Petition: Support the Freedom Bill

The Liberal Party is in the process of creating a new bill to present to Parliament to make as a new act of law in the UK called the "Freedom Bill". The topics and themes this bill covers should be of interest to any UK citizen, of whatever political persuasion, and, I recommend, you should not be regarded as a partisan issue.

In the last twenty years we have witnessed the steady erosion of civil liberties in Britain. One by one, our once treasured freedoms have been stripped away. A country that once prided itself on being free is now undermining the most basic rights of its citizens. The state has triumphed over the individual with scant regard for privacy and liberty... [Recent] Governments have passed laws that are turning the UK into an oppressive, surveillance state.

...Some of the changes detailed here may seem small in themselves but taken together they cumulate to a colossal loss of personal freedom in less than two decades... Our forebears who fought so hard for the rights we have had stripped away would be shocked at what we’ve lost.

...This draft Bill is the first time a major political party has brought all of the laws which have undermined civil liberties together in one piece of legislation so that they can be easily repealed. We have called it the Freedom Bill because if the measures within it were all repealed it would represent the greatest victory for freedom in Britain in the last twenty years.

The full details are at The Freedom Bill.

The first draft of the list of freedoms this Bill is meant to bring back include:

• Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
• Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
• Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
• Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
• Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
• Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
• Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
• Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
• Stop criminalising trespass.
• Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
• Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
• Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
• Prevent bailiffs from using force.
• Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
• Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
• Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
• Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
• Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
• Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
• Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.

If you have issues with any of these then get involved. I endorse the overall substance of such a Bill and if you do too, regardless of your political affiliation, please sign the petition.