by Michael Smith (Veshengro)Thirty terror plots the British Home Secretary claims to be active against Britain and that is, why she claims, the police need and demand more powers and the powers to detain suspects for longer.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told a British Sunday tabloid – to call it a newspaper would do injustice to those papers that are indeed newspapers – that the security services were investigating 30 active terror plots as she made the case for giving them extended powers to combat extremists.
Smith said the threat from Islamist fanatics was growing at such a rate that the police would be unable to cope within a year unless they were given new powers to detain suspects for longer.
"We now face a threat level that is severe. It's actually growing," Smith told the News of the World weekly tabloid.
This is, obviously, just the right – and right is the operative word here – tabloid to tell such scare stories to, as it will get the great unwashed to believe that we indeed face such threat and it also will increase racial and ethnic tension. Thanks, Home Secretary, for being that thoughtful.
"There are 22,000 individuals who are being monitored. There are 200 networks and 30 active plots."
Now is that indeed so Home Secretary? Then why don't you tell Parliament and the public more details. Each and every time it is this vague “x-amount of terror plots aimed against the UK” or “x-amount of terror plots stopped”, etc. Never more than that. This is not the truth, is it. What is going on is that we, the people, are being further softened up to have more of our liberties eroded and more of our freedoms taken away by a government of a party that once was the party of the little man. Now all that Labour is is the party of people control.
Smith is facing a backbench rebellion in the governing Labour Party over plans to extend the time terror suspects can be held without charge from the current 28-day limit to 42 days.
If there really is a need for longer detention maybe we need to adopt a European model of the “investigative detention”, known in Germany, for instance, as Untersuchungshaft. Everyone suspected of a crime can be held in prison proper – in Untersuchungshaft – until either evidence is there to charge that person or he or she has to be released, and then with apology.
Tony Blair suffered a damaging defeat in 2005 over plans to extend the limit to 90 days and Gordon Brown, his successor as prime minister and Labour leader, could do without a repeat, though it would be nice if Labour MPs would have enough guts to stand up against the whips and such like and make their voices hear that they will not go along with this, and together with the opposition parties tell their leader and the other control freaks where to stick it.
"The danger has increased over the past two years," Smith said. "Since the beginning of 2007, there have been 57 people convicted on terrorist plots.
"Nearly half of those pleaded guilty – so this is not some figment of the imagination. It is a real risk and a real issue we need to respond to.
Now, who are you trying to kid? Accuse me of conspiracy theories but we only have the word of the government to go on that those people (1) did plead guilty and (2) that they are indeed “terrorists” and not some government setup.
"Because we now understand the scale of what is being plotted, the police have to step in earlier – which means they need more time to put evidence together," she explained.
"If they (the police and security services) say to me it's getting more and more difficult, we need more time to investigate thoroughly, it is my duty to provide them with the tools they need."
Why then, Home Secretary, is it actually the case that whenever the senior officers of police and security services go on the record on this matter that most of them, if not indeed all of them, state that they have enough time and enough powers? Why, Home Secretary, are you asking, officially on their behalf, to give them more?
Let's tell the public the truth: the reason is that the current Labour government, ever since ex-PM Blair led the Labour Party into government a little over a decade back, the Labour government has been working on some hidden agenda to enslave the people of this country and to erode more and more of the freedoms that we have come to take for granted.
As I said, freedoms that we, the subjects of Her Majesty, have come to take for granted. The are not rights, however, as the people always understood them, so it seems. A minister of her department even said that as much as regards to the “Freedom of Speech” issue when she said that against all popular belief it was not a right of the people actually but just a privilege and that it could easily be curtailed or even revoked.
The real truth about all the “anti-terrorism” issue is nothing but trying to get the British people to believe in that and therefore allow themselves to be stripped of all those freedoms which may, or may not, actually be rights granted to the general public. We all know, though apparently the majority of the population don't, that the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights were never meant for the ordinary people, the serfs, the villains, but were just for the nobles, the aristocracy. The majority of British people have come to understand, and as precedences have been set I am sure that those privileges actually, through common law, are now rights of the people, that those are their enshrined rights, enshrined in an unwritten “constitution”.
She added: "There is a massive increase in the way they (terrorists) are using technology and encrypting evidence. It takes time to get the evidence you need to charge somebody."
If the stuff is encrypted the law says that the person assumed to be a felon has to hand over the encryption key. So, if that is what the law states make them do so. If not then, fine, charge them with that as an offence for starters and what we need in addition, is the permission to continue investigation past initial charging, maybe. As I said before, we may need to consider the system of “investigative detention” - for lack of a better English term, so far.
The Home Secretary said she would announce on April 16 a new deal struck with the Pakistani government allowing moderate Islamic clerics to come over to Britain to help imams fight extremism.
She said the vast majority of Britain's Muslims were of Pakistani origin and working with the Pakistani government could help both combat radicalisation and spread "the right messages about what it means to be a British Muslim."
© M Smith (Veshengro), April 2008
