David Davis' Resignation and fight over civil liberty

[PeteM]

Ian Batten wrote  on 13-06-08 11:57:
>>
>> Is it also not a 'blind spot' with all Governments that they are
>> unable to conceive a time that they may no longer be in power, a time
>> when all those Draconian powers *they* forced through on the basis
>> *they* would only be used 'in extremis', will fall into the hands of a
>> 'less democratic' bunch of individuals.
> 
> I must say that I find that argument increasingly less compelling.  
> Repressive regimes don't need legislation passed by previous governments 
> that can be turned to their will: they just pass their own, or operate 
> extra-judicially.
> 
> The argument you advance works in the face of law-abiding repressive 
> regimes, which want to do repressive things while maintaining complete 
> obedience to legal constraints and constitutional checks and balances.   

Quite. Regimes don't fall into "repressive" and "not repressive" 
categories; there is a continuum. Moreover, different parts of the 
executive may operate in different modes at the same time. The Home 
Office may for example act ostensibly within the law, while ignoring 
breaches of the law by the police and security services. This was in 
fact very much the way Nazi Germany operated in the early 1930s (and let 
me here yawn loudly in advance at the inevitable response mentioning 
Godwin).

> But I'm not sure I'm worried about that narrow range of threats.

What's narrow about it? If the "legal constraints and constitutional 
checks and balances" amount to "The suspect has all the rights afforded 
him by common law, except when the Home Secretary has signed an order 
under the 2009 Terrorism Act saying he hasn't", then the effect is wide 
enough to be afraid of.

> As someone pointed out to me a few weeks ago, for _data_ your argument 
> has a lot of weight.  ``We are collecting this data for honest and good 
> purposes'' is easily countered with ``ah, but others might mis-use it'', 
> and the act of collecting data now is a hostage to fortune for what 
> happens later on.  But stockpiling powers?  How does the lack of 
> legislation passed by previous governments constrain a regime operating 
> under an enabling act, or a military regime after a coup?

By the slippery wedge effect. The more repressive legislation that is 
already in place, the easier it becomes to push through yet more, by 
what may be called "Roland's Argument". This runs, "But you didn't 
object to the 1911 Official Secrets Act when it was being debated in 
Parliament, which was the right and proper time to object to measures of 
this type. Therefore it is inconsistent of you to object to the 2009 
Silencing of All Opposition Act, which merely modernises the 1911 Act to 
remove its unacceptably discriminatory nature and makes it fit for 
purpose in today's War on Terror."

-- 
Pete Mitchell