But human rights have changed and evolved over time. If times change, isn't it only natural we look at the current human rights laws and see if they still apply or are counter productive to guaranteeing the safety of others, who also have a right to live in peace?
Depends what you mean by "over time". Yes, there was a time where they simply didn't exist. But apart from that, how have they really changed since, say, WWII?
- Longer prison sentences for terrorists. Nothing to do with human rights.
Maybe not, but what's the end goal here? Discouraging people who want to die for their cause with longer prison sentences? Okay.
- Deport foreign terrorist suspects to their own country. Will depend on how they define them being suspects. If this is someone who is preaching hate, does the UK have a responsibility to somehow fix this person, or can they say: off you go, we don't want you. I see no problem with that. They are foreigners, thus have another passport or nationality, so we are not talking about making people stateless.
You can already do that for hate speech, I presume, because that makes you not a "suspect" anymore. May knows that. So the only thing she can mean here is removing due process. I mean, the term "suspect" should give you a hint. You really don't want to go down this path.
- Restrict freedom and movement for terror suspects. Again, would depend on what they have on them. When we have people walking around who freely went to Libya and such, have been reported for extremist views, already done crime, etc, etc. How many chances are we to give such a person?
Again, you can already do that if they actually committed a crime. So either May is lying to score cheap political points or she actually wants to change something, which would mean reversing in dubio pro reo for some people. In that case, what values exactly are you defending from the terrorists?
If certain human rights laws are in the way to dealing with those problems, then is wouldn't be that bad to have a look at them and see if that needs changing without hurting innocent people in the process.
No, for several reasons.
First of all, your last sentence is wishful thinking, because you can't. Even if you think May will never misuse changed laws, you'll never know who comes after her who might be tempted to use possibilities they never should have gotten. If you believe that you can design laws so they never can be used against innocent people, you're either naïve or ignorant of history.
Secondly, you have to ask yourself what society you want to live in. What are the values you want to be represented in this society? Because if it's safety and security (which, of course, never can be 100% achieved), there are better ways to do it. Get rid of democracy, for one thing. And due process. Build an Orwellian state to its best possible extent.
You think that's overkill? Yes, because it goes against a thing called "proportionality principle". Even if your statement I quoted is worded as an absolute one, you don't mean it. You can't mean it, unless you're actually in favour of an Orwellian state. So you're the one going for extremes if you're willing to strip away the highest values there are in Western society for an arbitrarily small increase in (perceived or real) security.
Also, why is it always terrorism which causes people to throw away everything their forefathers have achieved in terms of human rights to gain a little bit more safety and security? You're totally fine with a lot of much bigger risks in your life that are far more easy to prevent than terrorism.
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