"Is it then fair to summarise your position as that what you want is a lower standard of proof for serious crimes? ie make it easier for the prosecution? If so the problem with that is in day to day grind of the real world of criminal law innocent people still get charged and sometimes they get convicted. It happens for all sorts of reasons." craytlus
Not necessarily for your generic "serious" offence. But ones where there is an alleged terror association and the real and true risk of mass casualties then, yes...I think we need to err on the side of caution.
Will that at times lead to a miscarraige of justice??
Certainly.
But I have long advocated (and not just in the terror field) that there IS a war going on. In the narrower view, its the "war on crime" (one that at times I think we are really losing big time) and that is subsumed I guess in the wider "war on terror".
But in any war, there does need to be a blunt instrument and inevitably there are those unintended casualties of the war (collateral damage in the euphimistic poli-speak)
Should bwe accept that as acceptable?
Depends I guess.
I suppose you'd advocate the "I'd rather seen 100 guilty men walk free then see one innocent man go to jail".
Well I dont. (and yes I suppose i'd think different if I was that one guy....)
Particularly as it applies to the war against the terrorists.
I guess that also highlights the distinction I make between those sorts of crimes and how the human right activists see them as all the same. They argue we should treat the guy contemplating a chemical attack in a crowded subway or a explosive incedicary device in a school the same way as we would treat a bank robber or a mugger.
