Today’s Independent has a bunch of articles about the erosion of civil liberties under New Labour. The main article is here, with supporting comment from Brian Eno here.
It is an odd mess, because in many ways New Labour has done a lot for embattled minorities, albeit often only because it was dragooned into it by the European Court. What the Indy is talking about, however, is the War on Terror police state mentality that has taken over government thinking around the world. What our government, and others of a Left persuasion, are saying is that yes, they will stamp down hard on racists and homophobes and the like, but they have to have powers to deal with terrorism.
Which brings us to the other article. One of the things that has irritated me about my recent problems with getting into the US is the automatic assumption that many people had of, “oh, those Americans, they are awful people.” I was pretty much sure that immigration people are the same the world over, including in the UK, but I didn’t have any counter examples. Now I do.
A judge has insisted that an asylum seeker who was sent back to his home country where his life might be in danger be brought back to Britain, because the circumstances of his removal were unlawful:
In a written statement, Mr X said that, last September, he was deceived into thinking he was being taken from Tinsley House immigration removal centre, on the perimeter of Gatwick airport, for an interview with an immigration officer. Instead, without warning, he was taken in a van by four security men to a plane.
He said that, when he resisted leaving the van, he was handcuffed, and punched in his private parts to make him straighten his legs so they could be belted together. Crying, he was lifted on to the aeroplane and flown out of the country.
And:
Mr X’s mobile phone had been taken from him and he was given no chance to contact friends or lawyers, even though Home Office rules required that he should have 72 hours’ notice of removal to give him a chance to make calls.
Worst of all, the representative of the Refugee Legal Centre interviewed in the article said that the government is attempting to ban legal reviews of such procedures so that the government need not be held accountable for how it treats asylum seekers. After all, they have to have powers to deal with terrorists, right?
Except that Mister X is not a suspected terrorist. His problem is that he’s gay.
So I ask you, what is the point is passing a whole bunch of nice, friendly laws protecting gay people from harassment, if at the same time you pass laws allowing your “security” services to brutalize anyone that they take a dislike to?
I can’t say it occurred to me that the Americans were worse than anyone else when it comes to immigration – just that it’s terribly rough being on the wrong end of *anyone’s* immigration policies.
I’m sure if we collected a comprehensive file of immigration horror stories the US would probably win a “worse” vote on some counts, but they probably have to do with the size of the country; the UK probably has no equivalent to Raymondville prison camp, and wouldn’t have as much of a place to hide it if it did.
That said, as much as I bitch about US security and taking off my shoes and all that rubbish, I’ve only ever been frisked in Finland (that was an unpleasant experience) and wanded in Germany. In the US no one ever laid a finger on me. Which probably has more to do with how much and where I travel by plane and what I look like. Just a guess.
Talking civil liberties -or at least personal integrity:
The Swedish Data Inspection Board have just published their report ‘The Integrity Year 2008’. ..covering new laws, proposed laws, decisions and technologies affecting personal integrity. Some good some bad…
Sadly it’s in Swedish but it’s contents include:
– The Swedish FRA law – All electronic traffic crossing swedish borders is now monitored by the state. Phone, mail, sms, internet- the lot. (Of course a lot of servers are not in Sweden… so this includes a lot internal traffic to)
– IPRED – EU legislation that at least in Sweden will mean private companies can oblige ISPs to reveal user details behind an IP address .
– Sharing of personal details between different authorities.
– A new register of imigrants
– Proposed database of all workers including personal ,employment and other tax & financial details – to track who doesn’t have unemplyment insurance(!)
– increased rights for phone tapping for Säpo (the intelligence service).. this replaces a temporary law from 1952!
– Proposals for fingerprints to be stored electronically in passports
– Loss of integrity in the process of fighting benefit fraud
– Information leaks from the public health system
– Cross border access in Europe to DNA and fingerprint databases which can mean foreign agencies having access which would be illegal for police in Sweden (!)
– proposed legislation to prohibit unauthorised reading of RFID tags
– Camera survillance in schools increased by 150% in 2008 – and schools are using surveillance in ways that would be unacceptable in any other workplace.
– it’s illegal to use electronic access records to track down who made a mess in the laundry room – apparently.
– and vehicle GPS can’t be used to check on staff working hours
– while at the same time bloggers are voluntarily using GPS to publish their whereabouts (www.1000apor.se)
– and 89.8% of people surveyed are against EU proposals to store records of all phone calls, SMS, E-mails and internet use. (But they are likely to become law anyway…..) Who you call or mail, and where you surf to will be recorded…
You’ll never be an only child again…
http://www.datainspektionen.se/Documents/diverse/rap-integritetsaret-2008.pdf