1.1 The all services Biological/Chemical attack practice scenario which was held at Bank Tube station held on Sunday 7th September 2003 was a very worrying sight.
1.2 We do not want to be evacuated by force from an area designated by some faceless "Gold Commander", by people wearing no auditable identity tags visible on the outside of their Nuclear Biological Chemical warfare protection suits, who could even be criminal looters in disguise.
1.3 How is the general public to know wether they would be safer staying at home, or being evacuated to a concentration camp, where they may actually be more personally at risk from NRBC effects ? 1.4 Will any dead relatives be buried in unidentified mass graves, with a dispute over the payments to contractors dragging on for months after the event ?
2.1 The Bill attempts to pre-emptively crush any challenges under the Human Rights Act and only grudgingly admits that there might be legal challenges to specific cases arising from the implementation of Emergency Powers, which will require expensive legal actions to be brought.
2.2 This is simply not acceptable, our human rights and civil liberties should be protected especially during times of crisis and emergency.
3.1 This Bill sidesteps the lack of Civil Defence or "Civil Protection" budgets although the Explanatory notes do give rough estimates for the cost of training about the effects of the Bill
4.1 What financial compensation will there be for the damage and disruption caused in an Emergency since obviously the the insurance companies will not pay out ?
4.2 How will Emergency funds from the UK Treasury and from the European Union be unlocked by this Bill ?
4.3 Astonishingly, the Bill seems to claim that there will be only a negligable effect on Departmental budgets, and makes no mention of the lack of insurance cover that Businesses and even Public Bodies are relying on, as part of their normal Business Continuity plans, which will not be available once an Emergency is declared.
4.4 What about compensation for individuals and businesses which are affected or disrupted by the declaration of a Regional Emergency, but which are based outside of the affected Region ? e.g. the loss of telecommunications and internet services in Scotland due to a Regional Emergency in London, or the loss of fresh fish supplies in London due to an Emergency in Scotland ?
4.5 There does not seem to be any compensation money provided by this Bill, such as is available for terrorist bomb damage etc in Northern Ireland.
4.6 There is no mention of the European Union, or access to any EU emergency relief funds, even though, there could well be Europe wide Emergencies e.g. viral pandemeics, or radioactive fallout clouds like from the Chernobyl disaster. In the USA, the declaration of a local or statewide Emergency is a mechanism to unlock central Federal governmnet funds and personnel resources.
4.7 Under this proposed Bill, there will be a temptation to upgrade a local Emergency to Regional or National Emergency status, simply to avoid having to pay out compensation to members of the public and businesses which have been damaged or disrupted by say a flood or oil spill or chemical or radioactive contamination. It should be a criminal offence for any civil servant or Minister to promote a Local Emergency into a Regional or National one, therby triggering the Civil Contingencies Emergency Powers, for reasons of avoiding compensation claims or Human Rights Act prosecutions.
5.1 The BBC, as part of its "duty of public service" looks to be the main component of the Emergency Broadcasting System being proposed in the Emergency Broadcasting System Bill
5.2 Do the definitions of what constitutes an "emergency" as defined in the Emergency Broadcasting System Bill section 2, correspond exactly with the similarly vague and subjective definitions in the Civil Contingencies Bill ? The EBS Bill covers the United Kingdom as a whole i.e. including Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than just England and Wales. The Emergency Broadcast System could be invoked for "emergencies and potential emergencies" whilst the Civil Contingencies powers could be invoked for "an event or situation which presents a serious threat"
5.3 The list of Communications providers to whom emergency broadcasting system applies potentially includes any organisation regulated under the obscure and complicated section 46 (not section 43 as stated in the EBS Bill) of the Communications Act 2003 i.e. every broadcaster and telecommunications company and internet service provider. The wording of this is so obscure that there must be many people working within such organisations who do not know that they are affected by this legislation – why not publish a simple list of every Communications Provider organisation ?
5.4 If used for genuine information to inform the public about an emergency, and is used sparingly, this should not be controversial, as, in this case the Government seems to be willing to pay some money for "direct costs" to the "designated communications providers", but it will not compensate for lost advertising or other revenue.
5.5 There should be the minimum use of "spam" emails and the especially disruptive SMS text messages in order to “inform” the public of the Emergency. Similarly only the minimum amount of broadcast time on TV and Radio should be allowed to disrupt the normal program schedules for the millions of people not actually affected directly by a minor or Regional emergency.
5.6 There is nothing in the EBS Bill to prevent the entire output of a TV or Radio station from being replaced by Government approved and prepared content i.e. censorship by displacement of normal journalism and reporting.
5.7 It will be recalled that during the saturation TV and Radio coverage of the death of Princess Diana, even the weather forecasts were cancelled., and all foreign news was displaced and effectively censored. This must not happen again during a future Emergency.
5.8 However, just like the Civil Contingecies Bill, there are no criminal sanctions against petty officials who may abuse the Emergency Broadcast System. The Emergency Broadcast System Bill would allow them to use, even when a state of Emergency is not actually in force. Similarly, there are no criminal sanctions against hoaxers who spread panic via the Emergency Broadcast System, and no Digital Signatures required to authenticate orders "in writing" to communications providers, despite the need for rapid dissemination of trustworthy information during an emergency.
