And you thought Minority Report was just a movie

UK Home Secretary David Blunkett intends to propose new laws to prevent terror attacks before they happen, says the BBC for February 4. In addition keeping "sensitive" evidence from defendants, staging secret trials before specially-vetted judges, and lowering the standard of proof required for conviction, the laws would allow for "pre-emptive justice" - that is, locking up people who have committed no crime based on a prediction that they will.

Supporters claim this exercise in legalized mind-reading has been used increasingly in different areas of law enforcement.

But the most widespread application is probably in the drugs field, where HM Customs for many years have used sophisticated techniques to determine which passengers on a flight might be carrying drugs.

But the comparison is specious. Such techniques are used to try to determine which people to search, not which to lock up. A searched person would still have to be found to be in possession of illegal drugs before being charged. And as the article notes, it hasn't prevented large amounts of drugs from being successfully smuggled into the country.

The UK has already had experience with this sort of detention and extra-judicial courts in Northern Ireland. It failed then, it would fail now; it's only purpose is repression and it's far more effective at that than at security.

Unintentional Humor Dept.: The item says that security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey holds that

the civil liberties backlash against such measures is due, in part, to the government failing to properly explain the consequences of a terrorist attack.

Yep, just a PR problem, that's all. We just haven't scared 'em enough.