Liberty versus security equals controversy

Nov 11th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

British lawmakers have handed Tony Blair a stinging defeat, opposing a government proposal to extend to 90 days the period for which police can hold terror suspects without charging them. In America and Australia too, anti-terror measures are proving controversial as governments struggle to reach the right balance between liberty and security

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, one of America’s founding fathers, wrote that “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” He presaged an argument that is raging almost two and a half centuries later. What precisely are the essential liberties which, when given up, make a liberal society unworthy of the name? In Franklin’s own country, as well as in Britain, Australia and elsewhere, these questions are proving particularly vexing to policymakers trying to deal with terrorism.

A month after the July 7th bombings of Underground trains and a bus in London, which killed more than 50 people, Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, announced that “the rules of the game are changing” and proposed new security measures to Parliament. Many worry that he wants to change the rules too much. His 12-point plan includes speeding up detention of foreign-born agitators, creating a charge of “indirect incitement” for people who glorify terrorism anywhere in the world, using closed pre-trial hearings to examine sensitive evidence, banning certain Islamist groups and closing troublesome mosques. Until this week, the proposed anti-terror bill also included a plan to extend the period for which police can hold terror suspects without charging them, from 14 to 90 days. But on Wednesday November 9th, in Mr Blair’s first major parliamentary defeat since becoming prime minister in 1997, the House of Commons voted down the measure by 322 to 291.

With a significant number of backbenchers from the ruling Labour Party bitterly opposed to 90-day detention, this was always going to be a tough vote for the government. It was considered so important that two top cabinet members, finance minister Gordon Brown and foreign minister Jack Straw, were hauled back from foreign trips to vote—on the assumption that there might be only one or two votes in it. The surprising scale of the defeat (Labour has a parliamentary majority of 66) not only casts a shadow over the new anti-terror legislation, but raises big questions about Mr Blair’s grip on his party. Some 49 Labour MPs refused to back him, even after being put under huge pressure by the party’s whips. Among the rebels were several normally loyal former ministers.

After the vote, Michael Howard, leader of the opposition Conservatives, claimed that Mr Blair's authority had “diminished almost to vanishing point”. Certainly, the scale of the Labour rebellion casts doubt on whether the prime minister can make headway with controversial reforms in other areas, such as education, health and pensions. But Mr Blair was defiant, saying that “the country will think that Parliament has behaved in a deeply irresponsible way.” Opinion polls before the defeat suggested that at least three out of four voters were behind him on the detention issue.

Ministers had argued vociferously in recent weeks that 14 days’ detention without charge was too short to assess lots of complex and classified evidence. The police strongly backed the proposed extension to 90 days. London’s police chief, Sir Ian Blair, even briefed MPs from all parties, saying that he was hesitant to enter a political debate but supported the measure strongly enough to put his qualms aside.

Mr Blair will still get an extension, but nothing like 90 days. Later on Wednesday, the Commons voted in favour of a proposal tabled by a Labour rebel, and backed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, for a much lower, 28-day detention limit.

Some of the government’s other proposals are perhaps even more controversial than detention without charge. The expanded charge of incitement to terrorism, some worry, could criminalise too much speech, such as academic debate on political violence. And deporting rabble-rousing imams could mean sending them to countries where they will be tortured. The government says it will get agreements not to torture from any such countries, as it has from Jordan. But human-rights groups claim these are worthless.

Across the Atlantic

As Mr Blair tries to toughen anti-terror measures, George Bush is facing accusations that America has already gone too far. The Pentagon last week issued new guidelines on prisoner interrogations, in an implicit response to the abuses at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. These would forbid “acts of mental and physical torture” and require humane treatment “in accordance with applicable law and policy”.

But there is no agreement yet on another Pentagon directive, on the general treatment of detainees. The debate concerns whether or not to use language from the Geneva Conventions explicitly. The Bush administration says it treats all prisoners in a way consistent with the conventions, but it does not accord “unlawful combatants” (those captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, mainly) prisoner-of-war status, meaning that the conventions are not legally binding. The vice-president, Dick Cheney, is particularly hostile to any reference to Geneva in a new directive, but there is rising opposition to his position even inside the usually unified Bush administration.

In a misguided effort to avoid these questions altogether, America put many of the prisoners captured in the short war in Afghanistan in legal limbo in Guantánamo Bay. The legality of this, too, has been eroded. The Supreme Court found last year that Guantánamo detainees must be given some kind of review of their status, if not a full trial. But on Thursday, the Senate passed an amendment (to a spending bill) brought by Lindsey Graham, a Republican, that would undercut the court's decision. Under the amendment, prisoners would be able to petition only on technicalities, not on their detention status itself. The amendment may also have an impact on the Supreme Court's decision, this week, to review another issue: whether the military “commissions” proposed to try prisoners in Guantánamo—potentially resulting in a death sentence—are legal.

Such commissions have not been used since the second world war. The plaintiff in the forthcoming case, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was allegedly Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver, and is charged with murder, terrorism and conspiracy. His lawyers, including a military lawyer, say military commissions at Guantánamo lack legal authority, not to mention any protection for defendants’ rights, such as a guaranteed right to attend one’s own trial.

At least the world knows about Guantánamo. On November 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has been running secret prisons—“black sites”—in Asia and Eastern Europe, where it holds the highest-value prisoners in the war on terror. These include Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, a top al-Qaeda planner, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, co-ordinator of the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Human Rights Watch claims that such prisons are operated in Romania and Poland, based on the flight records of aircraft believed to belong to the CIA. The two countries have denied this. According to the Post, only the chairmen and vice-chairmen of America's House and Senate intelligence committees knew about the programme. On Thursday, the Senate demanded a classified accounting to the full chamber.

John McCain, a Republican senator, has sponsored an amendment (to the same bill as Mr Graham's) that would require all detainees in American custody, whether in military or CIA hands, be treated in accordance with the army field manual. This would forbid torture and degrading treatment. The president and, more vociferously, the vice-president are opposed. But the Senate passed the measure 90-to-9 last month. (The House must now agree.) Mr Bush declared flatly on Tuesday that “we do not torture.” But Mr Cheney, unable to defeat the McCain amendment so far, has asked for an exception for the CIA. If they are not torturing, sceptics sensibly ask, why the exemption?

Danger down under

Australia is another country with troops in Iraq and worries about terrorism closer to home. The country has felt vulnerable since 88 of its citizens were killed in the bombing of a Bali nightclub in 2002. This week, the Australian authorities announced that they had arrested 17 people on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in the country. Officials said that those detained had had paramilitary training in rural Australia and were gathering chemicals for a bomb. But the police did not cite a particular target of the alleged plot. This could be because the anti-terrorism law has just been amended to make it a criminal offence to plan terrorism even when a specific target is not yet chosen.

Australia is also considering other proposals to toughen its terror law, including lengthening the period of detention without charge to 14 days. As in other countries with strong terror laws, some worry that this will further alienate the resident Muslim population. Ongoing riots in France have roots in the frustration of Muslim youths with aggressive policing and a lack of jobs.

Some libertarians misquote Benjamin Franklin as saying that giving up any liberty for safety means deserving neither. All societies curb some freedoms—no individual may own a nuclear bomb. But finding the right balance between liberty and security remains tricky, not just in America, Britain and Australia but the many other free countries that are potential terrorist targets. Clamping down not only diminishes liberties but can even cause the kind of backlash that makes terrorism more likely.

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