You have the right to remain silent: the war on our civil liberties

When Jacqueline Maitland was arrested at a peaceful protest against ID cards this year, it was at the behest of the Home Office. Bundled into a police car and locked in a cell, her fingerprints were taken, along with a DNA sample she was given no explanation for. Her associate Charlie was not allowed to use the telephone to arrange for her children to be picked up from school, and despite police telling Jacqueline she and her colleagues were ‘obviously not dangerous’, her four-year old son was separated from her for the full six hours’ detainment period.

Welcome to modern Britain, where the fundamental freedoms set out in the 1950 European Convention of Human Rights have been steadily and systematically dismantled since New Labour came to power: freedom from torture, freedom of speech and expression, freedom to assemble, freedom to a fair trial, and freedom to privacy. Then there’s Habeas Corpus, the idea of being innocent until proven guilty: a legal civil liberty since 1679, nullified in the blink of an eye by the 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Big Brother is watching your child

The government´s latest plans appear to have been inspired by the film Minority Report, where potential criminals are arrested before they commit a crime.

Imagine the scene: a group of three year olds sit cross-legged on the carpet, clapping their hands and singing along merrily to ‘the little red robin’. That morning they have all painted a picture for their parents and played hopscotch in the yard outside.

Suddenly, a government official marches through the door and seizes a handful of these innocent pre-schoolers to take directly to the Youth Justice Board for questioning, before they are put on a ‘monitoring’ programme for the rest of their lives. Their crime? Well, we don’t know yet. But they might have been a little disruptive during assembly, or perhaps they come from a single parent family, or have an uncle who breeds pit bull terriers. Far fetched? I think not.

This week the Government has come up with its most preposterous proposal yet: screening children for pre-crimes.