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Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist Detention Law He Wanted

By TChris, Section War on Terror
Posted on Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 01:55:39 PM EST
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by TChris

British lawmakers, unmoved by scare tactics and reluctant to sacrifice civil liberties, declined to adopt Tony Blair's proposal to authorize police to detain suspected terrorists for 90 days without filing charges.

Instead, lawmakers, including some from Blair's own Labour Party, voted for a maximum detention period of 28 days without charge.

A 28 day detention based on nothing more than suspicion is egregious, but at least it's less draconian than three months behind bars. Sadly, Blair doesn't get it.

He also said he could not understand why lawmakers were putting "the civil liberties of a small number of terrorist suspects" before the public's "fundamental civil liberty" to be protected from terrorists.

In other words, "I'm not taking away your rights, I'm taking away their rights. And they're bad. Really, really bad." That reasoning collapses as soon as innocent people are falsely accused or wrongly suspected. Once the conversation shifts to "the rights of wrongly suspected individuals" rather than "the rights of terrorist suspects," it's easy to understand why "terrorist suspects" must enjoy the same right to be free from unreasonable detention as everyone else. Why is that so hard for Tony Blair (and for many in the U.S.) to understand?

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    Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist Detention Law He Wanted | 11 comments (11 topical)
    Re: Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:53 PM EST
    hitching his wagon to the bush playbook ain't gonna get him very far, especially in the aftermath of the underground bombings. where's the imagination, tony?

    Re: Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist (none / 0) (#2)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:53 PM EST
    We've already seen how they overreact and lie about murdering an innocent 'terrorist subject.'

    Re: Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:56 PM EST
    I continue to be amazed by the relentless attack by the Left on the process of fighting terrorism. If we actualy lived in a world of fascist propaganda, in which the government was fabricating an unseen enemy against whom draconian repressive measures were being instituted, I could sympathize. But how more real does the world-wide jihadist movement have to be? From bombings in nightclubs, subways, office buildings and hotels around the world, to statements by the jihadists themselves of their goal to destroy Western Civilization, what truth is missing here? The behavior of the Left is to continually eat its young; attacking it's own society and civilization, shrieking for the protection of the very killers who seek to destroy; holding up the inevitable exceptions and mistakes committed by the West as proof of the true corruption and evil of their own society, in an orgy of self-immolation reminiscent of the implosion of the Roman empire, destroyed by the barbarian hords. I respectfully invite your comments at www.liberallyspeaking.blogs.com

    Re: Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist (none / 0) (#4)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:56 PM EST
    Mr. Kessler...isn't the Neocon plan to rebuild Iraq in our image just a mirror version of a jihad? Except that the jihadists are not trying to forcefully turn our country into a theocracy.

    Re: Blair Fails to Secure Passage of the Terrorist (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:56 PM EST
    Ernesto, It is an exactly mirrored plan, meaning pefectly reve