42 Days

 

I am not in favour of detention of suspects for 42 days, as it is only one step before Detention Without Trial and we all know that methods like that when used in Ulster, were the best Recruiting Sergeant the IRA ever had.

It is often said by those in favour, that cases are getting more complex and this time limit is needed to break computer codes and unscramble networks. As someone, who has been involved in computing for well over forty years, this is a fallacious argument as computer methods and power have improved many times in recent years. Perhaps, they really aren’t using the best people, hardware and software methods.

Has anybody from an external agency ever audited the computing of the Security Services and the Police?

42 days is just pandering to those who feel that any method is justified when fighting terrorism and that includes torture, unlimited detention and expulsion back to where suspects have never lived.

We must if anything reduce the 30 days back to the average of the civilised world and try to understand what creates terrorists, rather than aid their recruitment.

My biggest worry is that technology is moving on. When I travel, I don’t carry a laptop as I don’t normally have a need. In future I might well copy a my complete PC on to a thumbnail-sized 16Gb SD-HC card and all I would need to do to run it, is just pop it into any suitable PC. No trace of my Internet access or my work would be left on the machine. This technology means that examining hard discs becomes irrelevant and if you want to erase the SD-HC card, you just put it in a microwave.

What measures do the Security Services have to combat this and other methods that could on the one hand be used for convenience by any traveller and on the other for nefarious purposes by criminals and terrorists?