Repeal all terrorism acts from 2001 onwards in their entirety

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The idea

Repeal the following acts completely: Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Criminal Justice Act 2003, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, Terrorism Act 2006, Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

There may be a very small number of specific provisions worth saving from these acts, such as the repeal of the offences of sedition and obscene libel in the 2009 Coroners and Justice Act. These are very few in number and can be incorporated into a new bill, subject to fresh parliamentary scrutiny and approval. However, rather than try to tamper with the aforementioned bills, they are best scrapped in their entirety, as there is almost nothing of value in any of them.

Why is it important?

These acts have been persistently misused by local authorities, police forces and security agencies to harass and invade the privacy of decent law-abiding people; especially those engaged in peaceful protests or public demonstrations. The 2009 Coroners and Justice Act also creates totally unnecessary new obscenity laws making it illegal to possess material depicting entirely consensual and perfectly legal sexual acts, including cartoons. These provisions would criminalise a large number of responsible and law-abiding people.

Most importantly, there is no evidence whatsoever that any of these acts has ever helped to prevent a single act of terrorism, either in the UK or overseas. They certainly did not prevent the 7/7 bombings, for example. Moreover, the terrorist threat from Islamic extremists has been hugely exaggerated by previous governments: they pose far less danger to the public than Irish Republican terrorists did in former times. We therefore do not need 6 terrorism acts in 10 years in order to protect ourselves from a relatively minor threat.

These acts have seriously eroded our civil liberties, as well as engendering paranoia, thereby achieving precisely what terrorists set out to achieve: a great reduction in our freedoms. That is why they need to be repealed; in order to restore our liberties and free us from unfounded fears.

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