Terrorism: real threat or political bogeyman?

Recent political developments in the UK seem to be directed towards a loss of individual privacy and liberty, bandied about as politicians seek to be viewed as having the "hardest policies on terror".  Currently newsworthy topics are the drive of the Government to have a 42 day detention period without charge for terrorism suspects (fortunately thrown out by the House of Lords) and the move to greater communications surveillance, the latest plans for which appear to be a fit of pique from the Home Secretary in response to her detention plans being thwarted.  Jacqui Smith's opinions on personal freedom and liberty seem so far removed from common decency and the democratic ideal that one wonders why she is thought fit to hold public office, let alone one of the highest ministerial positions in the country.

The human rights organisation Liberty says:

- After 9/11 the Government introduced indefinite detention without charge of foreign nationals. This was replaced by the control order regime which allows government ministers to impose sweeping restrictions on individual freedoms on the basis of secret intelligence and suspicion.

- Pre-charge detention has been increased from 14 days to 28 days, with further extensions threatened.

- Broad new speech offences impact on free speech rights and non-violent groups have been outlawed.

- Our right to protest has been seriously curtailed, including by the misuse of police powers. 

Are these political moves justified by the scale of terrorist action, particularly when considered in relation to other causes of death and injury?  I suggest not.  What are the real threats from international terrorism? Are the dangers real? How to they compare to the day to day risks and dangers we all face? And the big question: do these risks justify the loss of our personal liberty and privacy?  I have done some quick internet searches, aimed at comparing the scale of fatalities due to road accidents with that of terrorism.

A note on the figures: I realise that data on death and injuries are often wobbly due to differences in definitions (e.g. what constitutes terrorism; what defines a road death, etc), and these interpretations can be politically "managed". (Don't forget the "dodgy dossier" on Iraqi WMD that plunged the USA and their UK poodle allies into war in Iraq)

UK Terrorism deaths 2004 to mid-2008 (source data - Worldwide Incidents Tracking System)

Data regarding terrorism deaths are rather politically charged, and presumably different definitions of terrorism can be applied, depending on the political position the data are being used to support.  I looked around the web for data pertaining to the UK, and found the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, a US Government site, that lists terrorism fatalities by nation.  Having said that, it's not clear how data are scraped together.  I plotted the data as a chart:

Presumably Irish terrorism in the years prior to this data set would have been as significant as any deaths shown here. 

Several conclusions might be drawn from the graph above.  Firstly, the data are too limited to draw any conclusions - terrorist attacks are actually rather rare, and successful attacks rarer still.  Secondly, perhaps the measures currently taken to detect and thwart terrorist attacks have actually worked, and that additional measures aren't really necessary.  

Comparison of fatalities due to terrorism, by nation (Source: Global terrorism fatalities)

How do UK-directed terrorist actions compare with those aimed at other nations?  This chart is a screen grab of fatalities due to terrorist action, 2000-2006, categorised by nation, and in numeric order of absolute number of fatalities (i.e. not per capita).  Note where the UK lies in this ranking (I cut off the chart at the UK entry, see the original source page for the full listing).

The UK comes in at 26th place, with 56 fatalities.  The USA has a high figure, presumably due to the World Trade Tower atrocity.  But look at poor old Iraq...

Road deaths in 2007 (source: UK DFT Report)

The impact of terrorist activities as reported above seemed to me to to be rather modest in terms of fatalities.  By way of comparison, I thought I'd check out what the dangers related to the everyday activity of road transport in the UK are.  In 2007, there were 2,946 people killed on UK roads, according to the Department for Transport. The data for injuries of all severities is presumably rather woolly due to vagaries of definitions, but well over 27,000 people were seriously injured.

There were a total of 247,780 casualties of all severities, 4 per cent lower than in 2006. 2,946 people were killed, 7 per cent lower than in 2006, 27,774 were seriously injured (down 3 per cent on 2006) and 217,060 were slightly injured (down 4 per cent on 2006).

The good news there is that a drop in road fatalities between 2006 and 2007 was observed, not that any conclusions can be reached about trends from these particular data. However, the average daily death toll in 2007 was about eight people per day!  At about 3000 deaths per annum, one might expect approximately 20,000 deaths to have been recorded on British roads during the period 2000-2006, as graphed in the international comparison above, a figure that dwarfs the impact of terrorism.

Is the terror threat as severe as our Government claims?

We are faced with frequent announcements of Al-Qaeda activities in the UK: usually in the form of announcements of terrorist cells being arrested, sometimes these things seem to revolve around muslim individuals merely writing poetry or reading suspicious material.  One conclusion that could be drawn is that terror cells affiliated to Al-Qaeda are generally pretty ineffective in the face of UK security services and the police, using investigative powers that they already have.

It seems clear to me from the data above that fatality due to terrorist attack, while obviously significant to the victims and families is relatively minor compared to other causes of mortality, such as road traffic accidents shown above.  I cannot agree that we face the kind of terrorist threat claimed by our politicians and used to propose further encroachment of our rights.

What does the European Convention on Human Rights say?

Source: Wikipedia article

Article 8 provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This article clearly provides a right to be free of unlawful searches.

Article 9 provides a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This right includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.

However, Article 15 allows contracting states to derogate from the rights guaranteed by the Convention in time of "war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation". Derogation from the rights in the Convention, however, is subject to a number of qualifying criteria, these are that: the state of affairs relied on is temporary and exceptional;[2] the circumstances are grave enough to threaten the organised life of the entire community; the emergency is actual or imminent in that the emergency is about to occur[citation needed]; the threat is to the life of the nation which seeks to derogate; and the measures for which the derogation is required are "strictly required by the exigencies of the situation".

In 2001 the UK Government tried it on, claiming that there was sufficient emergency in the country that they be allowed to detain people indefinitely until deportation. It took 4 years before this absurd interpretation was overturned.  I am confident that attempts to overcome any limits to powers of interception will be attempted by a Government unjustifiably claiming exceptional circumstances.  When the Govenment's consultation on their plans for routine interecption of all our communications begins in January, we should all be active in demanding clear explanation of what is being proposed, why it is being proposed, and how any function creep to make these snooping powers even more intrusive will be prevented.

In The Guardian webpages (18/10/08) there is an interview with Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5.  In it, she says

"The response to 9/11 was "a huge overreaction", she says. "You know, it was another terrorist incident. It was huge, and horrible, and seemed worse because we all watched it unfold on television. So yes, 9/11 was bigger, but not ... not ..." Not qualitatively different? "No. That's not how it struck me. I suppose I'd lived with terrorist events for a good part of my working life, and this was, as far as I was concerned, another one." 

Rimington goes on to complain about politicians trying to outdo each other on being "tough on terrorism".  Her opinion is that fighting terrorism should treat it like any other criminal activity - use exisiting law, and not continually erode hard-won freedoms in a constant escalation of measures.  If this is what a former MI5 chief is saying, what advice is our Government receiving, and from whom?