90 day detention defeated
It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but today is a good day - a very good day. The government’s plans to extend the time they can hold a suspect for before charging them from 14 days to 90 days has been heavily defeated in the commons, by a majority of 33.
The 90 day proposal was disasterous for a number of reasons. It’s the equivalent of a six month prison sentence. If you’re held for 14 days, your life won’t be unduly affected, but after 90 days you’ll most likely have lost your job and home.
The main argument by police was that the time was needed to break encryption on documents on suspects computers’, but this is a false claim. For a start, it’s already an offence to withhold encryption keys, so they can charge you with that for starters. Also, if you can’t break the encryption in 14 days, it’s likely to be strong encryption that you aren’t going to break it in 14 years. Some encryption is so secure that it’s provably impossible to brute-force without finding a collision in the algorithm.
So why am I sat here defending the terrorists? I’m not. I find these acts as abhorrent as anyone else does. What I won’t defend is badly thought-out legislation that puts us all at risk from false imprisonment.
Of 701 people arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, only 119 have been charged, and only 17 convicted. However, of those 17, only three were convicted for offences relating to Islamic terrorism. The elderly chap who recently heckled Jack Straw at the Labour Party conference, Walter Wolfgang, was arrested under the act. This is clearly a flagrant misuse of it.
The same would clearly happen if the amendment had been passed today.
