Oh dear ... 90 days interment

Brown has disappointed already: macho posturing which is dangerous for civil liberties: interment in Northern Ireland while I was growing up actually made things worse as it increased the 'gripe' against British rule among the nationalist community. Now, there does appear to be a justification, however, there is an acknowledgement that there are civil liberties issues and so ...

The Chancellor believes it is possible to win support for increasing the 28-day limit if there is stronger judicial oversight of any decisions to extend an individual's detention on a week-by-week basis and an annual report to parliament on the use of the powers. But Brown believes there is a need to extend detention because of the volume of international evidence which accrues in such investigations, most of which can be difficult to obtain from computers.

Personally I think that it might concentrate minds if part of the proposal was to compensate suspects for loss of earnings and esteem and to do so from the wages/salaries of the officers in charge and government ministers in oversight if they are subsequently released without charge -or that those responsible have to serve time in detention (or better: hours of service to the community of the suspect) equivalent to the loss of liberty.

Brown sets out plan for tough new terror laws | Politics | The Observer