Civil liberties? Why should I care?

Inside: how the erosion of our rights and freedoms effects you and what you can do about it.
P2: The snooping state P3: How Human Rights help all of us Back: tell Gordon Brown to stop
Unlock Democracy
Incorporating Charter88

Published and promoted by James Graham on behalf of Unlock Democracy, both at 6 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF. Printed by Mail News & Media, Blundells Corner, Beverley Road, Hull, HU3 1XS.

Why this by-election matters

David Davis has forced the byelection in Haltemprice and Howden on Thursday 10th July to encourage a national debate on how our civil liberties are being eroded. It may be that you are not sure that this really applies to you. It does. You should be outraged that laws meant to tackle terrorism and organised crime are now being used to snoop on innocent individuals to see if they leave dog dirt in the street. You should be disgusted that at the same time as insisting taxpayers should pay billions of pounds to build a massive national identity database, government officials are losing our personal data and other sensitive information in the post and on trains. You should be insulted that the government plans to compromise civil liberties which have been won after centuries of struggle. You should be appalled at the way in which the decision was taken. In the face of cross-party opposition including many of Labours own backbenchers, the government only got this legislation through the House of Commons by the slimmest of margins. Now they could bypass opposition in the House of Lords completely through use of a special law called the Parliament Act. The rule of law is being replaced by the arbitrary power of public officials. No doubt the government has our best intentions at heart, but this is not making us any more secure; quite the opposite. No country that prides itself on being a democracy should be able to abolish fundamental human rights without cross-party consensus. No democracy can be considered safe whose freedoms are not encoded in a basic constitution. This by-election is your opportunity to tell Gordon Brown that enough is enough. If you dont feel you can support David Davis, vote for one of the other candidates committed to civil liberties. But whatever you do, make sure you vote on Thursday 10th July.

Local authorities use antiterror laws to spy on public

Would you want to be followed, have your phone and internet records gone through and your emails read by a local government inspector simply to check if you live in the right school catchment area?

hen the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) became law in 2001, the government presented it as a tool for investigating organised crime and terrorism. These laws allow over 600 public bodies to intercept email, post and CCTV footage without requiring a court order. Seven years on however, these laws are being used by local authorities to investigate a whole swathe of petty crime such as dog fouling, littering and misuse of a disabled parking badge. One local authority even used them to spy on a couple suspected of living outside their childrens schools catchment area.

Things have now got so serious that the head of the Local Government Association, the body which represents local authorities at a national level, issued a statement reminding authorities to only use these powers when necessary and proportionate to prevent or detect a criminal offence to avoid alienating the public. This is the big danger of passing sweeping laws with few checks and balances. Very quickly they get used for other things as well. The government should review these laws, making sure there are proper safeguards and strong punishments for abuse.

National Identity Database will make us more vulnerable

Human fallibility is a bigger threat than Big Brother. No computer system is immune from incompetence, vindictiveness or corruption.

ruthless dictator like Robert Mugabe is unlikely to take control of the UK any time soon. The real danger of the governments plans for a database state is that it will be vulnerable to human error. Putting incorrect information on the database could lead to individuals being investigated for no reason or being denied benefits. There have been numerous incidents over the years where police and civil servants are believed to have illegally sold personal data to journalists and private detectives. Last November, the child benefit records of 25 million people were lost in the post by the Revenue and Customs Office. The official inquiry into the debacle described the governments handling of

taxpayers personal data as woefully inadequate. It declared the incident to be symptomatic of a wider problem. Just last month, secret files on terrorism were left on a train by a civil servant. Minister Hazel Blears was found to have broken data security rules by leaving sensitive data on a computer in her constituency office which was subsequently stolen. By making databases bigger and giving more people access to them, more problems like this are bound to happen. The National Identity Card scheme is costing us billions and is already massively overbudget. The government is placing too much faith in technology: it cant protect us from human error, only amplify it.

About Us

Unlock Democracy (incorporating Charter88) campaigns for democracy, rights and freedoms. Incorporating Charter88 We campaign for a written constitution to limit the powers of the state. We are non-aligned and do not support any political party or candidate. For more information about us, see our website (www. unlockdemocracy.org.uk). Phone: 020 7278 4443.

