Civil Contingencies Bill - UK's Patriot Act

On 15th September the amended 'Civil Contingencies Bill' will again be placed before the UK parliament. Many commentators are fearful that the enactment of this bill will enable politicians to make decisions unchecked relating to the personal freedoms of the British public.

Following quotes taken from Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 5/9/4 -

Only in Part Two, after 13 pages, does the truly extraordinary nature of this legislation suddenly explode off the page, as Section 21 sets out the powers it will give to a tiny group of ministers and "regional co-ordinators" in the event of an emergency being declared.

The conditions for this could hardly be more loosely or widely defined, including anything from a terrorist incident to flooding, a chemical spill or a recurrence of foot and mouth.

In any such instance, senior ministers (including whips) will be given virtually unlimited powers to do anything they think fit, virtually without parliamentary control. They will be empowered to "disapply" any law or act of Parliament they choose, simply by issuing regulations.

They will be permitted to order any person or body to go anywhere, or to "perform any function"; to forbid any travel or movement; to order the requisition, confiscation or destruction of any property (with or without compensation); and to prohibit any assemblies of persons, however small.

Full Article


Following quote taken from The Freedom Association

This bill enables the Government to declare a State of Emergency on trivial or "threatened" events (e.g. an oil slick, threatened "damage to property", threatened "destruction of plant life", threatened "disruption of a supply of money"). Neither the Second World War nor IRA terrorism brought about such draconian legislation.

This final quote was taken from the Statewatch website -

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"The draft Bill would have allowed the imposition of an authoritarian state. The new Bill is only better in that it paves the road to an authoritarian state. The government is really naive if it thinks people will not read the fine print of the new Bill and realise that it has preserved nearly all the powers it originally proposed - albeit in a different form - and added new contentious provisions which were not in the first draft"

This bill has received very little press coverage in the British media (however the BBC do have an article here).

As has been noted, in the wrong hands this could seriously curtail our civil liberties. Only time will tell I suppose.






[edit on 5-9-2004 by KhieuSamphan]