Downing Street Says » Terrorism statement/anti-terror legislation

Asked what the Prime Minister had meant when he said it was plainly sensible to reserve the right to return to Parliament with an accelerated timetable on any further anti-terrorism laws, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that we had already said we would come back in the autumn with an anti-terrorism bill and go through the pre-legislation scrutiny process. Today the Prime Minister had been saying that if however before then there was a suggestion from the police, or the authorities that we needed to speed up that process then we would obviously consider that. Right now we were still at an early stage, at the moment of dealing with the aftermath of Thursday’s attacks. We had no plans at this stage to speed up the legislative process. All the Prime Minister had indicated was that if that came to be the case then we would come back. Asked if that would rule out before the summer, the PMOS agreed that it most probably would. What we were not thinking of was an "Omagh" style piece of immediate legislation. So far we had not identified that as necessary. What the Prime Minister had simply been doing was reserving the right to change our mind if the advice was that we should. No more and no less than that.

Asked what the circumstances were where we might accelerate legislation, such as if police knew there were various suspects around and they wanted to do something and needed the new legislation, the PMOS said that he did not want to get into a hypothetical. But by the very nature of it, as with the investigation, we wanted to keep an open mind. We thought that we had already identified the areas where the additional counter-terrorism measures needed to go, but for example, if the police came back and said we needed to act faster then in that case we would give that serious consideration. All the Prime Minister had been saying was that we would reserve the right to go faster if we had to, not that we had identified areas that we needed to accelerate through now. If anything the feeling was the reverse, the feeling was that we should proceed along the line and original timescale proposed. Yet we reserved the right to change our mind if so identified.

Asked what would be in the new bill, the PMOS said that what we had already said, and indeed what was in the manifesto, was that we would come back in the autumn with further measures to combat terrorism. That would then go through the process of pre-legislative scrutiny. In general the approach would be to try and bring together more coherently some of the existing legislation. At the moment our judgement was that we did not need to act faster than that or to identify additional pieces of legislation, but if the police were to say otherwise then we would consider it seriously. Asked what the existing timetable was, the PMOS said that we would come back in October with the pre-legislative scrutiny process. Asked if we were not looking at it before the summer would we put the bill forward in September and get it through, the PMOS said that it would depend on whether the services and police identified a need for additional speed. We were not suggesting we would speed it up. We were merely reserving the right to do so if advised.

Asked if we were a bit more relaxed about the opposition call for an inquiry, the PMOS said that the opposition had made it clear that they were not pushing for a particular form or a particular timescale and as such that was a matter for them. Clearly there were lessons to be learned on such occasions and there were internal methods already existing on the emergency services front and within the other authorities for dealing with those. It was a question of whether that process was a sufficient or not.

Asked about the 74 liaison officers mentioned, the PMOS said that there had been 74 families who were in varying degrees of certainty and uncertainty about whether a relative was involved in this. The police had identified these as those needing support. So people should not read across a straight line to the number of fatalities. A degree of certainty was required before confirmations could be given or not and it was difficult to give a precise estimate at this stage. However, it gave an indication of the number of families where there was concern. Asked if that included severely injured people, the PMOS said it included some severely injured people and people who were simply not in contact with relatives who did not know if they had been in the area or not. Therefore people should not do a straight read across. We were trying to be as precise and as transparent as we could which was why we felt it was right to put the figure out.

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Special Notice re anti-terror legislation.

We, at JK5, hold Jim Sinclair, author of JSmineset in the very highest regard for his honesty, integrity and his remarkable lifetime accomplishments. Every day we study his column (http://www.jsmineset.com/) and frequently refer, our readers, to his site. Today what he writes is so fundamentally important to your personal survival and to the survival of the free world that we have reprinted a whole article on our site for fear it may become lost – either through sabotage or simply among his great many important writings.
Please read and re-read this most important piece.

Original Source: http://www.jsmineset.com/ARhome.asp?VAfg=1&RQ=EDL,1&AR_T=1&GID=&linkid=2993&T_ARID=3023

Our Reprint: http://www.jk5.net/cpages/jsminset_20050713.asp
Comment by jk5 — 13 Jul 2005 on 6:27 am | Link
\x93Those that would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security.\x94\xA0Ben Franklin

Franklins works ring as Fascist thugs (Clarke et al) nail down the coffin of freedom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1527130,00.html
Comment by jk5 — 13 Jul 2005 on 10:13 am | Link
It does appear that the police have quite sufficient powers to get the job done presently. Maybe if they had more powers they could perform that psychic feat that the American investigators managed after 9/11 of fingering a suspect within 20 minutes of the crime.

You can follow the recent Parliamentary history of the terrorism laws at:

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/dreammp.php?id=258

According the the most recent 2005 law, the Home secretary can write "Control orders" preventing people from doing things without evidence. What more power would he like?
Comment by Julian Todd — 13 Jul 2005 on 11:15 pm | Link
Quite right Mr Todd;the Americans were very well "prepared" for their forensic duty after 11/9.

They managed to identify all the hijackers within minutes.

No matter that most of them were still alive and nowhere near New York at the time.

Yes, as described on another thread,
http://www.downingstreetsays.org/archives/001737.html
the London bombings (just coincidently) seem to have given a big boost to the totalitarian agenda in Westminster – Total surveilance, suspension of due process and habeas corpus etc. etc.

The Bliar/Clarke agenda (coincidently again) mimics the US (Patriot Act etc) in every detail – even down to the proposed NAME of the "Homeland Security" department. Is this Bliar’s "New Harmonisation" – follow every instruction from Washington.

We have become slaves to the war criminal Bush. Bliar has sold our souls to the devil!

"What could he possibly gain from that?" we hear your ask.

Well – THAT is the question! John Major got to be EU president of the Carlyle Group (the Bush Family Crime syndicate). What has Bush promised his little helper?

No man commits treason (taking the country to illegal wars in violation of the will of the vast majority) without a REASON! We suspect that reason was for personal pecuniary benefit!
Comment by jk5 — 14 Jul 2005 on 1:25 am | Link

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» Monday, July 11, 2005

Terrorism statement/anti-terror legislation

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