Despite the government proposing an extension to the number of days a suspect can be detained (read imprisoned) without charge I'm coming to the conclusion that 28 days might actually be too long.
We already have by far the longest period of detention in the western world. Recent misinformation about the Italian system confused detention without charge (4 days) with detention before trial (possibly years), two very different things.
There are many arguments that can be made against excessive detention from a civil liberties perspective which I find convincing in themselves. But I want to suggest a reason why long periods of detention without charge are counter-productive in the fight against terrorism.
The most effective weapon against terrorism is intelligence. The most valuable source of information about potential Islamic terrorists is from within the Muslim community. We need Muslims to feel that if they suspect a member of their community may be involved in terrorism that they can go to the police and if that person is innocent they will not be responsible for ruining the suspect's life.
With a detention period of 28 days a suspect can have his life ruined without being guilty of any crime. A self employed man could have his business destroyed by being unable to work for 28 days, especially if the reason for his absence was to leak out.
Would you take your suspicions to the police if you thought you might be ruining a innocent person's life? No? Then why do we expect Muslims to do this to their fellow Muslims?
Detention is not the only reason why someone might be reluctant to voice their suspicions to the police. What if it was your conversation with the police that lead to the Forrest Gate raid where a innocent man was shot in his own home. Would you go to the police if you though it might lead to the man you suspected being injured, or possibly killed?
We need Muslims to believe that the criminal justice system is not going to punish innocent members of their community just for being suspects if we are to get the intelligence we need to fight Islamic terrorism.
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Data Protection
With a junior official losing highly sensitive data the government is placing the blame on the the official, no surprise there. But the question is not why he sent this information through the post but how it was possible that someone so junior could get this information in a form that was so easily lost.
Why does a junior official have the ability to take sensitive data from the HMRC database and place it on a couple of CDs? This sort of data must have a high value on the black market and it seems that almost anybody at HMRC can access this data and sneak it out with little or no difficulty.
This is not the failure of a single individual but a failure of the data protection system at HMRC and we can only assume that other departments have similarly deficient systems. Who's fault is it? It is the government's fault, it's the responsible minister's fault and ultimately it is the prime minister's fault for appointing such incompetent ministers in the first place.
It is not acceptable that government departments that hold data about every citizen of the UK have such poor IT systems that junior officials have access to PCs that can not only access our data but also provide the facility to convert it to a form so easily lost or stolen.
Most private companies that hold sensitive data don't allow PCs that can be used to access such data to have CD-writers, USB ports, or access to the internet because they know that their employees can make mistakes or deliberately leak private data. Of course if such data were to be leaked from a private company it would have devastating financial consequences for the company. If this sort of thing were to happen at a bank there would almost certainly be a run on the bank that would threaten to devastate its credibility (and its share price). Of course with a bank we can always move our money elsewhere.
Providing rules within government departments that state that sensitive data should not be sent unsecured will not solve the problem. It must be made impossible for data to be leaked in this manner by junior officials whether they obey the rules or not. The IT systems that hold data about us must be secured not just against honest and competent junior officials but against corrupt and incompetent ones as well.
Obviously there will be times when sensitive data will be needed to be shared between departments. (It turns out this was not one of them, the Audit Office did not require, or even ask for, all the data that was lost.) When this sort of data transfer is required a minister should be informed and a senior official should supervise the transfer from beginning to end. Encryption should obviously be employed and the physical security of the data should also be of the highest priority.
Loss of citizens' sensitive data should be a resigning matter for the minister responsible, only then might we be confident that our data is safe with the government. Of course government departments should also only have information that they really need.
ID card anyone?
Why does a junior official have the ability to take sensitive data from the HMRC database and place it on a couple of CDs? This sort of data must have a high value on the black market and it seems that almost anybody at HMRC can access this data and sneak it out with little or no difficulty.
This is not the failure of a single individual but a failure of the data protection system at HMRC and we can only assume that other departments have similarly deficient systems. Who's fault is it? It is the government's fault, it's the responsible minister's fault and ultimately it is the prime minister's fault for appointing such incompetent ministers in the first place.
