That is in practice the intention, though as it is a law on the book's it is open to be abused down the line against non-terroists.
As a rule the UK police tend to have alot of common sence, but they are also human. That all said the whole blackberry encryption affair recently arising due to the riots does highlight further shortcommings.
Still this law was instigated prior to 9/11 and in that you do wonder what it would look like if it was instigated after the event and how it may of looked.
Yes but remarkably after 100years of bombings and assassinations by the IRA the response was to carry on as normal, don't give in to them.
The only visible sign was removing litter bins from railway stations and some checkpoints on vehicles enter the financial district of London
Yet 5 minutes after the 9/11 attacks on America the UK suddenly needed a whole raft of laws to intercept all phone calls, hold people without trial, random stop and searches etc.
I had no idea the IRA was this level of threat - a personal threat to the people in power. And the problem was pretty much solved through the long hard slog of getting them round a table talking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement).
The 'getting them round a table talking' was largely an effect of a massive intelligence and infiltration campaign that reduced the IRA's offensive capability to the point that they figured they'd be better off playing the electoral game. Make no mistake, the IRA was defeated - but it took decades, and involved the kind of subtle work that seems to have been missing in Iraq or Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeknife is the best example - the guy who was put in charge of finding moles within the IRA had been a British agent for 20 years!
Not that you'd expect any British or Unionist pols to mention this... when they've won, no point in rubbing their opponents' noses in it.
Personaly cost me a job, almost blown up once and had a long walk on day. But we have moved on.
Funny thing is the there was a time I was supposed to go intot he office on saturday to do a upgrade, woke up saturday and had a bit of a hangover so as it made no difference I thought I'll go in Sunday. Was lucky as the office got blown up Saturday so in all respects a hangover saved my life - literaly.
The mortar attack caused me to have a very long walk, on a very snowy day, was alot of fun and fond memories of seeing a london taxi unable to go over a bridge as the road was so snowed/iced up.
I Had a in the bag job all lined up, IRA blew that office up and as such job went up in smoke.
Hence the slightly raised English eyebrow when American politicians - especially a Kennedy at a St Patricks Day parade in Boston - talk about supporting terrorism.
There are 342 pages in the Patriot Act. Judging by the 1 NAY vote, Feingold was the only one to actually read the damned thing.
And considering how "comprehensive" it was, I'd say it was already written up and shelved for a crisis like that. I'm not much for the whole conspiracy theory stuff, but that just seems fairly obvious.
As a rule the UK police tend to have alot of common sence, but they are also human. That all said the whole blackberry encryption affair recently arising due to the riots does highlight further shortcommings.
Still this law was instigated prior to 9/11 and in that you do wonder what it would look like if it was instigated after the event and how it may of looked.