Section 44 Terrorism Act areas

The request was refused by Home Office.

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.

Home Office

1 Attachment

Reference : T19200/8

Thank you for your e-mail enquiry of 25/08/2008 12:44:18 PM

A reply is attached.

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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.

Home Office

1 Attachment

Reference : T15663/8

Thank you for your e-mail enquiry of 10/07/2008 9:43:14 AM

A reply is attached.

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Watching Them, Watching Us left an annotation ()

You can see the lack of progress of a similar, but much more restricted request, which simply asked for the Geographical Locations and the Durations of the Notifications / Authorisations under the Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 stop and search without reasonable suspicion temporary powers, here at the Spy Blog UK FOIA request blog category archive - HO Terrorism Act 2000 s44 Authorisations:

http://spyblog.org.uk/foia/ho-terrorism-...

This was submitted last November 2007, and has been stuck waiting for the Information Commissioner's Office since April 2008.

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.

Home Office

1 Attachment

Reference : T20032/8

Thank you for your e-mail enquiry of 05/09/2008 4:00:22 PM

A reply is attached.

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Kaihsu Tai left an annotation ()

James Bridle left an annotation ()

I'm currently covering related issues and FOI requests at http://44searches.wordpress.com/ - let me know when you have a response.

CTS Public enquiry account 1, Home Office

1 Attachment

 

 

Communication Directorate

Direct Communications Unit

1st Floor Peel Building

 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

Switchboard 020 7035 4848    

E-mail [email address]   [1]www.homeoffice.gov.uk

12^th January 2009

 

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

In 2007, the Home Office received more than 20,000 letters and e-mails
from the public.

 

Our aim is to provide clear, accurate and prompt responses to your queries
and we need your help to ensure we are providing a good level of service.
In order to make improvements to the service we provide, we need to know
what you thought about how we answered your correspondence and what you
think we could do better. Please note that we are interested in your views
on how we answered your correspondence, not on the actual Home Office
policy. 

 

We have designed an online survey that will give us the feedback we need. 
It should take around 10 minutes to complete and is your chance to
influence how the Home Office communicates with you in the future.

 

You will receive an e-mail from [2][email address] within the next
24 hours.  This will provide you with a unique ID number and password so
that you can complete the survey on-line.  You will need to do this by 9
February 2009 so the responses can be collated by FDS International Ltd,
an independent research company, who will forward the results to the Home
Office for action.

 

Thank you.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Signed

 

 

Ian Goswell

Communication Directorate

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
2. mailto:[email address]

CTS Public enquiry account 1, Home Office

1 Attachment

 

 

Communication Directorate

Direct Communications Unit

1st Floor Peel Building

 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

Switchboard 020 7035 4848    

E-mail [email address]   [1]www.homeoffice.gov.uk

12^th January 2009

 

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

In 2007, the Home Office received more than 20,000 letters and e-mails
from the public.

 

Our aim is to provide clear, accurate and prompt responses to your queries
and we need your help to ensure we are providing a good level of service.
In order to make improvements to the service we provide, we need to know
what you thought about how we answered your correspondence and what you
think we could do better. Please note that we are interested in your views
on how we answered your correspondence, not on the actual Home Office
policy. 

 

We have designed an online survey that will give us the feedback we need. 
It should take around 10 minutes to complete and is your chance to
influence how the Home Office communicates with you in the future.

 

You will receive an e-mail from [2][email address] within the next
24 hours.  This will provide you with a unique ID number and password so
that you can complete the survey on-line.  You will need to do this by 9
February 2009 so the responses can be collated by FDS International Ltd,
an independent research company, who will forward the results to the Home
Office for action.

 

Thank you.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Signed

 

 

Ian Goswell

Communication Directorate

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
2. mailto:[email address]

onlinesurveys@fds.co.uk,

Dear Sir/ Madam,

You should have received an email from the Home Office within the last 24
hours inviting you to take part in a short online survey.

We are FDS, an independent market research agency which has been
commissioned by the Home Office to carry out the survey. If you have any
questions about it, please do not hesitate to contact myself, Brian Westra
at FDS on 020 7272 7766.

To begin the survey, please click on the link below.

[1]http://www.munrowebsurveys.co.uk/mrIWeb/...

Your ID and password will be entered automatically. In certain
circumstances, you may be asked for your ID and password. They are:-
Your ID:- 2177
[password]

I would like to thank you in advance for taking part in this survey.
Please note that the deadline for completion is Monday 9th February 2009.

Yours sincerely

Brian Westra

show quoted sections

Watching Them, Watching Us left an annotation ()

The Information Commissioner's Office has, after over a year's delay, now started to investigate my complaint about the Home Office's refusal to disclose any details of the supposedly strictly time and location limited Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 "stop and search *without* reasonable cause" Police constable in uniform powers.

They have turned up Home Office Circular 038 2004

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/pu...

Which was in force at the time of my and your FOIA requests, which states in the Annex A Form guidance notes:

"5. It must be remembered that the S.44 authorisation is a discloseable document and, as such, care must be taken not to include direct reference to matters that could compromise the broader counter-terrorist activities carried out by Special Branches or allied Agencies. To that end there should be no reference to operation names or to classified briefing material
unless absolutely necessary - in which case the authorisation should be protectively marked and handled in strict accordance with Government Security Marking Guidelines"

So there was be no "national security" excuse for refusing our FOIA requests,and any "reference to operation names or to classified briefing material" could easily have been censored, simply by just disclosing only the first page of the Authorisation Form.

See:

ICO now investigating FOIA complaint re Home Office Terrorism Act 2000 s44 Authorisations

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org....

Watching Them, Watching Us left an annotation ()

ICO Decision Notice FS50198733 - Home Office: Terrorism Act 2000 s44 stop and search Authorisations

http://spyblog.org.uk/foia/2010/02/ico-d...

Download the OCR / edited text of FOIA Decision Notice FS50198733 as a Rich Text Format document (.rtf)

http://spyblog.org.uk/foia/images/foia_F...