Britons know price of peace
By T.R. Reid
The Washington Post
DAVID JONES / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Outside his army-surplus store in Burton-upon-Trent in Britain's Midlands, Mark Bullock tries an army-issued chemical warfare suit. British stores report an increase in the sale of gas masks.
LONDON — How does a democratic society that values civil liberties fight terrorism within its borders? Britain has struggled with that question for three decades, with mixed results.
The lethal "troubles" in its province of Northern Ireland, which have killed more than 3,600 people in Britain and the Republic of Ireland, sparked a vigorous crackdown by the government here.
In the 1970s and '80s, Britain put limits on the rights of free speech, trial by jury and the opportunity to confront witnesses. Under the "internment" system established in 1971, Britain eliminated trials for certain types of suspects, holding thousands of people in jail without evidence of a specific crime.
That war was directed largely against the Irish Republican Army, which had detonated bombs in London and other cities and assassinated British officials, including the legendary last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten. The government's harshest tools are no longer in use as violence has subsided in Northern Ireland, but daily life here is still marked by signs of that struggle.
The most common manifestation of fear of the attacks and of street crime in general is a plethora of surveillance cameras that watch everybody — on main streets, in office buildings and schools, in parks, at the mall, at soccer games, at every train station and airport.
A study by the BBC concluded that people here are observed by closed-circuit television cameras as often as 300 times each day. Robot cameras that watch streets and highways for traffic offenses, still a controversial concept in the United States, are standard and widely accepted in Britain.
The government defends the constant surveillance. "Knowing there is an extra set of eyes watching over communities helps reassure people," said John Denham, an official at the Home Office, Britain's equivalent of the U.S. Justice Department.
"Our lives are being monitored to an extent that would have seemed inconceivable back in 1984 and scarcely anyone seems to give a damn about it," complained BBC commentator John Humphrys.
One reason people accept surveillance, Humphrys said, is "we've seen people killed by the bombers."
Candid cameras
Police say the cameras can help them catch terrorists. When a large car bomb exploded outside a BBC studio earlier this year — a splinter paramilitary group called the Real IRA claimed responsibility — police used surveillance-camera footage to follow the course of the bombers as they parked the car and then walked down the street to catch a bus. For all that, though, the bombers have not been apprehended.
As many British observers have noted, surveillance cameras are useful primarily against criminals who worry about being caught on videotape. They might not be effective against terrorists eager to die for their cause. "Closed-circuit TV works with the IRA, because their method is they don't want to be caught," said Simon Lubin of the British Transport Police. "It wouldn't work with a suicide operator."
Another sign of the fight is that most train and subway stations here have no trash cans, or "dustbins," as the British call them. "There have been cases of terrorists putting bombs in the bins," Lubin said. Transit riders here, he said, have become accustomed to the absence of containers and take their trash elsewhere.
"Every time I go down in the underground (subway), I'm amazed there's so little litter," Lubin said.
The use of car bombs by the IRA and its spinoffs prompted tight parking restrictions in London around buildings considered likely targets. Police move quickly to haul away any vehicle — car, truck, bicycle, even scooter — that is left within a half-mile of Whitehall, the area in London where national government offices are concentrated. "People hide bombs on bicycles; it has happened," explained a policeman outside the Ministry of Defense.
Since bombs have also been planted in suitcases, it is part of life here that entire train stations are evacuated now and then because a "suspicious" bag has been spotted on a platform.
Backlash over jailings
After the violence began in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, Britain cracked down hard.
Basic civil liberties — traditional rights that the authors of the U.S. Bill of Rights copied from Britain — were lifted, at least for suspected killers in Northern Ireland.
IRA suspects were jailed for months or years without a trial under a system known as "internment." The word of a police officer, or even of an unnamed informer, was enough to send people to jail. Gerry Adams, the head of the IRA's political arm, Sinn Fein, and now a key political leader in Northern Ireland, was interned for months without being charged in the 1970s.
These measures prompted a backlash of sympathy for the IRA and other armed groups in Northern Ireland.
To combat that, the British government imposed strict "news management" rules on the electronic media. News stories, documentaries and dramas considered to be "in support" of the IRA were banned from the airwaves.
In recent years, the British government has largely dropped the crackdown and switched to political negotiation.
While the basic dispute in the province is still not resolved, the new approach has been accompanied by a sharp drop in terrorist attacks.
But the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings in the United States have brought a new wave of jitters about possible attacks in London, though this time the feared enemy is Islamic extremists.
Already, there are calls for new anti-terrorist measures. Prime Minister Tony Blair's government said it may require citizens to carry identity cards with photo, fingerprint and perhaps some form of DNA coding. Critics have responded that such a card could be stolen or copied by terrorists and thus would provide little protection. |
