|
Thursday March 4th 2010, 7pm, The Vibe Bar, Brick Lane, London E1
Sit Down, Shut Up: Are Football Supporters Discriminated Against? is the FSF’s free Question Time-style debate, chaired by Tony Evans (Football Editor at The Times) with panellists Henry Porter, Duleep Allirajah (Sports Columnist for Spiked), David Bohannan (Head of the Home Office Football Unit), Tony Conniford (Assistant Director of the UK Football Policing Unit) and James Welch (solicitor and Legal Director of Liberty). This free event is open to all. Every person who registers in advance also gets a free drink. To register, simply email your name to :
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
More details... | Read Henry Porter's blog...
|
|
|
23 February 2010, 6.15 for 6.30pm, 55 Tufton Street, SW1, Centre for Policy Studies
New research from Big Brother Watch (pdf) has revealed that there are nearly 15,000 officers in local councils nationwide who can enter private property without requiring a warrant or police officer escort. The report builds on the 2006 Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet Crossing the Threshold by Harry Snook (pdf), which detailed the number of ways the State can enter a private home as of right - there were 266 distinct powers of entry then, and 1,043 now. Our panel of speakers will discuss the implications of this for civil liberties and whether action is needed to rebalance power in the relationship between the state and the citizen. Chaired by Jill Kirby, with speakers Dominic Grieve QC MP, Henry Porter, Harry Snook and Alex Deane .
Read more... | Watch videos of the speakers... | Read Henry Porter's blog...
|
|
|
Saturday 20 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian
The public has grown increasingly concerned about the rise of the state's surveillance culture, according to a new poll
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
Wednesday 17 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian.co.uk
The former minister's sudden enthusiasm for empowerment is at odds with his support for statism while in cabinet
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
Monday 15 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian
The Independent's article sanctioning torture is built on logical flaws, grotesque views and a contempt for democracy
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
Sunday 14 February 2010, The Observer
It was great last week to see MPs try to take back control of Westminster from the party machines
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Friday 12 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian
In trying to justify the retention of DNA of innocent people, the Home Office attempted to use the same case study twice
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
Thursday 11 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian
For a newspaper that is consistently against torture, Con Coughlin's vitriolic article about Binyam Mohamed is shocking
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
9 February 2010, The Guardian
Although violent crime is down, the police are increasingly using guns to make bungled, inaccurate and potentially deadly raids
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
February 7 2010, Anna Mundow interviews Henry Porter, Boston Globe
Henry Porter, political columnist for The Observer and UK editor of
Vanity Fair, is the author of five novels including “Brandenburg Gate,”
which was set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Porter’s new novel,
“The Bell Ringers” is a dark counterpoint to that previously optimistic
vision. This superb political thriller depicts England in the near
future as a place where fabricated security threats, state
surveillance, and antiterrorist legislation advance political ambitions
and control. Porter spoke from his home in London.
Read more at The Boston Globe...
|
|
|
Friday 5 February 2010, liberty central blog, Guardian
Despite Francesca Klug's claims, lawyers armed with the Human Rights Act are not enough to defend our freedoms
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|
February 1, 2010, By Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
English journalist Henry Porter's "The Bell Ringers" (published in England last year as "The Dying Light") is one of many novels that have attempted to update "Nineteen Eighty-Four" -- and one of the more impressive. But while Orwell offered a worst-case scenario of what could happen 35 years in the future, Porter is writing about what, as he sees it, is already starting to happen... This
is a sophisticated, engrossing and important political thriller. Porter
wants us to see that the same technological tools that can be used to
fight terrorism or to make government more efficient can also, in the
wrong hands, be used to destroy freedom.
Read more at The Washington Post...
|
|
|
Monday 1 February 2010, liberty central blog, guardian.co.uk
Encouraged by terror laws, the authorities are increasingly using surveillance techniques in trivial circumstances
Read more at the guardian website...
|
|
|