Passports to Jihad Free Societies Need Sufficient Tools to Counter Terror Threats.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/jihadists-on-u-k-passports-1409861288?mod=Opinion_newsreel_5
Some 600 British citizens are waging jihad in Iraq and Syria with U.K. passports tucked in their pockets. The masked men appearing in Internet videos showing the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff spoke with London accents. So it’s not a moment too soon for Whitehall and other European governments to address the threat such terrorists pose.
David Cameron is calling for the government to restrict or rescind the passports of jihad-bound citizens before they leave the country, and Home Secretary Theresa May has threatened to deprive those Britons already fighting with the Islamic State of their citizenship. The Dutch and Australian governments, among others, are considering similar measures.
A debate also is raging in London over whether to reinstate or expand measures implemented after the 2005 London Underground bombings that allow for surveillance, arrest, detention and relocation of terror suspects. These so-called control orders and pre-charge detentions could be important tools in reducing the risk that returning jihadists will attempt attacks in the U.K.
This has triggered familiar protests by some civil libertarians that such moves are unlawful and put the West on a slippery slope to authoritarianism. But the government would be on firm legal ground because previous governments that wrote the laws have understood that a free society needs sufficient tools to counter terrorist threats.
Ms. May can invoke broad personal authority under the royal prerogative to restrict or rescind a British passport “where a person’s past or proposed activities are so demonstrably undesirable that the grant or continued enjoyment of passport facilities would be contrary to the public interest.” This reflects a longstanding view that a passport is a privilege, not a right. Governments routinely confiscate or restrict passports for less serious offenses than terrorism, such as white-collar crimes. Parliament should give British police the power to temporarily seize passports at the border. Currently, police can’t apply for the prerogative at the border.
As for those already abroad, the British Nationality Act grants the government authority to revoke the citizenship of any dual national or naturalized citizen whose presence in the U.K. isn’t “conducive to the public good.” Such a decision would be subject to appeal, but the government can implement it immediately pending the outcome of the appeal. Since 2006, when the Act was amended to add this provision, at least 27 Britons have had their citizenship revoked this way, according to recent government testimony before the House of Commons.
Whatever the legal authorities, depriving citizens of their passports, let alone their freedom, is no small step. It’s appropriate for a free society to debate such questions seriously. But seriousness also demands a recognition of the threat posed by homegrown terrorists to free societies, and a willingness to take necessary steps in self-defense.
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