Under this system – a passenger name record (PNR) – 19 items of data would be collected from each airline passenger, including their bank details, home address, and even the weight of their luggage.

Passenger data would be transferred automatically to a dormant database 5 years after the flight, but could be moved back to the active database for a further 10 years. The information would be held by the US Department of Homeland Security, but can be passed to agencies in countries outside the US and Europe. At present, the system only covers transatlantic flights, however there is a real risk that information retention could be initiated for other international flights as well.

The US has been unequivocal in demanding complete cooperation and support for the scheme. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman has stated that the US “simply cannot accept” any efforts by the EU to dilute the plans that are “an important part of our layered defences against terrorism”.

The latest proposals go further than any comparable scheme previously endorsed by the EU. Terms have been agreed with Australia to allow some passenger data retention, however information can only be held for five and a half years. Similarly, data of flights into, out of or within Europe are kept for just five years under the EU’s own PNR scheme. Moreover, the plans seek to expand the current provisional US-EU arrangements, extending the time in which airlines must provide information from 72 hours before a flight to 96 hours.

Unsurprisingly, the move has caused outrage among civil liberties campaigners. MEP for London, Claude Moraes, described socialist MEPs as “absolutely appalled” by the plans, warning that the scheme is ripe for ‘mission creep’: information being used for purposes other than combating terrorism. And Jan Philip Albrecht MEP, a member of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee, has argued that the US proposals violate the fundamental constitutional principles shared by EU member states.

Data retention has also come under fire in the German Constitutional Court, which held that six months was the maximum appropriate time limit for keeping personal telecommunications data. Although the issue has not arisen directly in the UK, last month, the Supreme Court declared that the current police policy of indiscriminate DNA retention is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Furthermore, it seems that the EU itself is aware of the potential legal pitfalls. A leaked opinion from the legal advisers to the EU Council of Ministers warned that the PNR system envisaged would be disproportionate and violate privacy laws.

There are some safeguards contained in the proposals. The text gives individuals who are wrongly identified as a threat the right to petition the US federal court for judicial review, and procedures would be established to deal with data loss or unauthorised disclosure.

The agreement must survive the scrutiny of the European Parliament before it comes into effect, although the US is unlikely to take kindly to significant tampering with their plans. Indeed, while the EU has insisted that PNR information must in “no circumstances be used for data mining or profiling”, US analysis practices remain opaque; the text refers only to “processing and analysing” PNR data.

The necessity for extending the retention period for the US scheme has yet to be proved and details of data use have been kept deliberately ambiguous. Nonetheless, given that the UK has already declared its intention to ‘opt in’ to the European PNR, it is likely to follow suit in relation to the US counterpart later in the year. In light of its tenacity to this point, it is unlikely that the US will bend to attempts by the EU to water-down the scheme: it is now up to the MEPs to reject the proposals altogether.

The EAW has had some undeniable success stories, such as the arrest of a would-be London bomber in Italy, or the gang of Italian armed robbers who were finally apprehended in six different EU states. In addition, it has slashed the average length of extradition from a year down to 16 days when the suspect complies and to 48 days when they do not. However, the system has long been lambasted by human rights organisations as disproportionate and lacking basic safeguards. For every commendable case, there is a host of disasters.

Take, for example, the case of the grandfather who faces extradition to Poland from the UK. His crime? Exceeding his overdraft limit more than a decade ago. The debt has long been repaid and the retired British schoolteacher is in poor health, having suffered multiple strokes, yet he is still being pursued for the alleged ‘theft’.

The report notes the excessive use of this ‘no evidence required’ system by a number of the EU states. The worst offenders are countries with no prosecutorial discretion – such as Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic – whose domestic law compels the pursuit of all suspects, regardless of the severity of their alleged crime.

In 2009 alone, Poland issued 4,844 EAWs, which, combined with the next highest country, Germany (2,433), accounts for almost half of the total number of warrants issued throughout the entire EU. And while the UK issued only 220 warrants – of which 80 were executed – more than half of the 4,000 extradition requests received by Britain in 2010 came from Poland.

Yet it is not just the scale of misuse that has caused alarm. Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding has warned against the ‘mechanical’ use of the EAW for “crimes that are not very serious, such as bicycle theft”. Indeed, Poland has demanded the return of suspects for stealing chocolate and the theft of a pudding.

