Tomorrow I’ll be at Parliament giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, who are considering a request from the police to be able to hold terrorism suspects for ninety days without charge, so as to be able to examine seized computers properly. My written evidence to them is here.

The police are short of forensic capability, sure; and that’s going to get worse until they get their act together. But they’re also short of interpreters. I don’t think they’d dream of asking for increased detention powers just because not enough coppers speak Somali. Parliament would just tell them to hire interpreters from commercial agencies. Why do people get away with such poor policy arguments when computers are involved?