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| Britain |
| Civil orders 'will curb terrorism' |
| 2004-11-22 |
| Apparently you can 'curb' terrorism in the same way you 'curb' vandalism and noisy neighbours: ASBOs for would-be terrorists. Ooh, that's tough. Game's up, bad guys! New civil orders could be used to restrict the activities of people suspected of planning terrorist acts, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said yesterday. He said the proposed orders - similar to current anti-social behaviour orders - could be imposed on individuals who had not committed an offence but were suspected of "acts preparatory to terrorism". Interviewed on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, he said that breach of such orders would be a criminal offence which could result in imprisonment. "We'd be able to use civil orders, like anti-social behaviour orders, to say, 'If you step outside what we've precluded you from doing, if you actually, for instance, use this particular banking network, if you, for instance, use the internet and we can identify you've done it, then we can move you from the civil into the criminal law', and then we can use the normal criminal justice process," he said. Mr Blunkett said such orders could be used against those who were raising funds or acting as "runners" for terrorist organisations. He confirmed that he was considering the introduction of special terrorism trials with judges sitting without a jury. Legislation would not be introduced until there had been a judgment from the House of Lords on the Government's powers to hold foreign terrorist suspects without trial. "It's not my intention to try to push a Bill through this side of the general election, whenever the Prime Minister calls it," he said. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #5 Hell, maybe this is the path that Johna-thon Edwards can take to build up security street cred. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-22 5:33:20 PM |
| #4 Just tattoo "jihadi" on their foreheads and make them wear shirts with bull's-eyes front and back. The rest will take care of itself. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-11-22 2:54:50 PM |
| #3 Number of people involved in gangs: high Number of people involved in terrorism: very low Potential danger to the public of one gang member ignoring a court order: low Potential danger to the public of one terrorist ignoring a court order: very high Few gang members are actively engaged in murderous activity, whereas all Islamist terrorist group members are. If it suspected that an individual is involved in terrorism in any way, and it isn't worthwhile placing them under surveillance, the first action should be to lock them up. Someone involved in financing terrorism's crime is analogous to that of someone who has hired a hitman. |
| Posted by: Glum T Roll 2004-11-22 10:35:41 AM |
| #2 Anonymoose, where is this precedent? I'd like to hear examples before I sign on to the concept, since you make it rather appealing-sounding. |
| Posted by: Crereper Thomomble7323 2004-11-22 10:28:27 AM |
| #1 This sounds similar to the USs use of "injuctions" against gangs. You enjoin the individuals who make up the support network in such a way that almost anything they do to maintain the network, no matter how seemingly benign, becomes a violation of the court order. In the US, individuals can be barred from neighborhoods, from using cell phones, from associating with named others, from wearing certain kinds of clothes, etc. Such injunctions can be very large. And, since violation is treated as "contempt of court", there is no jury requirement--the trial is immediate, and before the judge who issued the order in the first place--making it hard as hell to get out of. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-22 10:23:03 AM |