Authoritarian government won't be effective against terrorism
Growing up in 1970s Uganda, I was very aware that people who took photos in public places were liable to fall foul of the authorities. An innocent snap of a particular landmark in downtown Kampala, and you stood a pretty good chance of having your camera arbitrarily confiscated by Idi Amin’s thugs.
It’s sobering to think that from today the same "rule" now applies in Britain. I say "rule" because the new Counter-Terrorism Act is so vague it almost invites the arbitrary exercise of power. Under the Act, there’s a catch all offence of taking pictures of officers "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
Sounds reasonable, you say? Well, ponder this. We know that powers handed to state officials in order to "counter terrorism" have often been used for quite different purposes. Remember how statutory agencies were given powers to collect personal information in order to “counter terrorism”? In reality, it just meant your local council started to spy on you.
Will this new law really be applied to crazed, camera wielding jihadis? I doubt it. If the state is too inept to deal with the fact that trained terrorists are already in Britain in the first place, I doubt the state has the wherewithal to stop them taking photos.
Instead, a lot of perfectly innocent people, going about their lawful business, will come to resent an increasingly authoritarian and unaccountable state.
Apparently, not a single terrorist arrest in London in recent years has been made as a result of locally passed-on intelligence.
If we really want to counter terrorism, we need to start asking why that is, rather than passing more asinine laws.
Posted on 16 February 2009 by Douglas Carswell