Welcome to the website of the UK Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. I am proud to take over from my distinguished and rightly celebrated predecessor, David Anderson QC. Where he led the way in engaging with all sides in national and international discussion about terrorism and national security, so I hope to follow and to build upon David’s excellent work.
The Home Secretary today announced that ‘The government intends to change the law, so that people who repeatedly view terrorist content online could face up to 15 years behind bars. The proposed changes will strengthen the existing offence of possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist (Section 58 Terrorism Act 2000) so that it applies to material that is viewed repeatedly or streamed online’.
This is the first indication we have seen of the outcome of the government’s counter terrorism strategy review, foreshadowed by the Prime Minister in her speech on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 4th June this year, in the aftermath of the London Bridge and Borough Market attack.
There is much for legal and other commentators to consider in today’s announcement. May I offer the following to assist with the debate:
CBA OLD BAILEY LECTURE 19/9/17
MAX HILL QC INDEPENDENT REVIEWER OF TERRORISM LEGISLATION
Allow me to explain what it is to be the Independent Reviewer. The UK has had Independent Reviewers of Terrorism for 40 years, born out of the need to watch what Parliament is up to when it enacts emergency legislation to deal with successive terrorism threats. We have long experience of terrorism in many forms, including but not limited to dissident republican activity in Northern Ireland and on the mainland, extreme right wing activity whether through Combat 18, the Racial Volunteer Force or the current phase from National Action, and of course so-called Islamist terrorism, though I dislike that term because it presupposes a link between religion and action which is not always what it seems. We don’t call the IRA Catholic terrorists, and in my view we should not so-called Islamic State Islamist terrorists.
But I digress already.
We have four principal terrorism statutes in this jurisdiction, and it is my job to review the operation of all four on an annual basis. They are:
Terrorism Act 2000 and 2006
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2010
Terrorist Asset Freezing Act 2011.
I committed many schoolboy errors in the 1970s, during my time at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I was a poor to middling scientist and mathematician (see my comments on encryption, below), an indifferent linguist, but a slightly better historian. I tried hard in all subjects, but have no doubt that many of my exam papers were strewn with errors great and small.
I thought those days were far behind me. Not so, according to the Sunday Times and their anonymous intelligence source in government. I asked the newspaper to reveal the identity of the source, but they refused. Another schoolboy error. And along the way, according to the Sunday Times story, I lost my suffix QC, which took me 20 years to earn, but that’s life I guess.
In what I can only assume to be a ‘slow news weekend’, the end of the summer holidays for most of us has led to my recent interviews gaining considerable coverage, for which I am genuinely grateful.
The Evening Standard on Friday covered my views with the headline on page 6 ‘Tech giants must stop encrypted messages, says terror watchdog’. I didn’t say much that was worthy of the headline, but I did go so far as saying that it is worth having a debate about encryption, not to suggest that its use be suspended or stopped altogether, but to question whether there are technical solutions to the proliferation of extremist material online. There has been an interesting reaction on Twitter during the weekend, much of which has made for good reading. Let me make it clear, I defer to the experts in this area (middling scientist at school, I told you), but my words follow my speech at the Terrorism and Social Media Conference earlier in the summer, which I have just posted on this site this evening. Following that conference, I have engaged with at least one of the major tech companies and I look forward to learning more.
The last of my six annual reports into the operation of the Terrorism Acts was laid before Parliament on 1 December. It can be found in web-accessible and print versions here – or open this PDF terrorism-acts-report-1-dec-2016 . Read more…
CBA OLD BAILEY LECTURE 19/9/17
MAX HILL QC INDEPENDENT REVIEWER OF TERRORISM LEGISLATION
Allow me to explain what it is to be the Independent Reviewer. The UK has had Independent Reviewers of Terrorism for 40 years, born out of the need to watch what Parliament is up to when it enacts emergency legislation to deal with successive terrorism threats. We have long experience of terrorism in many forms, including but not limited to dissident republican activity in Northern Ireland and on the mainland, extreme right wing activity whether through Combat 18, the Racial Volunteer Force or the current phase from National Action, and of course so-called Islamist terrorism, though I dislike that term because it presupposes a link between religion and action which is not always what it seems. We don’t call the IRA Catholic terrorists, and in my view we should not so-called Islamic State Islamist terrorists.
But I digress already.
We have four principal terrorism statutes in this jurisdiction, and it is my job to review the operation of all four on an annual basis. They are:
Terrorism Act 2000 and 2006
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2010
Terrorist Asset Freezing Act 2011.