Unlock Democracy

More information at:

www.no2id.net

Human Rights in the REAL world

T

Human Rights a short history

The Human Rights Act builds on over a thousand years of English legal reforms, moving us away from despotic power to a system of legal checks and balances. Circa 880-890AD: King Alfred the Great writes the Doom Book (or Law Book), blending Anglo-Saxon traditions with Mosaic and Christian Law. This becomes the basis of English Common Law. 1100: King Henry I issues a written proclamation known as the Charter of Liberties. It bound the king to certain laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles. 1215: English barons force King John to sign the Magna Carta, restoring many of the limits to the kings power which Henry I had imposed a century before. 1628: Parliament presents the Petition of Right to King Charles I, accusing him of breaking many of the laws set out in the Magna Carta including habeas corpus (the principle in law that states that individuals must not be detained for an extended period of time without first being charged in a court of law). 1689: Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights which forces the monarch to recognise the established rights of the English people. 1948: Following the Second World War, the United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, who headed the committee that drew up the Declaration, called it the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. 1950: The Council of Europe establishes the European Convention of Human Rights. The council was originally proposed by Winston Churchill while the Convention itself was largely drawn up by English lawyers. A signatory to the Convention, the UK was bound to it, but until it was integrated into UK law all cases had to be heard in Strasbourg. 1998: The UK adopts the Human Rights Act, incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law.

Beyond the spin: how human rights laws protect you and your family
he Human Rights Act is one of the Labour Partys greatest achievements. It is the best guarantee we have that public bodies will respect our civil liberties and dignity. For some of the most vulnerable in society - including the elderly, people with disabilities, children and victims of domestic violence - it has literally been a lifeline. Politicians from across the political spectrum are guilty of misrepresenting what this crucial legislation does for cynical political gain. It is time they celebrated what it has achieved. Here are three examples of how the Act is used to help ordinary people.

First and foremost, the Human Rights Act is about protecting the most vulnerable members of society.

Sarah and her children were at risk of serious harm from a violent ex-partner. Having been refused sheltered accommodation by her local authoritys housing department, her social worker managed to get the decision overturned by invoking her right not to be treated in a humiliating and degrading way, and her right to life.

Case Study 1

Alice, a young girl with a learning disability, was refused school transport despite the fact that she could not travel independently. Her parents managed to get this decision overturned by invoking daughters right to respect for private life, given the failure to consider her specific circumstances.

Case Study 2

When Stanley fell ill, he was moved into a residential care home. Janet, his wife of 65 years who was blind and relied on Stanley for help, requested to come with him but was told by their local authority that she did not fit the criteria. Their family launched a public campaign, arguing that the local authority had acted in breach of their right to a family life and the decision was reversed.

Case Study 3

These stories feature in Changing Lives, a report published by the British Institute of Human Rights and available on BIHRs website: www.bihr.org.uk. Many of them result from BIHRs training with voluntary and community groups.

Extending pre-charge detention will not make us safer

Under UK anti-terror laws, you can be held without charge for up to 28 days. The government is trying to extend this to 42 days. We are proud of the freedoms that we have in this country freedoms that British people have worked for and won over a thousand years. To remove this historic liberty from all of us does not make us safer. Terrorist attacks on our country try to make us fearful, to destroy the things we value and our way of life. Abolishing our own rights to try and beat terrorism is self-defeating. Where people are suspected of committing crimes, they can be arrested, charged and given a fair trial under the criminal law. To strip away our own right, especially when the case for doing so is so weak, makes a joke of what we value in our country fairness, democracy, and freedom. Other democracies dont do this in Canada detention without charge is up to one day; in the United States two days. Even the Director of Public Prosecutions (head of the Crown Prosecution Service), which prosecutes criminal cases, sees no need for an extension; neither does the former Attorney General. There are other methods to counter terrorism, including using existing laws. New steps that could be taken include: using wiretap evidence in prosecutions; allowing more questions to be asked of suspects after theyve been charged. The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) would allow the government to temporarily extend pre-charge detention in a genuine emergency where the police are overwhelmed by multiple terror plots. This right is ours. It belongs to all of us, and the loss of it diminishes every one of us. After a thousand years of pride in our liberties, we refuse to allow them to stripped from us.

If you have a vote in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election:

VOTE
on Thursday 10 July
th
Vote for the candidate who you believe will best stand up for all our rights and freedoms. The polls will be open between 8am and 10pm. You dont need your polling card to vote - just give your name and address at the Polling Station. Dear Gordon,
Our rights and freedoms are precious and have been hard-won over centuries. Your government used to believe that too, and introduced the Human Rights Act, which remains the best guarantee of our rights and freedoms that we have. But this by itself is not enough and since then you have allowed our civil liberties to be compromised, bit-by-bit. The time has come to reverse this process. For this reason, we the undersigned demand that you: Abandon plans to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days. Scrap the national identity card scheme and end the drift towards a database state. Reaffirm Labours commitment to human rights and liberties. Agree not to make fundamental changes to the UKs constitution without cross-party consensus. Please respond to this petition.

Send Gordon Brown a message

This election is important. It is your chance to tell Gordon Brown to stop the creeping erosion of our civil liberties. The more people vote, the more likely he will listen:

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