So what is to be done with this indisputably flawed system? Top of the list of reform seems to be a ‘proportionality test’, to filter out cases that are not appropriate for the EAW. How exactly this would be implemented, however, remains uncertain. Moreover, this view is not universal. UKIP MEP, Gerard Batten, has argued that only using the EAW for the worst offences “is a complete red herring”, noting that many of those arrested under the system for serious criminal or terrorist offences could have been extradited under national systems in any case.

Catherine Heard, Head of Policy at Fair Trials International, has commented that “[le]gislative change may be the only answer”, and the Commission has not ruled out this possibility; nonetheless, it is an option it would rather avoid. Instead, it has opted to achieve change through softer procedural reform, calling on member states to “fill the gaps” in their domestic legislation. Areas in need of particular improvement include the guarantee of legal representation and better training for judges and criminal justice practitioners. The Commission will table these legislative proposals by the end of the year.

But plans for reform do not stop there. The Justice Commissioner introduced the report the day before a meeting with ministers in Luxembourg to discuss the controversial new “EU investigation order”, which would facilitate the sharing of evidence between prosecutors and police across internal EU borders. However, whilst “the UK is in the lead on this,” an EU diplomat has admitted, “a lot of countries are very reluctant”.

Many of the Commission’s proposals have great potential and are to be welcomed. However, simply calling for basic rights of defence – which should be guaranteed in any case – will prove insufficient to eliminate the pitfalls of the current system. Though praising the warrant as a “crucially successful tool” in combating crime, Sarah Ludford MEP has called for extensive reform, including the introduction of “an explicit provision allowing a court in one member state to invoke the risk of breach of fundamental rights as justification to refuse extradition to a second member state”. The Commission should, initially at least, adopt this approach – allowing member states to implement improvements themselves, raising the common standard without imposing top-down, EU-led decisions.

The “strong and informed” source alleges that classes described as not taking place due to “prison restrictions” did in fact not run as TMC failed to provide a tutor. In addition, the college failed to carry out many compulsory “diagnostic topics”, such as basic literacy.

Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East, whose constituency covers HMP&YOI Reading, has approached Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt and Skills Minister John Hayes. Hayes has referred the case to the SFA for further inquiries.

TMC denies any wrong-doing, championing itself as a “powerful voice for offender learning”. However, an Ofsted inspection carried out shortly before TMC replaced Milton Keynes College rated achievement and standards as ‘good’, and the IMB reported 1,321 inmates attending classes; by March 2010, this had plummeted to 641, and the IMB report repeatedly condemned various aspects of provision as “unacceptable”.

It is debatable whether TMC should have won the competitive tender at all. The IMB notes that a key reason for the decision to award the contract to TMC was that the college was the “[l]owest cost provider”, which, the report claims, “given the economic climate was on the face of it understandable”. Yet neither OLASS nor the SFA had properly determined whether TMC was capable of expanding its offender learning provision.

The recent claims should perhaps then be no surprise. Indeed, the report found that ten months after TMC took over, the Governor at Reading still did not have access to the contract. “How can the Prison Service (PS) be expected to ensure that prisoners….receive the correct entitlement to a key rehabilitation service”, the report rightly challenges, “when they are not allowed access to the contract that underpins the service?”

Nonetheless, TMC cannot be blamed entirely for the shortcomings. The IMB highlights a catalogue of institutional barriers to learning, many of which plague the entire prison estate. The facilities at Reading are “limited”, a problem which TMC, despite substantial funding in addition to the original tender, could do little to remedy. Moreover, with a chronic population churn, the type of prisoner incarcerated at the institute is increasingly unsuitable for sustained learning provision and current rehabilitation strategies. If TMC, or any other OLASS provider, is to achieve effective rehabilitative interventions, it must have the necessary time and continuity with prisoners – a sea-change which would require fundamental institutional reform.

IMB chairman for HMP&YOI Reading, Gordon Ross, remarked that “inmates who have volunteered or signed up for education are having to stay in their cells”, and rightly commented that this “in itself is poor and not leading to future behaviours we would like”. Provision requires offenders to be brought to classes, which in turn depends on prison officers being available to escort them. TMC cannot fairly be held responsible for staffing shortages elsewhere in the institution. Education providers can take innovative steps to reach offenders, such as teaching on the wings, however, this is far from adequate; wings are not quiet places, conducive for study.

