorism – that would force them to think about their values and what is important to them. Much easier to just go with the flow…

It is not just the working, common man, who suffers this inability to think but even the “noble” peers who are supposed to have the interests on the nation at their hearts. Going back to Lord Carlisle’s confusing ideas:

Lord Carlile gave Kafeel Ahmed, who died of his injuries after an alleged terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport, as an example of why police might need more time to question a suspect before bringing charges.

The peer said: “Had he survived, it is possible that time for interviewing him would have run out before he regained consciousness.

I will be charitable and assume this made sense, Lord Carlisle is saying that had Kafeel Ahmed not died, but remained in a coma for more than 28 days the police would have been unable to question him. Things like that make sense on the first scan. Let us think about it though…

First off, there is enough evidence to charge him with the crime without questioning him. No need for extra time in detention. It was, broadly, and open and shut case. I can’t imagine he would have had a strong alibi placing him in Majorca at the time. So, why would they need more than 28 days?

Secondly, after 29 (or more) days in a coma what would be the point in questioning him? It could take months or years before he was able (let alone willing) to recount events. Are we saying that (as implied by Lord Carlisle) detention should be indefinite?

The BBC continues with:

He added that cases which involved complex forensic analysis, or where alleged terrorists had carefully encrypted computer files, might also require suspects to be detained beyond the present limit.

He said: “My concern is not about the number of days. The number of days is a political decision, there’s no logical answer as to how many days are ideal as a maximum.

I have two issues with this, I will deal with the one I think is less important first. It worries me that he has no basic problem with indefinite detention. There is no sensible way to say how long a police investigation will take if we look at it from the police point of view, which is why he ends up with no logical maximum. That makes sense and I agree. Where we differ is the conclusion that extends from this. There is no logical maximum from the police point of view, so a reasonable length needs to be stipulated from the innocent, yet accused, person’s point of view. If we, as we should, assume the person is innocent, how long would you be willing to spend in jail before the police said “ok, you were right after all” and let you go? 28 days is, actually, much too long. In the case of the gentleman detained 2 days, he was awarded £7500 compensation. How about a scheme where the police have to compensate the person £3500 per day they are detained if they are later found to be innocent of terrorist related offences? Makes sense to me.

That leads me to the bigger issue I have a problem with. What is special about terrorism? Any one born in England after 1969 has lived their entire life under the threat of terrorism on the mainland. As a child I remember the annual round of bombings in Manchester and London, I remember regular train evacuations and almost daily bomb scares in schools and shopping centres. In the very early days of the “troubles,” detention without trial was tried but all the research agrees that this had the sole effect of turning PIRA/INLA from a small-time, thug, organisation into large, popular groups with masses of local support. Is this really what we want to have happen on the mainland? Internment (sorry, detention without trial) has never proven to be successful at combating terrorism. It makes heroes and martyrs of those arrested, and it turns every person who is wrongly arrested against the state which is supposed to protect them. It can not, ever, be a good thing.

As I see it (this is a blog remember, it is just my opinion), this hinges on the basic thing we seem to have lost. We, as a nation, no longer presume innocence. We imply it is OK for the police to detain people under Prevention of Terrorism laws because, basically, we assume they are actually guilty. When some one is released, it is made to look like a criminal is allowed to get off because the system protected them not the victim. It is very rare that the accused is ever treated as being innocent (the McCanns are an odd exception to this).

Islamic terrorists no longer need to do anything to “destroy western civilisation,” we are quite happy doing it ourselves…