'Closed' Courts versus freedom from Terrorism

If it is a choice between the possibility of a 'closed' court, or the chance of another 9/11 or 7/7, then I know which side of the argument I stand.

We already know from yesterday's newspapers, that the CIA felt unable to pass to Britain, secret intelligence that a terrorist plot was being hatched in the UK, because of real concerns that the information would be made public.

The Government have said that closed courts (otherwise known as 'secret courts'), will be used in exceptional circumstances, will be few and far between, and will convene only when serious matters of intelligence and security are relevant.

Although Bin Laden may be dead, we have to face the hard truths that there remain fanatical extremist organisations that are determined to destroy our way of life.  It is high-level intelligence gathering that has stopped further attacks.  But, as the old IRA saying goes, they only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky always.  

You can read the Government's reasoning here:

"The problem -
British intelligence agents obviously cannot give evidence in open court about their sources, their techniques and their secret knowledge.  But under current rules, the only way of dealing with information which is too sensitive to disclose is to exclude it from the court through a procedure known as Public Interest Immunity (PII).  The court has no power to hear the evidence at all, even in closed session.  This is a serious problem as it leaves the public with no independent judgment on very serious allegations. 
A relevant recent case of this was that of the Guantanamo Detainees.  The material on which the Government needed to rely to disprove the allegations of mistreatment made by the detainees was highly sensitive intelligence material which couldn’t be given in open court.  Since the court could not hear the evidence in closed session, they had to exclude it entirely from the case.  As a result the Government was forced to stop defending itself, the public got no independent judgment on the very serious allegations, and the Government had to pay out large sums of taxpayers’ money in compensation to the claimants. 
The Government also faces a problem with challenges to executive decisions, for example when it refuses British citizenship or excludes from the UK an individual believed to be involved in activities which threaten national security. These decisions are made on the basis of sensitive intelligence. In judicial reviews of such decisions, again, there is no statutory basis for closed material procedures to be available to the court. This means the Government is unable to fight the case and may have to allow British citizenship to an individual believed to be engaged in terrorism-related activity, for example, because the courts have no secure forum to handle the appeal process.
Our proposals
These examples illustrate the compelling case for changing the current rules so that these sorts of cases can be properly heard in a Closed Material Proceeding (CMP) by a judge, where a judgment can be reached on the basis of all of the facts of the case, instead of a partial account; and no money paid out or decision overturned unless the Government was actually found to be at fault. 
The circumstances in which a CMP would be triggered would be exceptional and rare.  They will not apply at all to criminal proceedings and would only apply in compensation cases, or other civil cases based on highly sensitive intelligence material. 
Alongside these proposals to extend judicial scrutiny over Government actions, we also want to give Parliament greater powers of scrutiny by increasing the status, remit and powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee.  One option in the Green Paper is for the ISC to be made a statutory Committee of Parliament, to allow it to hold public evidence sessions and to give it the power to require information from the security and intelligence agencies.
The overall effect is that the Security Service will be more accountable to Parliament and to the courts than at present and that more sensitive evidence will be considered by courts than is possible now."

by Robert Halfon - Working Hard for Harlow.

Further movement on Google Street View : US Attorney General demands that Google hand over data harvest from Street View

An important development in the United States over the past few days regarding the Google Street View data scandal:

As has been well documented on this blog and elsewhere, in collecting its Street View data, Google harvested millions of personal wi-fi codes, email addresses and passwords.  

Last week, in Connecticut, the Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, has demanded not just that Google delete the data it harvested, but that Google hand over the data to the Attorney General's office.  The purpose is to ensure that the Connecticut Authorities, can properly examine exactly what data Google collected.

As Mr Blumenthal stated:

"We need to verify what confidential information the company surreptitiously and wrongfully collected and stored...We are compelling the company to grant my office access to data to determine whether emails, passwords, web-browsing and other information was improperly intercepted, for the same reasons that other law enforcement agencies abroad have done so".
 
Google have been given until 17 December to hand over the data, but up until now have refused to do so.  The action in the United States, leads to further questions in the UK.  Why is the Information Commissioner only demanding the deletion of the Google data?  The UK Attorney General, and Information Commission, should demand that Google pass over all the UK data it collected from its Street View activites.

P.S.  You can read more HERE.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Some progress made on stopping the Privatised Surveillance Society - despite the efforts of Sir Humphrey

As regular readers will know, today was my Parliamentary debate on the privatised surveillance society: privacy and the internet.

I had two articles on this issue published: in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. You can read them HERE and HERE.

In response to my request for greater checks and balances on the activities of advanced internet companies, the Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey announced a number of measures:

i) ask businesses to sign up to a refreshed and more concise version of the Information Commissioner's 'Code of Conduct'. In essence, this would be the first step towards a proper Internet Bill of Rights for the UK;

ii) bring forward new proposals, so that before anything like Street View happens again, private companies such as Google will have to agree strict and formal ground-rules in advance with the Information Commissioner;

iii) contribute to the new EU privacy directive, with the aim of strengthening privacy laws, and giving more powers to the Information Commissioner to protect ordinary peopleiv) meet with ISPs and internet companies, such as Google and Facebook, to propose a new mediation service.

This would give ordinary people whose privacy has been breached a new means of redress.

Although this does not deal with privacy infringements in the past, such as Street View, it will give us greater protection in the future.

However, I still believe - as I said in my speech - there needs to be an Independent Inquiry to look at this properly. It should decide what rights individuals should have against the activities of internet companies. There must also be an examination as to the role of the Information Commissioner under existing legislation. At present the Information Commission is more Sir Humphrey than a Shark with teeth.

Home Secretary moves to protect civil liberties

You might remember this post about Section 44, and this one, in which I mentioned that I and my car had been stopped and searched under Police Powers of Section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2000).