Similarly, the prison was unable to meet its “out of cell hours per day” KPT (key performance target), undoubtedly hampered by the national recruitment freeze. More concerning still is that this daily target was only 8.4 hours, and in the fourth quarter of the year covered by the IMB, actual achievement fell to merely 6.6 hours. This is clearly insufficient – both for TMC to provide effective learning, and for offenders to gain the motivation and self-discipline that is vital for successful resettlement.

TMC is now meeting a far higher proportion of their targets, and it must be hoped that this trend continues. Yet without comprehensive structural overhaul, OLASS providers will continue to struggle to reach inappropriate targets with insufficient institutional support. Under the flaccidity of the current regime, it should be no surprise that ex-prisoners are reoffending – and with so little engagement and activity, perhaps it should equally be no surprise that inmates are rioting and rebelling against staff.

In a letter to the prison newspaper ‘Inside Time’, written from the Special Secure Unit at HMP Belmarsh,  gangland boss, Colin Gunn detailed how the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman  had upheld his complaint that prison staff were not adhering to their ‘decency agenda’. The officers had not assaulted him or verbally abused him. They had not singled him out for intimidation or isolation. The staff at his then residence, HMP Whitemoor, had failed to address him as ‘Mr Gunn’.

Although there is no national policy governing how prisoners should be addressed, there is clear guidance that, “as part of the process of treating prisoners decently, staff should be encouraged to address prisoners in an appropriate manner”.

It goes without saying that prisoners should be treated with respect: “No man is a prisoner and nothing else.”  Some argue that the more prison resembles life outside, the less it is dreaded. However, there is much evidence that a policy of ‘normalisation’ within a prison can help offenders to internalise the pro-social norms that are imperative to constructive behavioural change and life within a community. Conversely, a culture of prisonisation enables the pains of imprisonment – such as reduced personal autonomy and lack of material possessions – to fester, and alienates the prisoner both from the prison staff and society at large.

However, this is in no way a suggestion that prisoners themselves should be allowed to call the shots. Quite clearly, the definition of “appropriate” has been grotesquely vandalised. Treating prisoners with decency does not require the prison staff to stoop to the level of subservience, where the offender has become the master and, whilst he may not hold the key, sets the tone and pace of the prison regime.

A Prison Service spokesperson stated that, “[i]t is implicit [in the guidelines] that prisoners also address staff appropriately”. Although few would argue that officers’ attitudes are consistently beyond reproach, with the rates of assault on staff at their highest ever level, this seems a vacuous promise. Indeed, in his letter, Gunn rallies other prisoners to “get your apps in – you do not have to be humiliated by rude, ignorant prison staff any longer”.

With brash indignation, Gunn assures other prisoners that “[t]he law is on your side”. The rules must not be bent to pander to the whims of Gunn, or any other individual prisoner; he must abide by the fair and humane rules of the prison regime. This is the man who has been linked to over fifty shootings and some six murders; who illicitly used social networking sites to threaten his enemies from within the prison walls; who, as Mr Justice Colman Treacy handed down his sentence, snarled, “Die of AIDs”. As Colin Moses, national Chair of the Prison Officers Association, has rightly said, “[y]ou have to earn respect, not demand it”.

Of course, it is easy to predict the cries of protest that a man like Gunn is beyond rehabilitation, alien to the possibility of reformation. Regardless of the validity of this argument, it is imperative that we enforce a line of respect throughout our prison service, not just to ensure rehabilitation for (at least the majority of) prisoners, but to preserve the integrity of our system. There is much truth in Churchill’s famous declaration: “the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.” It must be hoped that this warped notion of ‘decency’ is not reflective of the standards by which the nation deserves to be judged.

For most people, and most fairly liberal governments, restricting free speech or freedom of information is not something that is taken lightly. However, few governments would support the principle of unrestricted freedom of speech. A common argument, voiced in a number of the cases given above, for restricting freedom of speech or freedom of information, is that material, information or views which could lead to people being harmed should be censored. This was the response of the Obama administration before the Wikileaks releases; State Department legal adviser Harold Koh stated that the releases ‘place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals’. Similar views have been aired since the ‘leaks’ have been released and for many people there is a real concern that people’s safety  has been put at risk.

Similar concerns have been aired in relation to Pastor Terry Jones’ forthcoming visit to the UK. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, stated that the Pastor may be refused entry to the UK to address an English Defence League (EDL) rally on ‘national security grounds’. Perhaps given the Pastor’s previously inflammatory gestures and pronouncements it could be felt that allowing him to speak in the UK would endanger the country and British citizens, who may suffer reprisals in the form of terrorist attacks, or who may be hurt if violence breaks out at the EDL rally.

