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Guardian/Observer debate: Liberty in peril? |
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Thursday, 3 July 2008, Church House Conference Centre, London
With Henry Porter, David Davis MP, David Aaronovitch and Denis MacShane
MP. Chaired by Georgina Henry.
Listen to the audio...
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David Davis: British freedoms are far more precious than the career of any single politician |
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Monday, June 16 2008, conservativehome.blogs.com
David Davis explains why he resigned to fight a by-election on civil liberty issues, and calls for your support in his campaign.
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David Davis: I will fight the slow strangulation of British freedoms |
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Thursday, June 12 2008, guardian.co.uk
This is the text of the speech delivered by the shadow home secretary, announcing his resignation as an MP over 42-day detention.
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Rizwaan Sabir interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire |
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Wednesday, June 11 2008, 09:09am, Radio Five Live
Victoria Derbyshire interviews MA student Rizwaan Sabir, who was
arrested and detained for six days under the Terrorism Act after
downloading an al-Qaeda training manual from the US Justice Dept website
for use in academic research.
Listen to the interview...
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Jill Kirby: Councils: they’re watching every move she makes |
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June 8, 2008, The Sunday Times
Every week government departments and other authorities are finding new
ways to spy on us - and passing around even our most personal details,
warns Jill Kirby.
Read more...
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CPS Seminar : Who do they think we are? Privacy, the state and the corporation |
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June 4, 2008, Centre for Policy Studies & Microsoft
A seminar hosted by the CPS and Microsoft. Chaired by Simon Jenkins with panel members Nick Herbert MP, Henry Porter, Simon Davies, Jerry Fishenden and Jill Kirby.
Listen to the audio...
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Jill Kirby: Who do they think we are? |
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January 25, 2008, Centre for Policy Studies
The proposed introduction of ID cards for British citizens in 2011 represents only the tip of an iceberg of personal information which the Government is collecting
Read more... | Download PDF...
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Centre for Policy Studies: The 2008 Lexicon |
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December 28, 2007, Centre for Policy Studies
Politicians have always manipulated language, often motivated by the desire to create a sense of activity and purpose and thereby to justify their existence. And the language of bureaucracy has long provided a convenient disguise for government action, or inaction. But New Labour has taken this disguise to new heights.
Read more... | Download PDF...
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Today Programme: Should errant fathers have their passports confiscated? |
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Monday, 24 December 2007, 7.50 am, BBC Radio 4, Today Programme
Errant fathers who refuse to take financial responsibility for their children will have their passports confiscated - that's if the new Child Maintenance Bill, currently going through parliament, reaches the statute book. Lord Lyell is interviewed
Listen with Real Player...
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Today Programme: Where does the balance fall between security and civil liberties? |
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Wednesday, 19 December 2007, 8.37 am, BBC Radio 4, Today Programme
Where does the balance fall between civil liberties and the security of the nation? John Humphrys talks to Henry Porter and Polly Toynbee
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Labour's attack on legal aid |
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Monday, 17 December 2007, The Guardian
I am a solicitor with more than 20
years' involvement in the legal aid sector. What has happened under
Labour is no less than a sustained attack on an independent legal aid
system that was founded by Labour 60 years ago.
Read more...
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Simon Jenkins: In the age of leaky data, there is no such thing as a secure online computer |
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Friday, 7 December 2007, The Guardian
PCs have a multitude of uses, but, as a string of recent scandals illustrate, private information storage is not one of them
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Today Programme: Brighton's council considers a proposal to ban anti-gay lyrics in pubs and clubs |
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Thursday, 6 December 2007, 7.50 am, BBC Radio 4, Today Programme
Brighton and Hove City Council is considering a proposal to stop anti-gay lyrics being sung by rappers in the town's pubs and clubs. Henry Porter and Simon Fanshaw are interviewed.
Listen with Real Player...
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Christina Zaba: Data protection won't help once all the data is gone |
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007, The Guardian
Last week's loss of confidential child benefit records has been a wake-up call to 25 million people about the reality of the government's handling of our personal information. But few realise the extent of what lies ahead
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Rachel Sylvester: Coming next... an even bigger database |
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007, The Daily Telegraph
Gordon Brown used to be known as the Macavity of politics, who was
never at the scene of the crime when things went wrong. Now he is in
danger of turning into TS Eliot's other feline creations, Mungojerrie
and Rumpelteazer, who get the blame for every misfortune that occurs,
whether or not it is their fault.
Read more...
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Ben Goldacre: Now for ID cards - and the biometric blues |
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Saturday, 24 November 2007, The Guardian
So will biometrics prevent ID theft? Well, it might make it more
difficult for you to prove your innocence. And once your fingerprints
are stolen, they are harder to replace than your pin number.
