Loss of Liberty and Rights since 1997

This is the list of losses of liberty and rights since 1997 which Henry Porter submitted to the JCHR on Monday and we wrote about here. The list is a work in progress - is there anything you think should be added? If so, please let us know in the comments below.

Feel free to post the list on your own blog, and link back here.

Protest and assembly

- Protests are banned within one kilometre of Parliament Square without police permission (penalty: 51 weeks in jail and/or a £2,500 fine).

- Groups may be dispersed under antisocial-behaviour laws.

- Groups may be dispersed within designated areas under the terror laws.

- The new offence under SOCPA of trespass within a designated site (no justification for designation is required).

Communications

- Under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act, government agencies may intercept email, internet connections and standard mail without seeking a court's permission (the latest figure is 500,000 secret interceptions a year).

- Since summer 2007, the government and some 700 agencies have had access to all landline and mobile-phone records. There was no primary legislation and no debate in parliament.

Databases

- Without primary legislation, police introduced a national network of all ANPR cameras. The travel data may be stored for two years.

- The National Identity Register will store details of every verification made by an ID-card holder and give access to government agencies without the knowledge or consent of the private citizen.

- ID-card enrolment requires every citizen to offer up 49 piece of personal information to the national database, with heavy and repeated fines for non-compliance.

- All children details are to be stored on a central database, with access granted to a wide range of public bodies.

- The Children's Common Assessment Framework database stores all details of children with problems, indefinitely.

- The Home Office has announced that it wishes to take 19 pieces of information, including mobile-phone and credit-card numbers, from everyone travelling abroad.

Free Expression

- Public-order laws have been used to curtail free expression. A man wearing the slogan "Bollocks to Blair" on his T-shirt was told to remove it by police.

- The Race and Religious Hatred Act (2006) bans incitement of hatred on religious grounds.

- Justice Minister Jack Straw proposes new laws which would ban the incitement of hatred towards the disabled and on the grounds of a person's sexual orientation

- Terror laws are used to ban freedom of expression in designated areas. Walter Wolfgang was removed from the Labour party conference for heckling Jack Straw. People have been searched simply for wearing slogans on their T-shirts or for carrying banners. A man was detained while collecting signatures against the ID card

- The Protection from Harassment Act (1997) bans the repetition of an act. People prosecuted for repeated protest by email.

- Terror laws ban the glorification of terrorism, which has resulted in the prosecution of a young woman for writing poetry.

The Courts

- ASBO legislation introduces hearsay evidence, which may result in a person being sent to jail.

- The Criminal Justice Act (2003) allows the prosecution to make an application to be heard without a jury where there is a danger of jury tampering. This will include fraud trials.

- The admissibility of evidence concerning a person's bad character, previous convictions and acquittals.

- The Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) gives the state powers to confiscate assets in circumstances where it does not have enough evidence for prosecution.

-Special Immigration Appeals Court hearings are held in secret. Those terror suspects whose cases come before the court are not allowed to know the evidence against them or to be represented by a lawyer of their own choice.

- The Courts and Tribunals Enforcement Act abandons the tradition of an Englishman's home being his castle, which since 1604 has made breaking into a home by bailiffs illegal.