Parliament is back tomorrow (hooray!), and according to the Order Paper, the first item on the agenda is the committee stage of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. So despite the public outcry, it looks like Labour and National are going to pass an "anti-terror" bill and further curtail our civil rights in the shadow of a rather dubious terrorism scare.
Since the police have actually threatened to use the law, the bill has come in for some public scrutiny, and concerns have been raised in particular about the creation of a general offence of "committing a terrorist act", and the removal of the existing defence ensuring that it is not a crime to collect funds "for the purpose of advocating democratic government or the protection of human rights". In the wake of the Law Lords' ruling that special advocates compromise the right to a fair trial, that section needs to be looked at too (something which will hopefully be done during the select committee consideration of the Immigration Bill). I understand that the Greens will be proposing amendments to omit those clauses (the SOP should be on the web tomorrow), and I expect them to almost certainly fail. But they will at least force the major parties to vote explicitly for two of the more contentious parts of the bill, and to make the case for why they are needed.
