Peers hand Blair a defeat on new anti

Jill St. Claire's HomelandSecurityUS.NET

Peers hand Blair a defeat on new anti-terror bill

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

LONDON: British prime minister Tony Blair's government has suffered a humiliating defeat on a controversial anti-terrorism law that sought extensive powers for politicians to order indefinite compulsory house arrest, curfew and electronic tagging of suspected terrorists.

hing defeat on Monday for the British government in the Lords came 72 hours before the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings and even as Blair's administration argued that an unprecedented political curtailment of civil liberties was necessary to meet the increased terrorist threat across Europe, post-9/11.<br> <br> The law originally proposed to bypass judicial opinion in favour of mere political suspicions about suspected terrorists. But the Lords, including Blair's own Labour peers, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and unprecedentedly, Blair's oldest, closest and dearest friend, ally and mentor, Lord Irvine, backed an opposition amendment to give the courts rather than the British home secretary the ability to compulsorily detain suspected terrorists.<br> <br> Had the law been approved, it would've made Britain the first European country to arrogate to itself unprecedented peacetime powers to lock up British and foreign nationals without needing prior judicial approval.<br> <br> The Lords demanded higher standards of proof before any individual - British or foreign - was compulsorily detained.</font></b></p> <p> </p>   </td></tr></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td>  <p> </p> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="google_window"> <table border="0" bgcolor="#000000" width="665" height="91"> <tr><td valign="top" align="left" height="23" width="657" bgcolor="#CC0000"> <p align="center"> <br/><input type="hidden" name="domains" value="www.homelandsecurityus.net"> <input type="text" name="q" size="36" maxlength="255" value="" id="sbi"> </p> </td></tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#333366" align="center" width="657" height="60"> <table> <tr> <td> <font face="Arial"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" checked id="ss0"> <label for="ss0" title="Search the Web"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1">Web</font></b></label></font></td> <td> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="www.homelandsecurityus.net" id="ss1"><b> <label for="ss1" title="Search www.homelandsecurityus.net"><font color="#ffffff" face="Arial" size="1">www.HomelandSecurityUS.<i>NET</i></font></label></b></td> </tr> </table> <label style="display: none" for="sbb0"><font color="#FFFFFF">    </font></label> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Google Search" id="sbb"> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-9969881367422001"> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1"> <b><a href="http://www.homelandsecurityus.net"><font color="#FFFFFF">HOME</font></a></b><font face="Arial" size="1"> </font> <p> <i><b><font face="Arial" size="1"><font color="#FFFFFF">©2003-2008 All Rights Reserved Jill St. Clare's HomelandSecurityUS.NET<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1"> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#9A2C06;GL:1;DIV:#33FFFF;VLC:333333;AH:center;BGC:99CCFF;LBGC:CCE5F9;ALC:440066;LC:440066;T:336699;GFNT:223472;GIMP:223472;FORID:1"> </font> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en"></font></b></i> </td></tr></table> </form>  <p> </p> </td></tr></table></body> </html>

Peers hand Blair a defeat on new anti-terror bill

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL TIMES NEWS NETWORK

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL

TIMES NEWS NETWORK