West End letters: coroners | liberties | safety and ideals | Jo Shaw

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 30 January 2009

Coroners Bill threat to liberties

• PRESIDENT Barack Obama summed it up for many of us when he said “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”.
The Labour government has yet to listen.
The latest way Labour want to restrict our freedom is by its Coroners and Justice Bill.
This doesn’t sound like it would have anything to do with data protection, does it?
But hidden away, in clauses 151-154 (Part 8) are the plans for “information sharing orders”.
These orders will allow any government minister to make an order to share any information held by the government with other departments, private companies or even foreign governments.
This means tax details, health notes and benefits records can be shared, if the government gives the nod.
This is a further infringement of our civil liberties and human rights.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. Labour has already done more than any other government to attack our civil liberties: 42 days detention, extraordinary rendition, restriction of jury trial, trials held in private (as you reported last week), ID cards, the National Identity Register. The mass of information required for the National Identity Register would be up for “sharing” by the government if it saw fit.
Jo Shaw
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Campaigner
Holborn & St Pancras

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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