The “War On Terrorism” has cost us our Freedom

After the 9/11 attacks on New York we all remember George Bush announcing that the War on Terror will fight for “freedom”. It has now been 7 years of “fighting for our freedom” and any idiot (who isn’t in the Government of the UK or the USA of course!) will tell you its a load of bullshit. The threat of terrorism has resulted in lots of new laws and offensives. An example of this is the Patriot Act in the US, the 42-day detention in the UK, the fingerprints been taken at US airports and the EU sending data about EU citizens to the US who are flying to the USA (the so called, Land Of The Free!). This is of course to build up intelligence on terrorist suspect but it means the majority of data gathered is that of innocent people going to the US for holiday or a business trip. In the UK the expansion of the CCTV network, the stop and search policy that allows police to stop anyone in the street and search them. Recently the police announced that the number of people stopped and searched increased by 9% to nearly a million people!

Terrorist laws have been used for more than just tackling terrorism, local councils have been found to be using anti-terrorism laws to monitor people who have tried to get there child into a different school by using questionable methods, or even for not picking up dog mess. This is why a growing majority are against terrorism laws as they can be exploited so easily by power-hungry officials. Councils do appear to be the worst offenders of exploiting these laws. It might be because of a lack of understanding of the laws or maybe because councils are a quite power hungry.

What is the point in the War In Terrorism if its actually making our freedom WORSE. I do not support the war on terrorism in its current form, its not protecting our freedom but is actually deteriorating our freedoms. In modern times no new freedoms have been given back to the people but just taking away the freedom that our ancestors fought so hard for.

Recently David Davis won a by election, triggered by his surprise resignation to debate the issue of 42-days detention and others civil liberties issues. David Davis has managed to highlight the issue of civil liberties and maybe show to people who have not really thought about civil liberties that the current governments policies are destroying our freedoms.

However, how long this will continue is unknown, Labour Parties support has slumped and both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are against policies such as 42-days, ID Cards. It is very unlikely that Labour will win the next general election, however the next election is not expected until 2010 (the idea of a 2009 election has been proposed but Brown will most likely old on to power for longer). Will this see an improvements in our freedoms? Or is it just vote grabbing?