Can't believe it took them three years to figure this out.

[Grumpmeister]

Detention without charge, the most surveillance anywhere in the western world, the constant eroding of civil liberties and rights, hell I could have told you this in five minutes. The UK and US have been actively undermining international law in their single minded fight against 'terrorism'.

The UK and the US have "actively undermined" international law in the way they fight terrorism, a report by judges and lawyers has said.

The International Commission of Jurists carried out a three-year global study.

Gains made in the previous century to a shared consensus on human rights have been immensely damaged over the last seven years, it concluded.

The report will make uncomfortable reading for many in governments on both sides of the Atlantic.

After a painstaking study carried out over three years in several countries, the panel of eminent lawyers and judges have concluded that the framework of international law that existed before the 9/11 attacks was robust and effective.

Lack of safeguards

But now, it says, it is being actively undermined by many states and that liberal democracies like the US and the UK have led that undermining.

Many of the measures used to fight terrorism, says the report, are illegal and counter-productive.

The panellists express concern at the lack of adequate safeguards in the use of control orders, the weakness of diplomatic assurances in relation to deportations and at what the report calls "excessive detention without charge".

[Grumpmeister]

It gets better, former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimmington is now wading into the argument accusing the government of abusing the fear of terrorism to destroy people's rights and liberties. I can just imagine the wince from the Smith household when it was announced on the news that she used the term 'police state'. 

A former head of MI5 has accused the government of exploiting the fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties.

Dame Stella Rimington, 73, said people in Britain felt as if they were living "under a police state" because of the fear being spread by ministers.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and published in the Daily Telegraph, she also attacks the approach taken by the United States.

"The US has gone too far with Guantanamo and the tortures," she said.

"MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect - there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification."

She said the British security services were "no angels," but they did not kill people.

Dame Stella, who stood down as the director general of the security service in 1996, has previously been critical of the government's policies, including its attempts to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days and the controversial plan to introduce ID cards.   It is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years

"It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism - that we live in fear and under a police state," she said.

Dame Stella's comments come as a study is published by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) that accuses the US and the UK of undermining the framework of international law.

'Take stock'

Former Irish president Mary Robinson, the president of the ICJ said: "Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years.

"Human rights and international humanitarian law provide a strong and flexible framework to address terrorist threats."

The Conservatives said the government's push to extend the detention time limit for terror suspects was the kind of measure condemned by the report.

Shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said: "The Conservative Party is committed to ensuring that security measures are proportionate and adhere to the rule of law."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said: "This is damning testament to just how much liberty has been ineffectually sacrificed in the 'war on terror'."   We have very broad police powers which sweep the innocent up with the guilty

Isabella Sankey, director of policy at human rights campaign group Liberty, said she was "enormously heartened" by what Dame Stella had said.

"Over the last seven years, we've seen a number of measures passed, some of which affect very few of us in a horrible and terrible way, whether that's house arrest under control orders or rendition and torture in foreign states," she said.

"We've also seen many, many measures that affect all of us just a little bit and, most of all, which seriously impact our rights to privacy.

"We have very broad police powers which sweep the innocent up with the guilty."

Ms Sankey said Britain was "the oldest, unbroken democracy on Earth," defined by individual rights which must be defended.

"These are rights, liberties and values that have seen us through two World Wars, seen us through the Troubles in Northern Ireland and will see us through the strife that we have now," she added.

Dame Stella became the first female head of MI5 in 1992.

[Snoopy]

Dame Stella is, of course, absolutely right ~ but haven't we all been saying that for years?

[Grumpmeister]

Yes but the government has found it easy to ignore the fears of the common person unless they can be exploited. A respected member of the intelligence community and former head of MI5 on the other hand isnt quite so easy to dismiss.

[Snoopy]

Just wait ~ one of the younger members of Government will be out of his/her pram shortly to tell us that Dame Stella was OK in her day but is now too old to know what she is saying and is in fact a bit Gaga.

[Grumpmeister]

More than likely but the damage has been done. Call Me Dave will latch on to the police state quote and run with it keeping it in the public awareness. He would be stupid not to.

[Barman]

More than likely but the damage has been done. Call Me Dave will latch on to the police state quote and run with it keeping it in the public awareness. He would be stupid not to.

Call me Dave is an idiot! 

I don't think we can rely on him to tie his own she laces - let alone hold the government to account...

Why oh why they don't just keep up the mantra "Labour have been in power for eleven years and it is all their fault" at every opportunity I simply can't understand...

David, watch my lips... announce something substantial then blame everything on labour... then keep doing it.... 

[Snoopy]

I keep telling myself that Call Me Dave is just giving the Labour Party enough rope so that they will eventually hang themselves ~ I don't really believe this but it gives me hope in my darkest moments.


Look at his latest policy idea ~ An elected mayor in each of the twelve major cities in the UK.

Well that's be an Imam in most townhalls then 

[Barman]

I keep telling myself that Call Me Dave is just giving the Labour Party enough rope so that they will eventually hang themselves ~ I don't really believe this but it gives me hope in my darkest moments.


Look at his latest policy idea ~ An elected mayor in each of the twelve major cities in the UK.

Well that's be an Imam in most townhalls then 

Indeed... where does he get them from - a Christmas Cracker or something? 

Do one thing David for fucks sake - make an announcement on the economy and blame everything on labour cos they've been there eleven years...

When people are bored with that make an announcement on the police state and blame everything on labour cos they've been there eleven years...

When people are bored with that make an announcement on the piss poor education results and blame everything on labour cos they've been there eleven years...

Etc.