5 Minute Guide: Civil liberties

Last Modified: 08 Jun 2007

Equality legislation means we have freedoms previous generations only dreamed of. But with identity cards and CCTV, does freedom come at too high a price?

What are the main issues?

Over the last 30 years, the rights of minorities have been increasingly protected by law.

Equality legislation like the Race Relations and Disability Discrimination Acts have ensured that our society no longer considers discrimination acceptable on the basis of colour, religion, gender and sexual orientation.

In 2005, the first civil partnerships were celebrated in the UK which gave same-sex couples the same rights as those in civil marriages.

The war on terrorism has been used to justify all kinds of security measures.

But it seems Britain is still some way from becoming a truly diverse society. Women, on average, earn less than men, while race issues are still prominent - witness the Big Brother row in early 2007.

Religion sits somewhat uneasily in the modern world; last year Luton's Denbigh High School, which was told it had unlawfully excluded a pupil for wearing Muslim dress, won a high profile appeal.

Meanwhile, British Airways had to change its uniform policy to allow all religious symbols to be worn, after the case of a check-in worker who challenged a ban to wear a cross. It seems anyone facing discrimination has the law on their side.

But while the equality and discrimination agenda has made progress in Britain, some would argue that civil liberties have been eroded as the War on Terror has been used to justify all kinds of security measures.

Surveillance society?

A YouGov poll in 2006 found that 79 per cent of people agreed the UK had become a "surveillance society".

Even the government's own information commissioner has expressed concern as controversy reigns over identity cards with data stored on the British national identity database.

Privacy campaigners are also concerned about data stored on the National Child Database and the NHS programme for IT. Even the right to protest outside parliament has been curtailed.

It is estimated that there are over four million CCTV cameras in the UK. The British Police holds records of 5.5 million fingerprints and 3.4 million DNA samples on the national DNA database.

The right to trial by jury is under pressure, with Labour calling for jury trials to be scrapped in some cases, for example complex fraud trials.

Meanwhile, in Guantanamo Bay and secret CIA prisons around the world, human rights don't last long when there is information to be extracted. The UK government has been slow to speak out against these institutions.

In fact, there is strong evidence that UK airports have been used by CIA aircraft transporting detainees for extrajudicial interrogation, and possibly torture.

Against the background of the War on Terror, civil liberties seem very fragile.

Key players

Gordon Brown
The Blair government has been keen to stay ahead on the security and crime agenda, leaving many left-leaning Liberals without a political home.

Gordon Brown seems likely to continue this strategy. He signalled his intention by floating the idea of allowing terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for 90 days - a proposal so controversial it led Blair to his first Commons defeat when he tried to pass it in 2005.

David Cameron
The Tory leader's position on civil liberties is strangely muddled. He has opposed some of Labour's more controversial criminal justice legislation, but his calls to scrap the Human Rights Act have angered campaigners.

He is keen to paint a softer vision of Conservatism, but doesn't want to let Labour outflank him on the crucial law-and-order agenda.

Shami Chakrabarti
Rarely off the television for long, the director of Liberty is Britain's most outspoken advocate of civil liberties and a strong opponent of government anti-terrorist legislation.

She came second in the Channel 4 political awards category of 'most inspiring figure', beaten only by Jamie Oliver.