Gordon Brown: Arbeit Macht Frei

Below is the text of Gordon Brown’s speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research, in which he pretends to be protecting civil liberties by, er, taking them away.

It’s a great pleasure to be here today with Jacqui Smith and members of the IPPR Security Commission - a non-partisan and highly-experienced body whose work I commend - to discuss the new challenges we all face, indeed one of the greatest challenges of the modern world: how in the face of global terrorism and organised crime we can best ensure the security, safety and liberties of the British people.

The modern security challenge is defined by new and unprecedented threats: terrorism; global organised crime; organised drug trafficking and people trafficking. This is the new world in which government must work out how it best discharges its duty to protect people.

New technology is giving us modern means by which we can discharge these duties. But, as I will also suggest today, just as we need to employ these modern means to protect people from new threats, we must at the same time do more to guarantee our liberties. And, facing these modern challenges, it is our duty to write a new chapter in our country’s story - one in which we protect and promote both our security and our liberty - two equally proud traditions.

The IPPR review starts where I start: that we must understand the changing world we live in - and the unprecedented changes in scope and scale of the security threat.  Indeed when people look back at the history of the first decade of the twenty first century, they will see it as a period of new and fast changing threats.

First September 11th, then Bali, then Madrid, and then the London bombings in July three years ago when I remember how - in the face of the worst terrorist attacks in our history, with British-born suicide bombers killing and maiming their fellow citizens - the British people, our police and security and emergency services, facing this new challenge, stood as one.

We also remember how, in the face of simultaneous terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow a year ago, we again saluted the bravery of the police, security services and the public.

And it should not be forgotten that even today, the security service estimate there are at least 2000 known terrorist suspects, 200 organised networks and 30 current plots.

These are not remote or hypothetical threats.  They are, sadly, part of today’s reality.

And whilst terrorism is the most dramatic new threat, there are other, new security issues that also help define the modern world.

Organised crime has changed beyond recognition from the days of the Krays: no longer confined to a neighbourhood or even a city, but involving networks spanning the world - threatening lives and feeding conflict and instability.

Drug trafficking too is an ever more sophisticated international business - stretching from the Helmand Valley - where British forces are serving with great courage and distinction to bring order and a chance of progress to this once lawless region - through international networks, to the streets of our own cities.

And so too is organised illegal immigration - a problem faced by the entire developed world - which we see at its worst in the callous contempt for life of people traffickers who smuggle women and children across the globe for sexual exploitation.

Today, while in many ways we are more secure as a country than at most times in our history, people are understandably fearful that they may become victims of terrorist attack. While overall crime is a third lower than ten years ago, people are understandably fearful of guns or knives on our streets. And while our border controls are stronger than ever, with more countries subject to visa requirements and 100 per cent of those visas based on fingerprints, with instant checks against watch lists - still people are understandably fearful about people traffickers or illegal workers. These are new threats, they are real concerns. People feel less safe and less secure as a result, and I understand that.

All these new challenges reflect the modern world - a world more interconnected and interdependent, with travel faster and cheaper than ever before, and the flow of goods and ideas around the world almost instantaneous. These are, of course, great positive changes, empowering individuals and creating new opportunities. But they also create new challenges for our security. The internet, a revolutionary force for change and opportunity, is also used to hateful ends by terrorists and criminals.

And in this new world of crime and threats to our security, it is not just the power of the state that has to be checked and about which we have to be vigilant: it is also the power of individuals and organisations to cause terrible damage that requires us to act and be vigilant too.

I believe that the tools we have to deal with organised crime must be proportionate to the damage done. But these new risks to our security - no respecters of traditional laws or borders, and more complex and global than ever before - cannot solely be managed by the old, tried methods and approaches.

It could be said that for too long we have used nineteenth century means to solve twenty first century problems. Instead we must have twenty first century methods to deal with twenty first century challenges.

So I want to focus today on the use of modern technology in fighting crime and protecting our borders - and focus on the argument that new laws or new technologies threaten the rights of the individual.

Put it this way: while the old world was one where we could use only fingerprints, now we have the technology of DNA.

While the old world relied on the eyes of a policeman out on patrol, today we also have the back-up of CCTV.

While the old world used only photographs to identify people, now we have biometrics.

Of course all these new technologies raise new problems and I will discuss them today.  But the answer is not to reject the new 21st century means of detecting and preventing crime - but to simultaneously adopt the new technologies where they can help - and to strengthen the protection of the individual:

·       never subjecting the citizen to arbitrary treatment,

·       always respecting basic rights and freedoms,

·       and, wherever new action is needed, matching it with stronger safeguards and more transparency and scrutiny.

So the question is how - at one and the same time - we can ensure we give no quarter to terrorism and organised crime, while still advancing the liberties our society is founded upon.

And there is, in my view, a British way of meeting this challenge. The British way cannot be a head-in-the-sand approach that ignores the fact that the world has changed with the advent of terrorism which aims for civilian casualties on a massive scale and which respects not only no law, but also no recognisable moral framework. 

Instead, it must be an approach that is prepared to make the difficult decisions to protect our security - not by ignoring the demands of liberty but always at the same time doing everything we can to protect the individual from unfair or arbitrary treatment. This is the driving force behind the proposals the Government is bringing forward - including the counter-terrorism provisions we asked Parliament to approve last week.  And we don’t suggest these changes to be tough or populist - but because we believe they are necessary.

Let us turn first to the issue of terrorism legislation, and in particular detention before charge. There are two key respects in which the terrorist threat has changed:

·       the threat of suicide attacks without warning and mass casualties, requiring the police and security services to intervene earlier to avert tragedy, but without necessarily having the evidence to charge,

·       the increasing complexity of plots - with many thousands of exhibits having to be examined, far in excess of IRA investigations in the past - and networks spanning the globe, requiring days and weeks to pursue and unravel.

These are the arguments which led us to propose a procedure under which in only the rarest circumstances - a grave and exceptional terrorist threat - detention before charge could be extended from 28 to 42 days.

And I believe that people do appreciate the complexity of the issue - and recognise that the way in which we balance the need to maintain our security with the need to safeguard our basic freedoms must be renewed in a changing world.

For just as it is difficult to argue that the terrorist threat has not changed, it is also difficult to claim that this change is not serious enough to justify change in our laws. The challenge - as I said when I backed the case for longer pre charge detention in 2006 - is how to match a change in our laws with stronger safeguards, so we protect both the civil liberties of the individual and the security needs of all individuals. But I stress the central point: the safeguards cannot lie in measures that make it impossible for the police to complete an investigation into terrorist activities - something which would in the end harm all our civil liberties - but must lie instead in ensuring that the civil liberties of a person detained are protected by clear rules and by proper accountability.

I argued then, and I believe now, that by preserving the primacy of the courts, backed up by proper oversight and, in the end, Parliamentary scrutiny, we can achieve a settlement that ensures both our tradition of liberty and our need for security. These protections include oversight by the judiciary, Parliamentary scrutiny, an independent review process, and independent legal advice for Parliament.

The debate rightly focused on the role of Parliament - the requirement for Parliament within seven days to approve the declaration of exceptional circumstances - just as Parliament must also approve each year the extension of the existing 28 day limit, a decision it will face this week.  But this important debate should not lead us to overlook the continuing role of the judiciary. It remains true under our proposals that no person could be held in pre charge detention without the agreement every seven days of a senior judge - completely independent of the executive. And I will never - neither here nor in any other