This letter, which originally appeared in the Guardian here, is a response to Henry Porter's article: "Why I told Parliament: you've failed us on liberty"
Katie Ghose (London, BIHR): Henry Porter is right to be alarmed: this government has presided over a host of new legislation which has eroded basic freedoms, including the right to protest or to privacy in our own homes. But the right to family life, dismissed by Porter as useless in guarding against a surveillance culture, has been used by parents living in supported care to regain contact with their children, refugees on mental health wards without access to interpreters and by older people who want the freedom to spend their last days at home rather than in an institution.
Porter is wrong to write off the Human Rights Act without acknowledging the quiet ways in which people are using it to challenge their local hospital, school or council.
OurKingdom is helping compile a list of freedoms lost since 1997 - which you can read and add to here, and post on your own blog.