Read more...
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Jenni Russell: Even if you've got nothing to hide, there's plenty to fear |
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007, The Guardian
The blithe trust in the benign power of the state is astonishing - and in Fortress Britain, it is plainly undeserved
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Rod Liddle: Free speech and the ‘lyrical terrorist’ |
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007, The Spectator
The 28 days debate is a red herring compared to this attack on free speech
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Today Programme: How much should we change our laws in response to the terror threat? |
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Monday, 19 November 2007, Today Programme, BBC Radio 4
Henry Porter and Matthew D'Ancona interviewed for Radio 4's Today Programme.
Listen with Real Player...
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Simon Jenkins: It’s one small step from Brown’s paranoid state into a police one |
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Sunday, 18 November 2007, The Sunday Times
Britain is not a police state but a nation with police state tendencies. In any democracy the dictates of freedom wrestle with those of security. Britons are a liberal people who want to be safe. Do they also want to live in a condition of perpetual paranoia?
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Peter Hitchens: Mussolini would have blushed at these laws, Mr Brown |
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Saturday,17 November 2007, The Daily Mail
I've thought for years that I would end up in jail for some offence against political correctness. I have almost got used to the idea of spending my declining years
writing love-letters for skinhead thugs, eating slop with plastic
cutlery and pushing the library trolley from cell to cell.
Read more...
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Janice Turner: Fortress Britain, a grotesque thought |
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Saturday, 17 November 2007, The Times
We face overzealous security in our daily lives, and are governed by a Prime Minister in a flap
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Timothy Garton Ash: The threat from terrorism does not justify slicing away our freedoms |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007, The Guardian
Britain is now one of the world's most spied-upon societies, where such ancient rights as habeas corpus are hacked to bits
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Fortress Britain and a gift to terrorists |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007, The Daily Mail
As if it's not difficult enough to get through our airports already, foreign travel is about to get even more exasperating
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Frank Rich: The Coup at Home |
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Sunday, 11 November 2007, New York Times
In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our
democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble
the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like
Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to
democracy-lite...
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Philip Johnston: Why I am prepared to break the law |
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Monday, 12 November 2007, The Telegraph
On the issue of ID cards, I would find myself in the dock with, among many others, Shirley Williams, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, three leading Liberal Democrats who have said they will refuse to co-operate with the scheme because it is an unwarranted infringement of liberty.
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AC Grayling: Walls to have ears |
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Monday, 6 November 2007, The Guardian CiF
We are already a over-surveilled society: new measures to add microphones to CCTV cameras are a quantum step in the wrong direction
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A C Grayling: Brown's bona fides |
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Monday, 29 October 2007, The Guardian
The real test of whether the prime minister is a sincere defender of civil liberties remains ID cards
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Simon Jenkins: You’re better safe than free - the mantra of the Whitehall Taliban |
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Sunday, 21 October 2007, The Times
How much did you drink last week? In Harrogate 26.4% of you had between
12 and 17 “large” glasses of wine (depending on your sex), in Mole
Valley 25.5% of you did, and in Leeds 25.3%. Don’t ask me how the
government knows this. It apparently wants to “target middle-class
drinkers”. Public money must be squandered, so why not measure the
nation’s drinking habits?
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John Kampfner: Labour's steady path to authoritarianism |
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Friday, 19 October 2007, The Telegraph
Oppositions challenge power, governments hoard it. Pre-1997, Labour proclaimed its commitment to civil liberties. ... The issue of liberty cuts across all parties. Labour's steady path to
authoritarianism is a matter of shame for anyone such as myself. It
also presents a tailor-made opportunity for its political opponents,
one that they should have the courage to pursue.
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Peter Tatchell interviews Henry Porter |
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Friday, 19 October 2007, Talking with Tatchell, 18 Doughty Street.com
Civil liberties are being eroded on a scale unprecedented in peacetime.
In this 30 minute interview Henry Porter and Peter Tatchell discuss how
Britain's New Labour government is undermining the rights of the
individual and strengthening the power of the state.
Watch Talking with Tatchell : Labour's subversion of Liberty...
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Peter Oborne: Magna Carta 2007 - an updated version to protect us from an overweening State |
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Wednesday, 27 September 2007, Daily Mail
Today, the growth of the State intrudes everywhere upon our lives and our
liberties. We must set boundaries now, or our ancient freedoms - the
very things which define us as British - will be lost for ever.
Read more...
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John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: The Israel Lobby |
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23 March 2006, London Review of Books
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world.
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