At the time, I argued that:

"If we believe in liberal democracy, we have to hold out strongly for its values too. We weaken these values at great cost. Of course there is a balance between liberty and security and state intervention. But are we tipping this balance too far in one direction".

Yesterday, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, made an important Statement in the Commons - tipping the balance back in favour of civil liberties. She has suspended the use of Section 44. Crucially, it will mean the end of random stop and search as individuals will only be allowed to be searched if they are under suspicion.

My comments during the Statement, and the Home Secretary's reply are below:

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Last December, I was subject to section 44—[ Interruption. ]Fortunately, I was sent away and everything was fine, but nevertheless I felt that my liberties as a citizen had been infringed on, and a sense of grievance, albeit a small one, against the authorities.[Interruption.] My great problem with what the previous Government did is this: if we believe in liberal democracy, we must also hold out strongly for its values. We weaken those values at great cost. Does the Secretary of State agree?

Mrs May: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. The shadow Police Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), mutters from a sedentary position, “It was random,” but that is the whole point of the European Court judgment. There needs to be a degree of suspicion if the police are to stop and search somebody. On the rest of my hon. Friend’s question, it is important for us to defend our civil liberties. I believe that that is the task of everybody in the House, and I am only sorry that the previous Government chose to infringe those civil liberties in some of their legislative decisions.

Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that, to be safe, we must keep the whole country on side and ensure that no group feels persecuted or victimised, and that today’s announcement is a welcome step in the right direction?

Mrs May: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an extremely valid point. It is in a sense an extension of the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—notably, one difficulty was that parts of the community felt that the way in which the stop-and-search powers were used was disproportionate. The concerns were such that they began to bring into disrepute the police’s ability to keep us safe at the same time as we, as a Parliament, maintained our civil liberties.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Repealing Identity Cards

I almost forgot to tell you that for the past two weeks I have been on what is termed a 'Public Bill Committee' (PBC). A PBC considers Legislation coming through Parliament clause by clause, before it goes back to the Commons for consideration by the whole Chamber.

My PBC was in some ways historic as it was the first one of the new Parliament and the first piece of legislation from the Coalition Government.

As you will have guessed from the title of this blog, this PBC was about the repeal of Identity Cards. I was utterly opposed to ID Cards so I was delighted to be on this Bill.

The first two sessions examined evidence from advocates for and against ID Cards. The rest were to debate the various clauses.

Somewhat astonishingly, the Labour members - who, as a Government had introduced the cards in the first place - argued that the cards would stop terrorism. This was despite the fact that they were voluntary!

I was glad to be on the Committee that repealed ID Cards, especially given the billions of pounds the scheme costed and the infringement on our civil liberties it represented. It is good that repeal was promised in the Conservative Manifesto and the Coalition Government have fulfilled that pledge.

Now that the Committee has finished considering the Bill, it goes back to the Commons for Report Stage and Second Reading.


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The Surveillance Society

After reports that Google allegedly mapped every single wireless Internet connection in Britain, I have tabled a Parliamentary Motion asking the Government to investigate.

There have also been reports that as many as 30 states in the U.S.A. will investigate Google because of this.

The full text of the Parliamentary Motion (328) is here:

"That this House is concerned by reports that Google allegedly mapped every single wireless internet connection in Britain, including many millions in private homes, for commercial purposes; is further concerned that the firm may have failed to disclose that it was building a massive database of wi-fi networks across the UK without people's consent; notes the reports that BT and other companies are using software to trawl social networking websites such as Facebook to identify anyone making negative comments about them; and therefore calls on the Coalition Government to balance innovation on the internet against individuals' right to privacy and the new threat of a surveillance society."

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Stopped and Searched by Section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2000)

Driving down the Embankment mid morning, a few days ago, I looked at some police ahead in a coned area . One Police Officer, a hundred yards away from the cones saw me in my car and spoke to his walkie-talkie. Hey-ho, I thought to myself, what's up?

My answer came quickly, as minutes later I was flagged down by another Policeman who indicated to me to stop my car, which, being a law abiding citizen, I duly did. I did wonder what was going on. There was nothing defective with my car, no offence I had committed.
The Police Officer, incredibly courteous, explained that he had stopped me under Section 44 of the 2000 Prevention of Terrorism Act. This meant that anyone, at any time, even if no offence was being committed could be stopped by the Police. The Act states:

"Under Section 44 officers may search any pedestrian or vehicle for evidence related to terrorism. They do not need to show reasonable cause to stop and search you".

I wondered what evidence they had?

I was asked to get outside the car - although to be fair, they then allowed me to stay in it - whilst my car was thoroughly searched by officers with rubber gloves and licence details checked. I also had to give them a form of identification. Finding nothing of concern , I and my car were cleared of any wrong-doing, I was sent on my way with a friendly cheerio.

Despite the politeness of the Police concerned, I have to say that I felt my liberties as a free citizen were unfairly infringed upon - a sense (albeit a small one) of grievance against the 'authorities'.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act (2000) gives the State huge power against ordinary citizens going about their business, and there is very little redress. I had committed no offence, yet my privacy and my personal property (my car), were seen as public properties of the Government.

The logical extension of this is enormous. Can you imagine what will happen, if Labour gets it way and we are all forced to have ID cards. Our personal freedom as private citizens will be hugely diminished as the State will be able to stop us at will, asking us "for our papers".

Of course, there will be those who say that all this is necessary to fight terrorism. I don't doubt that tough measures are needed. But I would like to know how far random stopping of motorists has really diminished the terrorist threat to the UK. Surely there must be better modes of surveillance?

If we believe in liberal democracy, we have to hold out strongly for its values too. We weaken these values at great cost. Of course there is a balance between liberty and security and state intervention. But are we tipping this balance too far in one direction?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device