Summary

To prove that our case stands strong and firm, we briefly summarize it. First, we say there is value in our freedoms. We like when people are free, when their rights are respected, when they have a right to privacy and identity. They should be able to have this as long as they do not violate the rights of other people. We are terrified by how opposition responded to our claim. They asked why it should matter if the government knows the secrets of its citizens. They say, as long as it is not their mom, everything is fine. For the starting point, we can recommend reading Orwell. The whole idea of government knowing our secrets is repugnant in a democratic and free society and we do not think that we have to prove anything here. In the end, it leads to abuse of the state; it violates the implicit relationship between the state and its citizens, and in the end it undermines free societies as the history proved (Nazi case). On the government side we have pointed out very real actualizations of potential abuse of anti terrorism laws. The laws neglect human freedoms through such 'provisions' as too broad discretionary power for enforcement agencies, detention without trial, denied access to evidence and legal assistance, and, in extreme cases, torture. The mentioned measures of countering terrorism are no longer questioned after the extra anti-terrorism laws are passed. Now in most countries it is okay to abuse human rights just because there is a possibility of terrorism. We claim that this is not fair, that cumulatively the offences states make far more harm than the terrorists could possibly achieve. The anti-terrorism laws are discriminatory in their nature. They do separate treatment of "ordinary" organized crime from terrorist - a person suspected of terrorism has lesser chances to defend herself in a fair trial. A person suspected of terrorism is very likely to be a minority group of the country. "Inconvenient" persons might be silenced using the laws. The state now gets broad discretionary power, which it is very likely to use against its own citizens. We have provided numerous examples of this in our case. These laws are not 100% effective, as the opposition tends to depict that. Differential treatment and undermining of human rights fuels motivation of potential terrorists. First, hardly any measures would deter them from trying to commit terror acts. Second, the anti-terrorism measures gives perfect pretext to point out at target countries and use examples of state abuse to justify the attacks. Though the anti-terrorism legislation is not the root cause of terrorism, the retaliatory nature of the laws adds momentum to current conflicts. Is anti-terrorism legislation necessary? On the proposition we proved quite firmly that it is not. Criminal justice system is a rather sound method on countering terrorism. We have proven that it has the most desirable checks and balances to ensure that justice is achieved. To that, opposition said that it is not perfect. We agree. There is little perfection in the world. But we ought to stick to what ensures the best balance, and it is the criminal justice system which has this desirable balance, after all, we use it for each and every crime. The criminal justice system has the capacity to counter terrorism. First, it has a proven history of doing so. Second, many studies indicate that it is appropriate for doing so. The opposition allegedly did not understand the mechanism how it can prevent terrorism acts ex ante. Although we explicitly stated that in our argument, we can do that again. Enforcement agencies can intercept any conversations under anti-terrorism legislation, leading to abuse. Under the system of criminal justice, they have to get an approval of a judge. This ensures that enforcement agencies do not overuse their powers. So, we have better alternatives. Also, our case quite firmly showed that anti-terrorism legislation by itself undermines the whole system of criminal justice. The way the legislation is formulated is so broad that for almost anything you can be tried under anti-terrorism legislation. This will lead to more abuse and more convictions. To this the opposition responded that it is more than a problem in weak democracies which would abuse their powers anyway. We disagree with this, because throughout the debate we gave a number of examples where democratic countries abused their power. Sure, we gave examples of “bad” countries, but it was to prove the point that anti-terrorism legislation is bad wherever we would find it. In several sentences, what does anti-terrorism legislation do? It undermines our criminal justice, it violates the rights of our people, it enables to convict innocent people, it promotes the abuse of the state, it restricts the freedom of the citizens to act without fear, it discriminates and separates societies. While we have a normal method to deal with the threat – the criminal justice system. These are quite bad consequences, which all lead to one fundamental thing – a REDUCTION of security, not an increase of it. Maybe as a state we are more secure, but individually we are anything but secure. To summarize our case, we come back to the idea underlying it. We prize freedom over security, because we recognize that once we allow our governments not to respect the rule of law, we do not gain security. By forsaking freedom, we lose both. We merely gain something vague as “national security” which is nothing as security in the real sense – security of citizens to act and speak freely. This security (the security from abuse of the state) is lost together with the loss of our freedom. We choose freedom and we are proud to propose.