Vicar's Letter - our changing world

A while ago, as you doubtless all remember, I quoted Andrew Marr’s observation that, after the passing of the anti-terrorist legislation just before the election, England had changed – perhaps imperceptibly in the immediate aftermath, but fundamentally, none-the-less.

It now seems that the legislation for identity cards will be introduced and with a bit of arm-twisting, it, too, will reach the statute book.  Last time, I reflected that the legislation may have been a necessary response to the perceived threat, but that we should be full aware of the direction in which the government was leading us for our own safety.  I also suggested that you would not want to be the person who had impeded the legislation the day after a bomb exploded.

The terrorists have now struck and although, by the Home Secretary’s own admission neither the detention laws nor identity cards would have done anything to prevent those terrible events, they have, doubtless, provided an impetus towards the passing of yet more curtailment of what we used to consider our inalienable civil liberties.  As before, on balance, this may be the correct course of action, but we should be clear where we are going.

The proponents of identity cards, or at least some of them, suggest that those who have nothing to hide having nothing to fear from their introduction; however, the accidental shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, sheds a new light on that perspective.

The revelation that the police have, for a number of years being operating a “shoot to kill” or “shoot to protect” policy with regard to suicide bombers will have come as a surprise to some of us who remember the outfall after the shooting of a member of the IRA on Gibraltar.  None-the-less, given the received wisdom that a majority of people in this country is in favour of restoring the death penalty, a similar number if not more are likely to be supportive of this policy.

Again, in some ways at least, the case for such an approach is unanswerable.  Would you rather one man, intent, anyway, on killing himself should die than that he be permitted to continue his murderous odyssey of taking tens, if not hundreds of others with him?  I know what my answer would be if I or anyone I know should be on the train, bus or aeroplane concerned.

However, if, as we might well, we accept the legitimacy of such a policy, we should also realize that it has ramifications.  We might hope that the person with nothing to hide might have nothing to fear, given the care with which, presumably the police operate: though the train-driver had a pretty frightening experience as he tried to flee the danger – but he is still alive.

Jean Charles de Menezes, on the other hand, was not a wholly innocent bystander.  His residency here was, it seems, irregular, which made him wary of police interest.  In reacting as he did, he inadvertently strayed into a game with much higher stakes and lost … his life.  Illegal immigration may be a matter of intense domestic political debate, but nobody has ever suggested that we should execute those whose residency here is illegitimate and it would be extraordinary if they did.

We, therefore, hit upon a problem.  Even if it is true that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear – what of those who have something to hide, but for whom the potential sanction is disproportionate to the misdemeanour.

Of course, identity cards, of themselves certainly, do not carry the risk of execution (though one can foresee the circumstances when stolen identities could create the necessary confusion); but, still their potential for intrusion into what should be private may be a disproportionate response to the problem.

You will often hear people say that they have nothing to hide; but many, perhaps most people have aspects of their lives, which they would prefer to remain private.  They may or may not include illegality.  The capacity of the state to build up detailed knowledge of the daily affairs of the subjects of this nation raises at least the possibility that we shall be vulnerable to the state being in a position to pressurise and manipulate us in all sorts of ways.

The attacks on the London transport system have completely changed the backdrop against which we have these discussions; but one thing is certain.  The bold assertions that we would not give into the terrorists were in part a piece of ephemeral bravado.  Over the next few months we shall all sacrifice some more of our freedoms in the hope of strengthening the protection of life and limb.  The balance between civil liberties and necessary security measures of which Pauline Neville-Jones spoke in the aftermath of the first attack, is tilting towards the demands of safety.

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