Finally, though perhaps of less relevance to national security, is the case of Frankie Boyle and his offensive comments about Katie Price’s disabled child. Many of the complaints received by Ofcom, who are now investigating whether his comments breached the broadcasting code on harmful and/or offensive material, undoubtedly argue that Frankie Boyle’s comments may create a harmful atmosphere where mocking those with serious disabilities is acceptable.  This is another case in which the issue of ‘harm’ is deemed to be a good test  for deciding whether censorship should be justified or whether those who break the rules of acceptable speech should be reprimanded.

The problem, however, that has vexed political theorists for centuries (if not longer), is how do we define what John Stuart Mill described as the ‘harm principle’. It is perhaps apparent that the extent of an individual’s freedom should end when that person’s freedom is directly impinging upon another person’s. For instance I should not be free to physically hurt you, furthermore I (in physically hurting you) know that my actions will harm you and so can expect them to be restricted. This perhaps applies to the first case outlined above – if Wikileaks, or the newspapers publishing the material, knows that it will directly endanger lives then there are good grounds for restricting their release. However, it is not easy to extend this idea to the second case (that of Terry Jones) because arguing that the harm principle extends to the indirect consequences of one’s actions reduces the importance of individual responsibility in the principle, and could make people overly responsible for the actions of others. As a result, as offensive as Mr Jones’ views are, he may not be deemed responsible for the actions of those who may react to them. If Pastor Terry Jones is permitted to address the EDL rally, the majority of British people would hopefully realise how ridiculous his views are. Finally, Frankie Boyle’s comments may be seen as abhorrent by some people, and undoubtedly are very offensive to those who object to them being justified by the ‘context’ of his comedy, however to restrict his freedom of speech, would extend the harm principle too far. Frankie Boyle’s comments have not directly limited anyone else’s freedom or directly caused physical harm to anyone, and I do not think one could argue that he is knowingly putting anyone at risk through his actions.

There are undoubtedly many cases where it is hard to draw the line between direct or indirect harm, or between offending people and harming them. Many political theorists and philosophers realise this and so debate about free speech will continue in the absence of any agreed set of rules. However, the politicians, who are often the ones who must decide where the line falls, should always draw on logical, and principled argument when making decisions that they must justify.

Because the former Libyan agent supposedly has only months to live, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill believed himself not only entitled but obligated to exercise clemency and to release him to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli. He did so admitting the convicted bomber never to have shown any remorse or compassion for the victims of the atrocity.

“That alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days”, the Scottish Justice Minister is reported to have said.

Why on earth should lack of contrition for such a heinous crime not be thought a sufficient reason not to show compassion to someone convicted of it, especially given the grief and anger still felt by many of bereaved relatives of victims?

Of course, many, including Megrahi himself, protest the former prisoner’s innocence. But apparently MacAskill was not among them. Nor seemingly did he release Megrahi because of any doubts he had about the trustworthiness of his conviction.

Maybe, however, the real reasons for Megrahi’s release lie beyond considerations of his guilt or innocence and of justice or mercy. Maybe, the real reason lies in the murky realms of oil.

For despite all public protestations to the contrary by MacAskill, as well as by SNP leader Alex Salmon and Number 10 Downing Street, it remains possible that Megrahi’s release from jail was engineered as part of some shady oil deal with Libya. Certainly, there is substantial circumstantial evidence to suggest such a deal may have been struck.

Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saif has reportedly claimed to have discussed al-Megrahi’s release with Peter Mandelson twice within the last four months, and Mandelson confimed he may briefly have done. Also, upon his return to Tripoli, Saif Gaddafi is reported to have said to Megrahi:

“You were on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements that we supervised in that period. You were on the table in all British interests when it came to Libya.”

If the Labour Government was complicit in Megrahi’s release that only makes the entire affair still worse.

Either way, MacAskill is a fool or a knave. He is a fool if he genuinely acted entirely from misplaced compassion. He is a knave if he was part of some wider political conspiracy which has undermined the rule of law for the sake of economic expediency and deeply offended Britain’s staunchest ally.

Either way, Megrahi is not the only one who should now be bidding good-bye to his former abode. So too should the Scottish Justice Secretary.