A number of pro-liberty measures were promised by the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition government in the recent release “The Coalition: Our programme for Government” available for review and comment at:  http://www.hmg.gov.uk/programmeforgovernment

These measures are listed Under Section 3. “Civil Liberties” and include:

• reversing “the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion”
• introduction of a “Freedom Bill”
• scrapping “the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, and halt the next generation of biometric passports”
• protect “the defence of trial by jury”
• will “restore rights to non-violent protest”
• will “review libel laws to protect freedom of speech”
• will “introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terror legislation”
• will “further regulate CCTV”
• will “end storage of internet and email records without good reason”, and
• will “introduce a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences”

Of course, the details of how these measures will be implemented are critical as is reassurance and confidence that these will not be replaced with even more corrosive laws and under-the-radar activities on the part of the police. Time will tell, but this looks like reason to be (cautiously) optimistic.