Convention on Modern Liberty
This brief message is a call to all concerned with the threats to our fundamental rights and freedoms. It introduces you to the Convention on Modern Liberty. The Convention is live already in video and writing on the web. It has an amazing list of speakers (see below). It is supported by a growing and surprising mixture of organisations. The latest to join is the Football Supporters Federation. The big day is Saturday 28 February in London and venues across the UK. The aim: to ensure that the State remains our servant and does not become our master - a battle made all the more urgent by the likely consequences of the financial meltdown. here it is!
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.modernliberty.net
Tickets to the London event are selling fast.
Below this brief message you will find a longer press release that tells you more.
Please take a moment of your time now to forward this message to friends and colleagues. Thank you.
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PRESS RELEASE
The Convention on Modern Liberty
This year, the Convention on Modern Liberty will gather in London and six venues across the UK, from Belfast to Cambridge, on 28 February.
It will bring together well over a thousand people, nearly fifty organisations, from the TUC to the Countryside Alliance, from the Football Supporters Federation to the British Instite of Human Rights, and more than a hundred distinguished independent speakers, with widely ranging political views and interests, among them Philip Pullman, Lord Bingham and Shami Chakrabarti, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, Tory Shadow Justice Secetary Dominic Grieve and Labour Minister for Skills David Lammy and Helena Kennedy (full list, see below).
The Convention is a call to all concerned with the threats to our fundamental rights and freedoms - from our own State, from terrorism and the responses to terrorism and from the gathering financial crisis.
From being imprisoned without charge, to bailiffs entering our homes without a warrant, to unlicensed surveillance and officials taking your information from anywhere and passing it anywhere they like - our liberties are being violated.
The Convention organisers will publish audits of these violations, show how they are connected, ask why they are taking place and how they might be reversed.
The Convention’s co-directors, Anthony Barnett and Henry Porter, said “We want three things.
First, we want the public to ask why these violations are happening and see that they are not isolated events.
Second, we want the violations to be stopped in a way that ensures they do not happen again.
Third, by asserting the right to manage our identities and to share between its agencies deep dossiers of information about us the government trespasses on the first claim of democracy: that the State is the servant of the people. We want to ensure that the tradition of public freedom in our country is renewed not suffocated, that our fundamental rights are secured, and that the agents of the state understand their powers exist to serve not control the citizens of Britain. This is all the more urgent as the financial crisis deepens.”
For videos by key supporting organisations, the full programme, press and blogosphere coverage see
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.modernliberty.net
The Convention is sponsored by The Rowntree Trusts, openDemocracy and Liberty. The Guardian is its media partner. NO2ID is a lead organisation partner.
Confirmed speakers:
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Lisa Appignanesi
Mohammed Aziz
Anthony Barnett
Simon Barrow
Peter Bazalgette
Moazzam Begg
Sir Geoffrey Bindman
Lord Bingham
Andrew Blick
Caspar Bowden
Billy Bragg
Victoria Brittain
Tony Bunyan
Jean Candler
Malcolm Carroll
Douglas Carswell MP
Joanne Cash
Shami Chakrabarti
Tufyal Choudhury
Nick Clegg MP
Nick Cohen
Linda Colley
Philip Collins
Tony Curzon Price
Iain Dale
David Davis MP
Andrew Dismore MP
Cory Doctorow
Oliver Dowlen
Terri Dowty
Michael Edwards
David Elstein
Brian Eno
Keith Ewing
Peter Facey
Edward Fitzgerald QC
Liz Forgan
Sabina Frediani
Edie Friedman
John Gardiner
Juliet Gardiner
Edward Garnier QC MP
Timothy Garton Ash
Alex Gask
Pam Giddy
Paul Gilroy
Jo Glanville
Lord Goldsmith
Zac Goldsmith
David Goodhart
A C Grayling
Colin Greer
Dominic Grieve QC MP
Gerry Hassan
Iain Henderson
Georgina Henry
Savitri Hensman
Guy Herbert Becky Hogge
Chris Huhne MP
Sunny Hundal
Murray Hunt
Saghir Hussain
Will Hutton
John Jackson
Simon Jenkins
Vaughan Jones
Mary Kaldor
Yasmin Khan
Sunder Katwala
Helena Kennedy QC
Paul Kingsnorth
Francesca Klug
Satish Kumar
David Lammy MP
Neal Lawson
Paul Lay
Guy Lodge
Caroline Lucas MEP
Ken Macdonald QC
David Marquand
Ehsan Masood
Christopher Meyer
Mujib Miah
Suzanne Moore
Ivo Mosley
Peter Oborne
Tom Porteous
Henry Porter
Philip Pullman
Geoffrey Robertson QC
Alan Rusbridger
Paul Rogers
Meg Russell
Mike Rustin
Laura Sandys
Quentin Skinner
David Smith
Roger Smith
Trevor Smith
Sam Talbot Rice
Chuka Umunna
Geraldine Van Bueren
David Varney
Sarah Veale
Hilary Wainwright
Marina Warner
Stuart Weir
Stuart Wilks-Heeg
Michael Wills MP
Gareth Young
Christina Zaba
Simon Zadek
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