yeah I saw what you are talking about happen on C-Span. first i have to say the brittish parliment and how they conduct legislation is such a world of diffrence from us americans.I was amazed how open debate is with the prime mininster brown and other parliment members. US bicameral system is a lot more calm and not a filled with life as your brittish parliment. that said I think really detainment by the police has to be a case by case basis. I wish in the us we could detain some suspects to a crime longer than two days, but its the system. I agree with it though. I read and scence on news that brittish have a problem with muslims. that is car bombs and a disenfranchised muslim youth who mostly live in the poor parts. except for sept.11 we had not had the problem britton has had with car bombs or riots. I think detaining suspects for trial can become an lgbt issue if the detianee is gay or something happens with custady or a kidnapping or something of that sorts. overall if detaining a suspect for trail who is terrorist related I think given the current circumstance 42 days is justified.

I'd have liked to have seen the results if Gordon Brown hadn't swayed the Irish with money and protection over their abortion laws. The sooner that man's out of power the better but the unfortunate thing is that it could very well be a Tory as Labour's suffered so much. The amount of times I've heard 'You know what, Blair wasn't so bad'... you only miss something once it's gone.

 

I know what you mean by Labour's apparant cross-over to right wing; this new law seems like a very Conservative thing to do. I need to do a little bit more reading on this but does this 42 day period apply to all those arrested under the Terrorist Act? Considering it's so bloody easy to be arrested under it it would be ridiculous. Remember that Wolfgang guy (in his 80s) who shouted 'Rubbish' during a John Major Speech? He was removed from the building forcefully according to the so-called Terrorist Act.

 

28 days is near enough a month; surely if they haven't found evidence to arrest the person their holding at that time there's no justification to hold them any longer? With the technology the government has there's no reason to do this and also whose it going to stop? I certainly haven't heard of any terrorist in Britain blowing something up because police couldn't hold them for over 28 days. It's going to be interesting to see how effective this new policy is and if it's actually going to do anything.

Here in America we just said screw that habeas corpus crap. We made up this term called "enemy combatant" and said we can hold them indefinitely without even thought of charges or a trial.

We LET the president invade our privacy (wiretap) without a warrant in the name of the 'war on Terror'

In America, it's not that the dems have become right wing, it's that they have become pathetic cowards. Apparently civil liberties can take a backseat because they don't want to piss off the Republicans. Even with dems being a majority in congress they think they still have to kiss ass to get their other agendas passed. What these other agendas are, I'm not really sure.

i was gonna adress america's view but then my post would've been way too long.

I don't think you can say that AMerica doesn't have a problem with 'Muslims'. Although America is a pluralistic country there is always going to be inbred racism and every country has that. Since 9/11 America's fear of Islam has become worse and since the 7/7 bombing in Lonond our fear has become worse. The American system is very different. And Guantana Mobay is worse than any 42 days detention period so it's not like the Americans are going to critisize us if the bill is passed.

Also after 9/11 the Americans and Brits signed an agreement that gave the AMericans power to extradite people from other countries, unfortunately what the Yanks forgot to mention that they got more power out the bill than us Brits. In the following years they extradited 3 people who were in jail due to fraud issues and took them to the US where they are serving much longer sentences.
When signing the agreement they claimed it was only to be used for terrorism purposes but yet look what they did.
This is what i'm worried about; officialy the British 42 day period would only be for terror suspects but i imagine it could be manipulated and there would be loopholes!

I also didn't talk about comparing the British and Us governmental systems, but sufice to say, they are very different. So it's bit hard to compare it, also the UK Government system has changed a lot in the last 2 decades.

Also Islamaphobia in Britain is here but i think you're confusing it with the Brixton riots of decades ago which was about people from the West Indies and other commonwealth countries and the IRA of 10 maybe 20 years ago who were the poeple behind the car bombings.

The Islamic extremists are the ones behind the underground and bus bombings.

Also the Patriot act. man that was a fuck up on congresses behalf. If youhear on the democratic debate for their candidates back at the beginning of the year. and you hear dennis kucinich going on about how he was the only candidate who didn't vote for the patriot act and they asked why and he said ' because i read it'. man why can't he be president, he's a legend!

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"laugh, laugh on at all the dreams that i the dreamer dare to weave,
laugh on, that i sitll belive in the people, for I still belive in life"

The Labour party are going to do anything that they can to make the public think that they need them to keep them safe. Including raising the terror alert needlessly, and passing a load of anti-civil liberty laws in the name of the 'war against terror'. And the Conservatives and Lib Dems are only against it in order to gain votes from people who share their views. I don't trust any of them, really.

It's about time that we stood up and fought against it, frankly. I think we crossed a significant line when they passed the protesting law (you are unable to hold a peaceful protest within 1km of the Houses of Parliament) and effectively stifled the 'freedom of speech'.

To me 28 days seems way too long and the idea of lengthening that time is undemocratic, particularly when this is used dis discriminatarily toward one segment of the population. Christian extremists, Jewish extremists, Islamic extremists, atheist fextremists should be treated equally. 9/11 should not be an excuse for discrimination based on religion, race, gender, sexual orientations or country of origin.

Soc 9, is a killer, y'hear that the anti-bush demo on sunday has officially not been allowed! why on earth would they refuse it! it's a complete destroyer of person's right to protest!

and the fear thing is interesting.

the war on terror is supposed to be about fighting non-pluralistic governments and destroying their evil extremist regimes, these regimes where people can be arrested and locked up for as long as they want with no valid reason.
In doing this ourselves aren't we becoming just as bad as the countries we have declared this war on terror on? grrrrrr!

who heard about David Davies and his sudden turn from Tory to left winger. for anyone who doesn't know, he's a high up conservative MP who quite because of the vote and is planning to stand in bi-election on a completely anti-42 day platform! he's lost his job as shadow home secratary because of it. I heard his speech and i also listened to Tony Benn's speech on the subject aswell! it was really odd to listen to the ultimate left winger say the same things as a tory who ran for leadership and at many times been david cameron's right hand man!

I'm very proud though! my MP (although he may have his faults) voted against 42 days! i could very nearly kiss him!

 

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"laugh, laugh on at all the dreams that i the dreamer dare to weave,
laugh on, that i sitll belive in the people, for I still belive in life"

Supreme Court ruled Guantanamo detainees can challenge extended imprisonment in federal court

Court concluded that foreigners held at Guantanamo retain the same rights as U.S residents to seek writs of habeas corpus

This will permit several hundred alleged enemy combatants to see the evidence that justifies their captivity.

Some have been in custody for six years

Habeas corpus enables prisoners to demand in court the legal justification and factual basis for their detentions.

I understand that international inquiries take longer. That doesn't justify a detainee not knowing why they are being detained or being detained without any real legal basis. There's nothing wrong with having intermediate hearings where the prosecution can present whatever evidence they have and then ask the court to retain the suspect for longer in order to gain more evidence.

This is just another example of the cancerous growth of the executive branch and congress willfully giving their power away. What's the point in having courts when you're just going to overrule them?