Don’t Just “Hope For The Best”

by Mike

I was talking with a friend of mine about the proposed change in British Law that would allow a terror suspect to be held for questioning for up to 42 days without charge.

“I think I would understand it, “he said after stating that it would be a good thing if implemented. I asked him, being Irish, what would happen if he was arrested in Britain by the police for simply being in the wrong place at wrong time and then would face the realisation that he may not be allowed to walk away from the questioning for nearly a month and a half?

I’m all for preventative measures to help keep people safe, most of the time we need preventative measures to keep us safe from the things that we do to ourselves (but that’s another story. However I cannot see in any way how this can be justified.

Holding a suspect for 42 days seems to me like a “hope for the best” plan in that, if they detain them now the evidence will follow. I think America had the same kind of policy when it came to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I haven’t seen the evidence brought to light yet.

I understand that this is something that is difficult to control and contain but at the same time, if it was easy to stop “terrorists” would not try. Not every person from the Middle East is link to terrorist groups; much in the same way that not even person in Northern Ireland isn’t.

In my opinion, and yes it’s my opinion, it will come down to a situation where the real criminals will get away because less and less effort is being made to go about probably capturing them. Instead we’ll have more backpackers detained or running through a train station in London, causing a mass panic, because the police believe that they “may” be linked.

Human rights have diminished significantly since September 2001, some of it is justified, some of the actions of the governments of the world have resulted in a near robotic culture where we all just drift along aimlessly and do not want to question why.

For the sake of everyone, because we will all be affected one way or another, I would ask for some common sense to prevail. Yes it is tough job to catch a terrorist, but there are skilled people in those roles who know of better ways to go about doing it, rather then taking the easy way out.

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 and is filed under Thoughts & Questions, Views on News.