The Lord Chancellor has defended government plans to introduce control orders to keep foreign and British terrorist suspects under house arrest, where there isn't enough evidence to put them on trial.
Lord Falconer insists that the proposals do not equate to a police state and strike a balance between protecting the public against the threat of terrorism and upholding civil liberties. But thriller writer Frederick Forsyth tells BBC News of his personal response to the move.

There is a mortal danger aimed at the heart of Britain. Or so says Home Secretary Charles Clarke. My reaction? So what?

It is not that I am cynical or just do not care. I care about this country very much.
But in the 66 years that I have been alive, there has not been one hour, of one day, of one month, of one year, when there has not been a threat aimed at us.

My point is, the British have always coped without becoming a dictatorship.
We have coped with fear without becoming a state based on fear; we have coped with threat without turning our country into a land of state threat.
But that is what the Blair government now seeks to do - create a tyranny to defend us from the al-Qaeda tyranny.
Another threat
I was born on 25 August, 1938. The mortal threat back then was a scruffy little Austrian called Adolf Hitler.
A week after my first birthday, the threat had become reality. We were at war. My father wore a uniform for five years.
After 1945 we yearned for peace at last.
But in 1946 Winston Churchill told us - from the Baltic to the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe. Behind the Iron Curtain, another genocidal psychopath, another threat.
Josef Stalin triggered the Cold War, with the Berlin blockade in 1948. My whole generation was blighted by it.
We were threatened by the nuclear holocaust, the nuclear wind, the nuclear winter.
We built shelters that would have sheltered nothing. We spent our treasure on weapons instead of hospitals.
We took silly precautions. Some fought it; some marched futilely against it. Some pretended it was not there.
The Cold War lasted 43 years, but we remained a parliamentary democracy.
By the early seventies it was terrorism as well. Al Fatah, Black September, Red Brigades, but most of all for us the IRA and the INLA.
Thirty more years; 300 policemen and women, over 600 soldiers, more than 3,000 civilians dead, but we won because even IRA bombs could not force us to become a tyranny. That was why the tyrants lost.
Civil rights were infringed as little as humanly possible. Evidence had to be taken in secret to protect covert sources; yes , and one judge, no-jury courts had to be instituted when juries were terrorised.
Informants had to be given immunity from their own crimes to win the bigger battle. But habeas corpus did not die; right of appeal was not abolished.
Now the threat is Islamic fundamentalism. Its leaders want to destroy our society; so did the IRA.
It is based and funded abroad; so was the IRA.
It has sleeper fanatics inside our society; so did the IRA.
It is extremely hard to penetrate with our agents; so was the IRA.
The prime movers are not easy to bring to trial; neither were the IRA. But we did. And without becoming a tyranny.
Now the Blair government proposes the law system of fascism and communism.
The citizen can be arrested and held without charge or trial, not even on the careful consideration of an experienced judge, but the whim of a political activist called a government minister.
To be protected from terror the government says, we must become a tyranny.
But a tyranny is based on the citizen's terror. This is not victory; this is defeat before a shot is fired.

I don't think that it will be a defeat for you, as long as there will be people to exploit your liberty system, you will be in danger. I see in my country counter-terrorism measurements are sometimes violent and agressive of course but they proved their effectiveness against this kind of people, sentiment that I live in a tyrannical country? the answer is absolutely not, are the terrorists who are oppressed not me. "An erosion of civil liberties is a small price to pay for the sense of increased security"

The IRA were abigger threat to the UK than Al queda . WE didn't bring in draconian measures then to restrict our freedom . Why now ? Politicians like to be seen to be doing something . Even when its not needed . They are basically a bunch of control freaks

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"If you're going through hell, keep going". Winston Churchill

Hi Spike

Because there is a political alternative in Northern Ireland and I doubt that Al qaida will be one day represented at the French or British Parliament, not sure also that the habeas corpus was always respect during the campaign against IRA . When I say "An erosion of civil liberties is a small price to pay for the sense of increased security" it's not definitively but as long as that the threat exists.

In many ways France is free in ways that the UK is not . Everything in the UK is policed . In France for example you do not have a health and safety executive .People are expected to use their common sense and behave in a rational manner . For some reason the UK Government employs people to inspect work places because the UK government thinks the population is too stupid to understand danger . Jokes about risk assessment are common place here . We are sick to death of Government interference . We see this Terrorist legislation as just another lever to control peoples lives . I say they go to hell in a hand basket !
When the Blair reign is over (not too soon ). It will be remembered as a period of Banning peoples pleasures and restricting their right to free speech .

When I was growing up .I was told that my Grandfather had fought to protect our way of life .What a joke this Government have made of it . More freedoms have been taken away from us during Blairs reign than Adolf could ever have concocted.

Exposed like this I perceive the problem, the "big brother" phenomenon ? , strange our British neighbor

//The citizen can be arrested and held without charge or trial, not even on the careful consideration of an experienced judge, but the whim of a political activist called a government minister.//

but I hope this concern only people suspected of being linked in a terrorist activity and not for a affair of stolen car :s ?

Some examples of this legislation being abused :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...70&expand=true

An 82 year old pensioner/ heckler is held under the terrorism act for shouting "Nonsense" at the labour party conference . This is absurd !Can you believe it ??
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4292342.stm

The thing that worries me most is the incidents that don't make the Headlines .

You are so right.

Canadian workplace legislation is insane. The gov't is wicked thick on everything, workplace or nay.
...then a war starts and they come up with all kinds of new restrictions. Legislation during war time isn't something I disagree with, but when do we think something as vague as "the war on terror" will be declared over? I figure the new "rules" they drop on us now will still be there when we're dead. ...Like income tax...a wartime tax for world war II. The same bloody tax is still in place here to this day!

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Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you

I don't which school that boy went to but it sure musta bin intresting

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Heads or tails?

As is the same in Italy. Have you ever driven in France or Italy?!?!