UK consultation about changing communications environment

The consultation examined how the rapidly changing communications environment means the existing capability of the police, the security and intelligence agencies and other public authorities is declining, and why change is necessary in the UK. It asked for views on options for maintaining vital communications data capabilities. The responses found that the rejection of a [...]

UK All party parliamentary group recommends criminalising the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights

The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on extraordinary rendition recommends criminalising various acts, including the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights and the failure to prevent extraordinary rendition flights using those facilities. The proposals will also ban so-called “circuit flights” – using UK airports for flights passing through the country to enable a rendition [...]

UK Child support investigators get spying powers designed to combat terrorism to track down absent fathers who do not pay for child support

The agency responsible for tracing absent parents is to be given access to phone and email records for the first time, under Home Office rules The Daily Telegraph reports. The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), which has taken over the heavily criticised Child Support Agency, said the surveillance powers will allow it to find [...]

British Journal of Criminology Special Issue on Criminology and the war on terror

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The Transformation of Violence in Iraq British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published on May 28, 2009 Br J Criminol 2009 49: 609-627; doi:10.1093/bjc/azp022 [Abstract]
 
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    Jude McCulloch and Sharon Pickering

Pre-Crime and Counter-Terrorism: Imagining Future Crime in the ‘War on Terror’ British Journal of Criminology [...]

Ex UK Foreign Office minister says UK should pull out Afghanistan

Kim Howells, a former Foreign Office minister with responsibility for Afghanistan and current chairman of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, questions in The Guardian the central tenet of the UK government’s case for fighting in Afghanistan: that it is the frontline of a war that would otherwise be conducted on British streets. Mr Howells said [...]

UK Home Secretary says UK overreacted to 7/7 bombings

The home secretary conceded that some of the counter-terrorism proposals made after the 7 July 2005 bombings were “too draconian” and “not the right way to go”, but made a strong defence of the use of surveillance powers, control orders and the Prevent programme to tackle violent extremism. He strongly hinted that the government’s proposals, [...]

UK: Thousands of activists monitored on network of overlapping databases

The Guardian reports that UK Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases.The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor “domestic extremists”, the Guardian stated. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored [...]

Opposition to Presence in Afghanistan Hardens in Canada and United Kingdom

Public backing for the mission in Afghanistan is eroding in two countries, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 59 per cent of respondents in Britain oppose the military operation involving UK soldiers in Afghanistan, up six points since July. In Canada, overall support for the mission stands at 37 per cent, down six [...]

Climate change activist stopped from travelling to Copenhagen on basis of terrorism law

UK border police used schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark, the Guardian reports. The clause enables border officials to stop and search individuals to determine [...]

UK High Court orders publication of torture evidence in Binyam Mohamed case

(The Guardian) David Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.
In a devastating judgment, two [...]