5.9 Since most of the main organisations affected by the Emergency Broadcast Network Bill are also covered as Responders in the Civil Contingencies Bill, why not just have the one piece of legislation, with clearcut definitions of what constitutes an Emergency, and with criminal penalties to prevent abuse by petty officials, and strong digital signature authentication of the orders to invoke and revoke the Emergency powers?
6.1 It is worth remembering that David Blunkett, the Home Secretary has already declared a legal State of Emergency , whilst passing the Anti- terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, in order to “derogate” from the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and to allow detention without trial.
6.2 What are the safeguards which would obstruct or prevent this Emergency legislation from being abused in the future as the prelude to a CoupD'Etat or permanent state of Emergency ?
6.3 What is there to prevent Regional Parliaments or Assemblies from using Emergency Powers to effectively secede from the United Kingdom ?
6.4 On initial inspection of the Bill, there does not actually seem to be much to prevent a Regional Assembly or Parliament from defying Westminster and continuing to renew such legislation indefinately. The precedent of the French ban on British Beef, well after Westminster and even Brussels declared it safe, springs to mind. Her Majesty the Queen could be put in an impossible position having to choose between Whitehall and a Regional Assembly or Parliament.
6.5 There should be a specific restriction on the mechanism of Emergency Regulations forbidding their abuse to extend the state of Emergency. Each extension of a state of Emergency should require its own individual approval from Parliament etc.
6.6 The mechanism whereby any Minister of State is allowed to declare an Emergency if the Monarch is unavailable should be amended to take account of the fact that there could be a Regent who is available. There should be a published, public, order of precedence for the chain of command amongst Cabinet Ministers, as to who will deputise for whom in an Emergency.
6.7 There needs to be some mechanism to revoke or suspend a State of Emergency, and any Emergency Regulations, before they expire after 30 days, since there will be times when a crisis or hoax is dealt with very swiftly.
7.1 What Criminal sanctions will be in place to discourage abuse of Emergency powers by petty officials ?
7.2 It is entirely possible that a hoax or minor crisis could be dealt with before the 30 days which the Emergency Regulations run for, and it should be a criminal offence to proceed with them for any longer than absolutely necessary.
7.3 It should be a criminal offence to attempt to escalate a minor local emergency into a Regional or National one, simply or mainly in order to avoid having to pay out financial compensation under existing laws and statutes or to prevent claims under the Human Rights Act.
8.1 Given that there will be more hoaxes and false alarms than real major Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or Cyber incidents, will the UK Government emulate the communist Chinese who have been tracking down and prosecuting mobile phone owners who sent SARS virus warning text messages whilst the official channels of propaganda were censored ?
8.2 This 21st Century legislation should mandate the use of Electronic Digital Signatures to provide some measure of trust, assurance against forgery and non-repudiation of Emergency Powers, Proclamations, Orders in Council and Regulations, which will inevitably have to be issued and acted upon rapidly. There is no easy way to check the authenticity of the pen and ink signatures and wax seals used by the Queen or even by Cabinet Ministers.
8.3 The fully legal (as per the existing Electronic Communications Act 2000) and readily available modern technology of Digital Signatures, which can be presented on paper as well as electronically, are being ignored in a Bill which only mentions "oral or written" orders, despite stressing the need for speed and urgency.
8.4 There should be criminal penalties for falsely causing an Emergency to be declared. This is a much more serious crime than a false 999 call.
9.1 There do not seem to be any provisions in the Bill for ensuring the Data Retention of oral or written orders, faxes, emails , SMS messages, voice phone calls, video conferences, radio transmissions etc by all the relevant Government Ministers and Civil Servants, to and from the Level 1 and Level 2 responder organisations. This should include all the evidence upon which Ministers of State were lead to make the decision to declare a State of Emergency.
9.2 These records will be vital for post Emergency planning and analysis, to learn from the experience, and to prosecute those who abused their Emergency powers, or who acted incompetently.
9.3 All such records should be retained by law, to be submitted to an Automatic Mandatory Independent Public Inquiry after each period of Emergency powers (up to 30 days) is over. It will not be acceptable to delay setting up an Independent Public Inquiry until after several periods of Emergency Powers have been extended by a Parliament or Regional Assembly - that would smack of a coverup. Any such evidence or records should be accessible to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, and should, following the well received publication of evidence to the Hutton Inquiry, be available in full via the Internet.
9.4 It is inconcievable that after a such a major crisis as to require the declaration of a Regional or National Emergency, that there will not be calls for such an independent inquiry, or that an internal Departmental Inquiry would be sufficient. The Government should just acknowledge the inevitable necessity of this and make the appropriate financial and organisational provisions ahead of time.
9.5 The use of a Government Public Key Infrastructure to digitally sign and timestamp all such Emergency orders or documents would be extremely valuable in such a post Emergency analysis, as well as reducing the risk of hoaxes or deliberate "social engineering" spoof attacks on the Emergency response infrastructure. The Bill should mandate the use of Digital Signatures and Digital Timestamps where practicable (i.e. on almost all electronic communications)
10.1 The Bill and its Explanatory Notes need more "worked examples" like in Annex A, but in much more detail, to show how it would apply to various Emergency scenarios, but from an individual member of the public's point of view.
10.2 It is still very unclear as to what level of incident would merit the declaration of a Local or Regional or National Emergency. e.g. the Bill is unclear about the scope of "disruption of an electronic or other system of communication,". Would it be an Emergency if, for example, one of the main Mobile Phone networks was disrupted for a several days, or only if all of them were ?
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