The answer to attacks on our civil liberties isn’t to surrender them voluntarily

Three suggestions for good pieces to read about our civil liberties in the face of terrorism…

First, Paddy Ashdown, once again, on the risk of panicking in reaction to terrorism:

If we are to react as we should, then it is as well to remember that what we face is NOT new. And it is not unique and it is not just Islamic and we have been through this before and we should not panic or over-react. Almost every recent generation has had to respond to these kind of phenomenon.

And almost every recent generation has managed to do so without fundamentally undermining our freedoms or setting our societies at war with themselves.

There’s more of this trenchant and well-founded argument in Paddy Ashdown’s full piece.

Second, Henry Porter on what the security services do and don’t need:

Soon after the attacks in Paris last week, the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, said of the jihadi threat: “Whenever we lose visibility of what they are saying to each other, so our ability to understand and mitigate the threat they pose is reduced.”

Few would disagree with this sentiment, or in any way underestimate the enormous responsibility counter-terrorist agencies face after the killings, but the coded suggestion that MI5 needs further sweeping surveillance powers to track down terrorists is more controversial, because it doesn’t take into account the facts.

Read those facts in Henry Porter’s full piece here.

Third, Simon Hughes repeating the Lib Dem opposition to the Snoopers’ Charter:

Future security measures must be proportionate, justified and necessary – and not trample on our civil liberties. The so-called Snoopers’ Charter, which would see the internet browsing of every single citizen stored for a year, fails these very reasonable precautions.

The idea that you protect free speech by spying on every law-abiding person in this country is a contradiction in terms. You can’t have an open society if you are constantly worried that the state is prying into your daily life.

And my own view?