It is not acceptable that government departments that hold data about every citizen of the UK have such poor IT systems that junior officials have access to PCs that can not only access our data but also provide the facility to convert it to a form so easily lost or stolen.
Most private companies that hold sensitive data don't allow PCs that can be used to access such data to have CD-writers, USB ports, or access to the internet because they know that their employees can make mistakes or deliberately leak private data. Of course if such data were to be leaked from a private company it would have devastating financial consequences for the company. If this sort of thing were to happen at a bank there would almost certainly be a run on the bank that would threaten to devastate its credibility (and its share price). Of course with a bank we can always move our money elsewhere.
Providing rules within government departments that state that sensitive data should not be sent unsecured will not solve the problem. It must be made impossible for data to be leaked in this manner by junior officials whether they obey the rules or not. The IT systems that hold data about us must be secured not just against honest and competent junior officials but against corrupt and incompetent ones as well.
Obviously there will be times when sensitive data will be needed to be shared between departments. (It turns out this was not one of them, the Audit Office did not require, or even ask for, all the data that was lost.) When this sort of data transfer is required a minister should be informed and a senior official should supervise the transfer from beginning to end. Encryption should obviously be employed and the physical security of the data should also be of the highest priority.
Loss of citizens' sensitive data should be a resigning matter for the minister responsible, only then might we be confident that our data is safe with the government. Of course government departments should also only have information that they really need.
ID card anyone?
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
The Enforcers?
While channel surfing this evening I stumbled across The Enforcers on BBC1. I wish I had recorded it because I could not believe what I was watching. I only caught the end of the programme but two of the items troubled me greatly.
The first dealt with a couple of bailiffs visiting a man who hadn't paid a number of parking fines. When the man would not let the baliffs into his property and ran off they called the police. When the police caught him they arrested the man on suspicion of a previous assault! What I want to know is how the bailiffs could locate this man but the police couldn't. Surely the police pull out all the stops when a potential violent criminal is on the loose. I guess the lesson here is that if someone assaults you you better hope the assailant hasn't paid his parking fines if you want justice.
The second case was a woman who was stopped because the police had no record of her vehicle being insured. It turns out that she was insured but the insurance was not on the police's database. As the woman couldn't prove her innocence the police seized her car and stuck a big yellow sticker on it saying that it had been driven without insurance. The woman was slandered and her property taken because in the eyes of the state she was guilty until proven innocent. The woman was on her way to a relative's 50th birthday party and the experience was obviously distressing to the woman and the young child who was also traveling in the car.
The story gets better (or I should say, much, much, worse) when a helpful passer-by offered the stranded driver and her passengers a lift. The passer-by was soon stopped herself and it turns out was driving not only without insurance (for real this time) but was also disqualified from driving. So due to the actions of the police the innocent woman and her passenger's lives were put at risk.
If the programme had been billed as a shocking exposé of the criminal justice system in this country I would have watched it from the start (although that may have been too depressing).
The first dealt with a couple of bailiffs visiting a man who hadn't paid a number of parking fines. When the man would not let the baliffs into his property and ran off they called the police. When the police caught him they arrested the man on suspicion of a previous assault! What I want to know is how the bailiffs could locate this man but the police couldn't. Surely the police pull out all the stops when a potential violent criminal is on the loose. I guess the lesson here is that if someone assaults you you better hope the assailant hasn't paid his parking fines if you want justice.
The second case was a woman who was stopped because the police had no record of her vehicle being insured. It turns out that she was insured but the insurance was not on the police's database. As the woman couldn't prove her innocence the police seized her car and stuck a big yellow sticker on it saying that it had been driven without insurance. The woman was slandered and her property taken because in the eyes of the state she was guilty until proven innocent. The woman was on her way to a relative's 50th birthday party and the experience was obviously distressing to the woman and the young child who was also traveling in the car.
The story gets better (or I should say, much, much, worse) when a helpful passer-by offered the stranded driver and her passengers a lift. The passer-by was soon stopped herself and it turns out was driving not only without insurance (for real this time) but was also disqualified from driving. So due to the actions of the police the innocent woman and her passenger's lives were put at risk.
If the programme had been billed as a shocking exposé of the criminal justice system in this country I would have watched it from the start (although that may have been too depressing).
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