By Shami Chackrabarti, the director of Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties) (THE GUARDIAN, 12/08/06):
Dear home secretary:
Trust me, I really do get it. We face a significant terrorist threat from an international network that feeds on division, distrust, real and perceived injustice, and converts it into suicide and murder. You see the intelligence and hear "the chatter" on a daily basis. You carry responsibility for protecting lives and democratic institutions. You field criticism for domestic and foreign policy, and periodic opposition to particular measures which some think counter-productive . But don't make the mistake of confusing scrutiny with complacency or treachery. As the prime minister suggested in California, both praise and criticism of leadership should be looked upon "with a very searching eye".
You have sat in the greatest department of state for 100 days. Whether you stay there for 100 or 1,000 more, you are unlikely to do or say anything more important than your call for tolerance, resilience and solidarity yesterday. I believe that at times of great difficulty rhetoric can either unite or divide its recipients. Sometimes legislation becomes rhetoric on stilts, and at the Home Office hyperactivity can be as grave a danger as inaction. A deep breath and a calm voice might be a better prescription than the arbitrary deportation and legislative lock-down already demanded by parts of the press.
A devastating human-rights atrocity may have been prevented, not by political debate and new legislation but by intelligence-gathering and policing. I have little doubt that while the suspects are said to be British Muslims, much of the intelligence must also have come from Muslims. This kind of courage can only be built on if you are unequivocal in protecting the suspected, the innocent and even the guilty from the baying mob.
If some of that intelligence is converted into evidence and fair trials, innocent members of minorities who have been made weary, afraid and even sceptical by less successful operations may grow a little more trusting. That's why it was so important that Peter Clarke of the Metropolitan police spoke of focusing on the criminal process and saying nothing to prejudice fair trials.
This week, as the airport operation followed hard upon your immigration and national security speech, people remarked upon the "conveniently coincidental timing". We now know there to be no coincidence. You will have known of the suspected plot and planned operation for some time. Yet surely this degree of scepticism requires real reflection on how to rebuild trust in intelligence and government. Few expect a complete volte-face on hotly contested policies, but generosity and humility in the face of democratic dissent might be a good start in promoting the value of debate over destruction.
On Thursday you spoke of a unity of purpose that you share with your political shadows. Whatever the differences on details of policy, surely there is no reason for that not to continue? A good example was the largely overlooked counterterror report of the all-party joint parliamentary committee on human rights a couple of weeks ago. The committee took time and care in preparing its recommendation that the law-enforcement approach is the best defence against the terrorist threat. It advocates involving prosecutors earlier, bringing charges and facilitating fair trials in preference to long periods of pre-charge detention. It joins Liberty and the Met in calling for intercepted material to be admissible in trials. Above all, it speaks of the often false choice between liberty and security, of the dangers of counterproductivity in the rush to the statute book and of a human-rights framework that contains careful balances between values of protection, freedom, equal treatment and justice.
I know that you have not always been the greatest fan of human-rights instruments, or of the lawyers who seek to apply them. But if you can reach out to political opponents and demonised minorities, I suggest you might find language that achieves a solidarity with the legal community as well.
I was interested in your comments on Wednesday that the convention on human rights was designed in another age as a defence against fascist states rather than fascist individuals. But let me ask how it squares with your belief in "our values" and the prime minister's stark choice between "open and closed" societies. We must not allow opponents to paint open societies as decadent pits of binge-drinking moral relativism where anything goes. Human rights are not mere laws but the ultimate values of dignity, equality and fairness that preserve and inspire the openness and modernity you defend.