Parliament was deadlocked for almost two days over the bill, which will apply to both foreign nationals and Britons.
The Conservatives said it would infringe on civil liberties and had demanded a ``sunset clause'' that would cause the law to expire after a year. The government refused, saying such an amendment would send a message that Britain was soft on terrorism
After more than 30 hours of tense political debate in the House of Commons and House of Lords, the government produced a timetable for Parliament to review and amend the law and promised lawmakers time to draft more wide-ranging legislation later this year.
The concession was sufficient for both sides to back down gracefully and claim victory.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4858732,00.htmlThe other amendment the opposition parties were trying to get through was about the standard of evidence required; on this, the Tories gave in to the government, so it didn't pass:
The second amendment related to the process for the granting of control orders. We said that, firstly, the standard of proof required for someone to be deprived of their liberties and restricted with a control order should be stronger – a test of 'the balance of probabilities' rather than merely the Home Secretary’s 'reasonable suspicion'. And, secondly, we said that non-derogating (lower) control orders (e.g. tagging) should have to be granted by a judge and not a minister. (The Bill simply requires judicial approval after the event.)
...
On the question of the standard of proof required for control orders, and all control orders being granted by a judge, our disagreement with the government remains. We have taken a robust line on this. We have been assured that the government's own review will directly consider this issue. However we did not regard that as sufficient and continued to press this case to the very last, pushing it to the vote once again. Sadly the Conservatives were not so robust and backed down on this issue, so we lost the vote on this.
We will return to this issue under the new timetable and procedures the Government has now conceded.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/story.html?id=8352&navPage=news.htmlWe've still lost civil liberties in the UK. People can be put under house arrest (albeit by a judge) without necessarily knowing what the evidence aginst them is (and thus they may not know how to defend themselves), and with just a 'reasonable suspicion' - about the standard currently needed to arrest someone, or tap their phone. And it's going to be like that for at least a year.
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