Defeating terror may mean giving up rights, MI5 warns

September 10, 2005

Defeating terror may mean giving up rights, MI5 warns
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor



THE head of MI5 has publicly backed Tony Blair’s warning that the rules of how Britain combats the threat of terrorism have to change.

In a break with tradition, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, Director-General of MI5, allowed a confidential speech that she had given to Dutch intelligence officers to be published on the agency’s website yesterday. She gave a warning that an erosion of civil liberties might be necessary to stop more British citizens from being killed by terrorists.

Her intervention will provide ammunition for the Prime Minister and Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, in their battle with the courts over dealing with suspected terrorists. It will also bolster the Government’s struggle to introduce rules to make it easier to deport foreign preachers of hate.

The arrests of radical clerics, promised by Mr Clarke, have been delayed, and European ministers at an anti-terrorism conference in Newcastle this week frustrated his plan to store mobile phone records for a year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1773239,00.html

:sarcasm:

eom

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety ...

n/t

Despite eroding civil liberties to "protect" the people, there is no 100% guarantee that such a strategy will work. And even if there was assurance that this will always prevent terrorists from attacking, I still wouldn't agree with it!

-VI

To my British friends, be afraid, be very afraid. This is NOT what you want to become!

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

fact that one of our founding forefathers said it was a bad idea to do that.

The terrorists are winning.

... will find themselves with neither.

Don

this is purely another government 'Trojan Horse' piece of legislation with far reaching ulterior motives. How stupid can we all be to allow this to happen across the world.

for concealing 9/11 intelligence or fabricating Poodle's WMD fantasies.......

Powell admits his Iraq WMD claim is 'painful blot'
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 10/09/2005)

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who told the United Nations that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction, said yesterday that the assertion will always be a "painfulblot" on his record.


‘Reluctant warrior’: Colin Powell with George W Bush
During a lengthy television interview with Barbara Walters, the doyen of the serious interview, Mr Powell tried to explain how the West had made mistakes in the run-up to war.

Asked whether the statement about WMD tarnished his reputation, the former general responded: "Of course it will. It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

The soldier-statesman made a dramatic and detailed presentation to the UN security council a month before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It relied on the extensive use of intelligence material which later turned out to be inaccurate.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/10/wirq10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/10/ixnewstop.html

July 7 was a shock but no surprise, says head of MI5
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 10/09/2005)

MI5 was "shocked but not surprised" by the July terrorist attacks in London, the head of the security service said in her first public comment since the atrocity that killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers.


Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director-general, confirmed that a parliamentary committee was to carry out a review of whether MI5 could have done more to prevent the attacks or had missed any intelligence about their planning.

But she said: "No one in government nor, to be fair, in the media immediately rushed to the presumption that the attacks were our fault and the public has bombarded our website with messages of support."

Dame Eliza gave her assessment of the bombings in a speech this month to intelligence chiefs in The Netherlands. The text was posted on MI5's website yesterday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/10/nterr10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/10/ixhome.html