Freedoms Act 2012

Though the Protection of Freedoms Act of 2012 has been considered by the Guardian’s Cian Murphy to be broadly libertarian but lacking a coherent vision, little more than “a list of legislative pet hates, mainly introduced by New Labour”, it has displayed the government’s intent on reversing the erosion of civil liberties which had mainly occurred under the leadership of Tony Blair with legislation such as the 2006 Terrorism Act.An example is that control orders are to be replaced by TPIMs (terrorism prevention and investigation measures). These are to be more liberal than the previous control orders, with greater access to internet and phones. Moreover, people will not have to relocate as they did with control orders. However under TPIMs, people will still be subject to night-time curfews and electronic tagging.  Liberty has branded TPIMs as “control order-lites” and says that they are “just the same” as the control orders they seek to replace.The Freedom Act will also bring back the pre-charge detention limit to 14 days, from the 28 days to which it was raised by the previous Labour government. Whilst Human Rights Watch welcomes these developments, it has also criticised the coalition government for missing “an opportunity for bolder reform.” The pre-charge detention limit had garnered massive opposition in both houses following New Labour’s attempts to raise it to 90 days.Being the world’s largest at 5million profiles, the Act will also begin scaling back the British DNA database. Though this has been met with opposition from Labour, and in particular Yvette Cooper who has said the government “are going too far on DNA retention and are going against evidence that shows it has a significant impact in bringing serious criminals to justice and exonerating innocent people”, this move has largely been welcomed. It shows a reversal of the erosion of civil liberties especially since the database had been held to be unlawful by the ECHR since the DNA of those who had never been convicted were also being retained.Zeynep Kocabas