Section 44 Terrorism Act areas

Dear Sir or Madam,

According to Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, an authorisation
of stop and search powers may be given for a specified area for up
to 28 days and confirmed in writing.

According to Section 46, the Secretary of State must be informed of
this authorisation and, unless it is confirmed, it will lapse
within 48 hours.

Please can you send me the full list of all Section 44 Terrorism
Act 2000 authorisations (since the Act came into force), which the
Home Office has a statutory duty to be aware of.

This list should include:

* the precise date, time and area of the authorisation issued by
the police officer in Section 44(4)

* the name and rank of the police officer who issued the
authorisation in Section 44(4)

* details of the alleged "acts of terrorism" which it is expedient
to prevent in Section 44(3)

* the end date specified in the original authorisation in Section
46(1)(b)

* the time and date which the Secretary of State was informed of
the authorisation in Section 46(3)

* whether the authorisation lapsed after 48 hours because it was
not confirmed by the Secretary of State in Section 46(4)(a)

* whether the authorisation was confirmed by the Secretary of State
and whether an earlier date or time was given in Section 46(5)

* whether the authorisation was subsequently cancelled by the
Secretary of State in Section 46(6)

* whether the authorisation was a renewal of an earlier one in
Section 46(7)

In my opinion, this represents the minimum quantity of data which
would need to be compiled in order to monitor the functioning of
the Act, and provide necessary democratic accountability through
the mandate of the Secretary of State which is part of his duties.
In a well organized office, all this information would be in
exactly the same place.

If further details are available in the same database or
spreadsheet containing the above information -- eg counts of stop
and searches (Section 44), counts of articles seized (Section
45(2)), and counts of offences, arrests and imprisonments (Section
47) -- I will be glad to receive it in the same document.

Yours faithfully,

Julian Todd

Dear Sir or Madam,

My FOI request sent on 10 July for information about Section 44
Terrorist Areas which the Home Secretary has a statutory duty to be
aware of went overdue on 11 August.

Have you any news if and when it will be answered?

Yours sincerely,

Julian Todd.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Reference: T19200/8
Dear J Fanshaw,

I am happy to accept your request of an extension beyond the
statutory 20 days to 15 September.

I expect that the sub-exemption in Section 24(2) of the Freedom of
Information Act (the duty to confirm or deny) has already been
dis-applied and that the existence and nature of the database
outlined in the Act can be disclosed.

I appreciate that it is a difficult issue to judge the extent it
would safeguard national security to fail to disclose the
exercising of these emergency powers over the past eight years.

I hope it is understood that sometimes when a person considers it
expedient to authorise these powers, the threat perceived is not
believed to relate to national security.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Todd.

Ref: T15663/8

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your reply to my request for authorizations by the
Home Secretary for Section 44 Terrorism Act stop and search powers.

Unfortunately I find the excessive cost argument for supplying the
information from the databases whose precise structure is specified
in detail in the Act and which must exist in order to generate
those summary statistics which you referred me to wholly
unconvincing.

I reserve the right to ask for an internal review at a later date
in light of any response to my next FOI request.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Todd.