Brits! Sign petition to fight proposal to let the cops lock you up for 42 days without charge!
Carsetn sez, "Amnesty International has launched a petition to fight the British Government's proposal that it should be allowed to lock up anybody for 42 days just by saying the words 'terrorist threat'."
Say No to 42 Days! (Thanks, Carsten!)
This autumn the Government wants to push through a Bill allowing police to lock people up for 42 days without charge if they are suspected of a terrorism-related offence. When the Counter-Terrorism Bill comes back to the House of Commons, your MP will have a chance to help defeat it: the Bill only passed by nine votes last time, so it will be close.Allowing police to lock people up for a month-and-a-half without charge will undermine basic human rights to which everyone in the UK is entitled. It will also damage community relations, make intelligence gathering more difficult and possibly ruin the lives of innocent people. This Bill needlessly sacrifices important civil liberties but gains nothing in the way of security.
The only way to convince MPs to vote against 42 days is to show them how many of their constituents are against this unnecessary and counter-productive piece of legislation.
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Why is this on a website like this and not say, the government petition site?
There is a referendum petition online right now at that very same government website you talk of.
I have signed it, I hope others will too.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/42daylimit/
I wonder if the politicans realized the significance of the number when they selected 42 out of so many possible choices.
I've been noticing a lack lately of smarmy English comments on how shitty America is..maybe this law would be a good thing..
Because 42 days is 6 weeks? (Yes, I know the reference to which you are referring)
Lock all wankers up and throw away the bloody key.
Because governments listen to what petitions say.
Well if it goes through, simply make annonymous tips to the police about the terrorist activities of every politician who voted for it.
No they won't sit around for 42 days but maybe some of them will get arrested and get the point.
"Because governments listen to what petitions say."
Oh, but governments listen to people who do nothing? Why not suggest something more constructive if you think a petition is doomed to failure.
Amnesty will be doing more than just petitioning on this issue - they will be securing media coverage, organising demonstrations, lobbying politicians, and so on. The petition is just a (key) part of the campaign against 42 day detention.
Well, if you sign the petition you'll find that Amnesty is not trying to persuade the Prime Minister directly as with the Number 10 site, the idea is that an Amnesty representative will personally visit MPS identified as key to overturning the vote and showing them the names on the petition. This could be highly effectve because Labour MPs are obviously worried about their majorities and the Government only had a majority of 9 at the last vote. Getting just 5 MPs to change their mind would kill this rotten, draconian and pointless law.
My MP already voted against this. Other people's MPs don't care what I think.
I suspect that writing to your MP is a better course. Find him or her on theyworkforyou.com, check their voting record and send them an email or written letter.
I have signed the petition and hope that all other Brits do too, but I'd be astonished if it actually made any difference.
I've signed a few petitions on number10.gov.uk, some of which had thousands of signatories. In each case, after the petition closed I received an email which basically said "thanks for your input, but we know better". If they really do have evidence to show that our position is wrong, that's fair enough; as a scientist I know firsthand that the angry crowd doesn't always know more than the experts. But they really should share it, rather than just saying "be quiet and trust the government".
That's very frightening. Best of luck to all Brits overturning this. I'm sure it gives American leaders a hardon thinking about all that potential power to abuse.
I'm Canadian, so this doesn't apply to me, but if you want to stop this, don't just sign the petition - write a letter, by hand, and send it in.
Politicians generally weigh each type of communication differantly. A single handwritten letter might be worth 1000 signatures on an e-petition, just because so few people are willing to spend the time and energy necessary to write and mail something by hand.
Meanwhile, Johnny Rotten's shilling butter:
http://tiny.cc/lHoAT
You can also attend your MP's surgery and tell her directly to her face.
my MP is a suckup and votes the party line every time... He's all local this and that when he's back in his constituency, but votes completely against local interests when he gets back to Westminster... he's a junior minister in the Labour party and has been sucking his way up the ranks relentlessly ever since he got imposed upon the seat (he isn't local). Take the campaign to save Post Offices. He was all in the local rags showing how interested he was in saving them, but when it came to the vote, he went against saving them... his excuse didn't wash
Douglas Adams is spinning in his grave right now.
I wonder if the politicans realized the significance of the number when they selected 42 out of so many possible choices.
PANIC!
The 42 day issue is a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. e.g. when Tony Blair stood down as leader, there was no general election, and the then treasurer Gordon Brown assumed office unelected. His popularity rating stands at about 25% and the Labour party risks a humiliating defeat at the next general election.
The police and the head of the MI5 intelligence service are on record as saying that they do not want the power to hold someone for 42 days without charge, however since Gordon Brown has suggested the idea and his authority is weak, loyal MPs can't oppose the idea without risking further embarrassment and hastening the demise of the government, and MPs who want Gordon Brown to resign push the counter-arguments to attack Brown rather than out of interests in civil liberties.
We're probably going to get this crazy idea passed into law for the sake of propping up an unpopular Prime Minister, which is stupid and sets up the next controversial issue to be a vote of confidence by proxy in Gordon Brown.
#21:
The police and the head of the MI5 intelligence service are on record as saying that they do not want the power to hold someone for 42 days without charge, however ...
That just about says it all, doesn't it? The police don't even want these powers; but some day, some years down the line, some policemen are going to abuse these powers to hold innocent people if they get them.
I think Britain needs a party with a very much stronger civil liberties agenda. Why don't we ever see any local politicians campaigning on TAKE DOWN THE CCTVs and get elected on these slogans?
This hypothetical councillor could get off by getting in the paper, photographed next to yet another CCTV they had taken down. Would beat the hell out of Tories photographed next to some sewer they had the lazy Labour town administration fix (real life example from Headington, Oxford).