Home Secretary, David Blunkett brushed aside criticism...

Home Secretary, David Blunkett brushed aside criticism from "airy-fairy" civil rights groups as he prepared to seek approval for unprecedented new powers to allow the internment without trial of suspected terrorists.
The Home Secretary placed an order before the Commons to demand the derogation of Article Five of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees the right to liberty and prohibits detention without trial.
The new measures, which have incensed human rights organisations, come amid warnings from the US vice president, Dick Cheney, that Britain's involvement in the campaign against the Taleban has left the country open to retaliatory strikes from Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
Among the provisions would be a crackdown on supporters in Britain who conspire with terrorists abroad or assist them, new requirements on airlines to supply information about passengers and freight, tighter security at airports and an extension of laws against inciting racial hatred to include religious hatred.
The detention provision is aimed at people whose activities have aroused suspicions but who cannot be taken into custody or deported under existing law. Officials said the law would initially be directed at 20 people who were living in the UK and were wanted on terror charges abroad, but could not be sent for trial because British human rights laws forbid extradition to countries that use torture or the death penalty.
In fact, David Blunkett admitted that it remained the British policy not to allow extradition to countries where the death penalty was law. He confirmed he would not give up the 27-year-old extradition agreement with America that means no suspect can be sent there from Britain without a guarantee they will not face capital punishment.
Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, suggested that in the long term the Government should seek further derogations from the convention, so that it could deport people to states in America that retained the death penalty.