Tracing Plots, British Watch, Then Pounce --NYT

[spindrifter]

By PHILIP SHENON and NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: August 13, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 — The disclosure that British officials conducted months of surveillance before arresting 24 terrorism suspects this week highlighted what many terrorism specialists said was a central difference between American and British law enforcement agencies.

<snip>

The differences in counterterrorism strategy reflect an important distinction between the legal systems of the United States and Britain and their definitions of civil liberties, with MI5 and British police agencies given far greater authority in general than their American counterparts to conduct domestic surveillance and detain terrorism suspects.

Britain’s newly revised terrorism laws permit the detention of suspects for 28 days without charge. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government had been pressing for 90 days, but Parliament blocked the proposal. In the United States, suspects must be brought before a judge as soon as possible, which courts have interpreted to mean within 48 hours. Law enforcement officials have detained some terrorism suspects designated material witnesses for far longer. (The United States has also taken into custody overseas several hundred people suspected of terrorist activity and detained them at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as enemy combatants.)

<snip>

Andrew C. McCarthy, a former terrorism prosecutor at the Justice Department, said he believed that British authorities were willing to allow terrorist plots to progress further because, if an attack appeared imminent, they could immediately round up the suspects, even without formal criminal charges.

<more>

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/world/europe/13disrupt.html?hp&ex=1155441600&en=d16c38abfc1f7c83&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[bahrbearian]

1. Tell that to Padilla.