Friday, May 25, 2007

The Slippery Slope

Three men suspected of plotting to commit terrorist acts in Iraq go missing and John Reid threatens to scrap human rights legislation and call a State of Emergency.

Residents of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, 1970s Chile or Argentina, Germany circa 1933 or Stalinist Russia may recall that similar tactics have been used before.

Terrorist suspects clearly require much tighter monitoring than our incompetent Home Office provides - six out of the seventeen subjects of control orders are currently on the loose - but it should be society as a whole, free of political scaremongering or doublespeak from the likes of Ian Blair - "Nobody can be perfectly satisfied that they are not a risk to the public here" - that makes an informed choice on the balance between our civil liberties and collective security.

History proves that it's far easier to lose freedom than it is to get it back.

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