The Counter-Terrorism Bill: Some Thoughts

The BBC website published an article summarising the Governments latest Counter-Terrorism Bill.
Three of the points raised caused me particular concern. Below I have included the BBC's summary of these three points along with my comment.

1/ SECRET INQUESTS
A little noticed clause of the bill gives the Home Secretary a new power to ban the public from a coroner's inquest in the interests of national security. Coroners rule on most deaths that come before them - but must call upon a jury if a death has occurred in controversial circumstances, particularly where it involves the police or other agents of the state. An example would be the forthcoming inquest relating to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. If the proposal becomes law, inquests in some controversial circumstances involving what the government says are important issues of national security would be held behind closed doors on public interest grounds.

The main point that stood out to me was: Coroner inquests could be held in secret if the government deems the issues involved are matters of national security.

Now this is clearly going to breed distrust and most modern of phenomenon, the conspiracy theory. Every time an inquest is held behind closed doors, on public interest grounds, surely the suspicion will be that the government or security services had had an involvement with the death. (Just as an aside, how exactly is excluding the public from any decision making process and particularly from the inquest process in the public interest? Another seemingly common tactic of the government is the habit of equating the Labour party/ Governments interests with the public interest.)

Imagine the impression if either the Jean Charles DeMenezes' or Dr David Kelly's inquests were to have been held behind closed doors. Already with some public scrutiny there is more than a whiff of a cover up.

In a time of growing public disaffection with politicians and public bodies this move will surely further foster pubic distrust and could easily be seen as a charter for cover ups and a dangerous step towards enabling a future ever greater state power.

2/ INTERCEPT EVIDENCE
The bill changes some of the rules surrounding the use of the security services' "intercept material" - intelligence gathered in secret operations like phone taps which cannot currently be used as court evidence. A Privy Council committee is debating whether intercept material can be used in prosecutions, with the security services worried that it has the danger of compromising their methods. But the bill would allow the use of intercept material in cases where the authorities want to freeze the assets of a suspected terrorist. Inquests would also be able to turn to intercept evidence - but only if the Home Secretary has already banned the public from attending.

I have a fundamental distrust of intercept evidence by the very fact that one should be able to expect private communications to be just that, private.

The advocacy of the use of such intercept evidence by the current political class seems stunningly hypocritical in light of MPs tenacious refusal to publish full expense accounts on the grounds of privacy and security.

These general misgivings are not specific worry that has been raised by the BBC summary. Rather it was the last sentence of the summary that stood out to me. “Inquests would also be able to turn to intercept evidence - but only if the Home Secretary has already banned the public from attending.”

This provision appears to be just another example policy whose primary result will the breeding of mistrust between the Government and the people. One really feels that we no longer have a government of the people but a government to rule the people from a misguided patriarchal idea that only the ruling classes knows what is best for us.

3/ EVIDENCE GATHERING, DNA AND FINGERPRINTS
Police will be able to remove documents from a property search to decide whether or not they need to be legally seized as part of an investigation. The idea behind this power is to allow detectives to take documents, discs and so on which may need translating into English before they can decide whether or not they constitute possible evidence.The bill allows greater use of DNA samples taken by the police to be used in terrorism investigations, in particular for cross-checking against material held by the security services. The legislation also allows the police to take the fingerprints or DNA of someone subject to a control order. These orders are not criminal offences - they are civil restraints against an individual because of what the security services think that suspect may do in the future.

Again one sentence really worries me. “ control orders.... are civil restraints against an individual because of what the security services think that suspect may do in the future.”

This smacks of another move to criminalise and marginalise people without the recourse to a fair hearing or trial by jury, in the same way that the breech of an ASBO can lead to prison time with no trial.

Giving the state the power to criminalise people only on the word of secret evidence worryingly smacks of a step towards authoritarianism.