![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feb. 6th, 2004
I've been meaning to post this one for a few days now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3450201.stm
It's scary politics time again.
"We have to be able to protect ourselves by intervening with individuals who have taken actions that put our lives at risk, disrupt our justice and our democratic processes," says Blunkett.
What he actually means is a bit different, though.
Secret terrorism trials with carefully selected judges and evidence that's kept secret from the defence.
Lowering the level of evidence needed for a guilty verdict in those trials- innocent until "proven guilty" will no longer apply. For these trials it'll be enough that "the balance of probabilities" suggests that they're guilty - combine that with the secret evidence and you've got a ver Orwellian mix.
Oh, and throw in this gem, too: "We have to have prevention under a new category which is to intervene before the act is committed, rather than do so by due process after the act is committed when it's too late."
So... you could theoretically be convicted on evidence you didn't see (and therefore couldn't challenge), which convinced a government-chosen judge that you were more than 50% likely to do something bad at some point.
This won't become all law, of course. But that's not the point - this is what Blunkett always does, making scarily draconian (and sometimes idiotic) announcements, then grudgingly taking a few steps backwards.
The thing is, none of the measures in this batch should end up in law - but by starting with the whole set of them, he'll be able to discard a few and then push through the remainder are a reasonable compromise.
We're being governed by a very scary bunch of reactionary fuckwits. I know there's a tendency to view them as Bush-lite, but I'm not sure they're actually any better than their American counterparts - and at least Bush has a written constitution to keep some check on his crazier ideas.
Gah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3450201.stm
It's scary politics time again.
"We have to be able to protect ourselves by intervening with individuals who have taken actions that put our lives at risk, disrupt our justice and our democratic processes," says Blunkett.
What he actually means is a bit different, though.
Secret terrorism trials with carefully selected judges and evidence that's kept secret from the defence.
Lowering the level of evidence needed for a guilty verdict in those trials- innocent until "proven guilty" will no longer apply. For these trials it'll be enough that "the balance of probabilities" suggests that they're guilty - combine that with the secret evidence and you've got a ver Orwellian mix.
Oh, and throw in this gem, too: "We have to have prevention under a new category which is to intervene before the act is committed, rather than do so by due process after the act is committed when it's too late."
So... you could theoretically be convicted on evidence you didn't see (and therefore couldn't challenge), which convinced a government-chosen judge that you were more than 50% likely to do something bad at some point.
This won't become all law, of course. But that's not the point - this is what Blunkett always does, making scarily draconian (and sometimes idiotic) announcements, then grudgingly taking a few steps backwards.
The thing is, none of the measures in this batch should end up in law - but by starting with the whole set of them, he'll be able to discard a few and then push through the remainder are a reasonable compromise.
We're being governed by a very scary bunch of reactionary fuckwits. I know there's a tendency to view them as Bush-lite, but I'm not sure they're actually any better than their American counterparts - and at least Bush has a written constitution to keep some check on his crazier ideas.
Gah.
