UK's Clegg vows civil liberties protections
Source: Agencies |
May 21, 2010, Friday
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BRITAIN'S new deputy prime minister has pledged to lead a sweeping drive to protect civil liberties - curbing official surveillance and data collection by scrapping an unpopular national identity card program, limiting the retention of DNA profiles and regulating the spread of closed-circuit TV cameras.
Nick Clegg said yesterday the coalition government was rolling back government monitoring after years of complaints from rights groups that personal freedoms have been sacrificed in the name of national security.
"This government will end the culture of spying on its citizens," Clegg said during a speech in north London.
"It is outrageous that decent, law-abiding people are regularly treated as if they have something to hide. It has to stop."
He also promised changes to the country's political system - including the right to recall errant lawmakers.
"It is time for a wholesale, big-bang approach to political reform," Clegg said. "And that's what this government will deliver."
The 43-year-old deputy chief, and leader of the Liberal Democrat party, is regarded as having driven a hard bargain on civil liberties in a coalition deal with Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives.
An agreement between the new partners - following Britain's inconclusive election which denied any party a majority - includes almost all of Clegg's party's election pledges on personal freedoms.
Database nixed
Some aspects of British surveillance have served as a model for officials in other nations, such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He visited Britain's capital on a fact-finding mission recently in the wake of the thwarted Times Square bombing, visiting centers where experts monitor a vast network of security cameras.
Under Clegg, a US$7.3 billion plan for national identity cards and a linked database will be halted. The credit-card sized documents were to include biographical data and biometric details like fingerprints and facial images.
Plans for new passports that could store biometric data also will be scrapped, Clegg said.
He pledged to impose a new regulation to restrict the increasing use of closed-circuit TV cameras by local authorities and private businesses.
Dylan Sharpe of Big Brother Watch, a pressure group founded last year, said many plans in Clegg's speech appeared sketchy.
"It's brilliant on big ideas, all of which we are in agreement with, but it's not so strong on the detail," Sharpe said.
Nick Clegg said yesterday the coalition government was rolling back government monitoring after years of complaints from rights groups that personal freedoms have been sacrificed in the name of national security.
"This government will end the culture of spying on its citizens," Clegg said during a speech in north London.
"It is outrageous that decent, law-abiding people are regularly treated as if they have something to hide. It has to stop."
He also promised changes to the country's political system - including the right to recall errant lawmakers.
"It is time for a wholesale, big-bang approach to political reform," Clegg said. "And that's what this government will deliver."
The 43-year-old deputy chief, and leader of the Liberal Democrat party, is regarded as having driven a hard bargain on civil liberties in a coalition deal with Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives.
An agreement between the new partners - following Britain's inconclusive election which denied any party a majority - includes almost all of Clegg's party's election pledges on personal freedoms.
Database nixed
Some aspects of British surveillance have served as a model for officials in other nations, such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He visited Britain's capital on a fact-finding mission recently in the wake of the thwarted Times Square bombing, visiting centers where experts monitor a vast network of security cameras.
Under Clegg, a US$7.3 billion plan for national identity cards and a linked database will be halted. The credit-card sized documents were to include biographical data and biometric details like fingerprints and facial images.
Plans for new passports that could store biometric data also will be scrapped, Clegg said.
He pledged to impose a new regulation to restrict the increasing use of closed-circuit TV cameras by local authorities and private businesses.
Dylan Sharpe of Big Brother Watch, a pressure group founded last year, said many plans in Clegg's speech appeared sketchy.
"It's brilliant on big ideas, all of which we are in agreement with, but it's not so strong on the detail," Sharpe said.
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