Taking Liberties

...ask what your country can do to you.

The central thesis of this film aligns itself nicely with the Mark Thomas (who appears in the film) comment that "If You're not p*****d off, you've not been paying attention". It shows by example the story of the gradual erosion of our civil liberties that has been occurring in the recent years, concentrating particularly on the last decade. This is a subject which should have us all handing over our hard earned to be educated and entertained by.

The artful thing about this film is the fact that it cleverly manages to take a fairly dry subjects of civil liberties and human rights, "Not normally box office dynamite" to quote Chris Atkins, and present it in an entertaining and even amusing way. Very much in the tradition of The Road to Guantanamo this film is as shocking but with a greater capacity to entertainment, which will hopefully mean that it will appeal to a wider audience.

Whether you believe that it is the press to blame for forcing gullible media hungry politicians into rushing through knee jerk, badly drafted laws or that there are more sinister forces at work or especially if you are blissfully unaware of what your government has been doing in your name this film holds something for you. See it and tell your friends!

i have just been to the premiere of 'Taking Liberties' and was both astounded and thoroughly entertained. this film is a documentary about the prolific nature of the statutes that Blair (AKA Bliar)'s government have introduced over the past decade, that not only contradict what Blair promised the British People in his campaign for the Premiership at the 1997 election, but more worryingly, contravene our human rights and our civil liberties. this film is both hilarious and terrifying - the scariest part is that it is all true! the only disappointing thing about this film is that when it is released on June 8th it will only be shown in about 15 cinemas. i know that a lot of cinema goers (me included) will be anxious to see the summer blockbusters that will be released around the same time, but believe me it will be well worth waiting a week, so as to see 'Taking Liberties' instead, not only for your own entertainment and enjoyment but also for the benefit of the rest of the country as the distributors have promised to release this film nationwide if enough people go to see it on the opening weekend.

you WILL enjoy this film so please go and see it!

Well this is not about hiding, but about becoming cognescent of the draconian creep taking away personal privacy, and public freedoms and liberties. It is not about terrorism, but about the misuse of the terrorism act to surveille the population. It is about agenda, opaque to public perception and concern.

Non-professor Stahlman would have you believe it is all bunkum, even though it is unfolding right before his and your eyes. He would seek to curtail your curiosity in seeing this movie, with petty innuendo and obsfucation. You have your mind to decide what you see and don't see. It is for you to decide the importance of the film...whether the film is crap or not, it carries a very important message, and it is one you should at least be aware of.

Some reviewers have called the film entertaining and humorous, it is neither, Its subject matter is neither entertaining or humorous, it is serious and downright scary. Sometime in the future you will face the very thing this film discusses. No matter how hard you try to keep yourself and your family out of it (as if it is someone else's problem, someone else's fear), it will come calling. The question you need to ask is...What will you do when it does? How will you be able to deal with it, and what resources will there be at hand to help you? Well, if you do not prime yourself before hand, you will perceive there to be none.

I found myself getting extremely angry whilst watching the film, because it reminded me all too starkly that what was defeated with Hitler, is now winning with Blair and the current imbecilic incumbent of No 10. It is winning through a series of gradual unfoldments, incremental tightenings of the noose around each of our necks. You already feel it in your personal economy, the means by which you are enchained to repeatable patterns of behaviour, day in and day out.

Generally the media will not report it. When they do, they will sing the constriction of your liberty as beneficial to you. They will make it sound like a good idea; but like all good ideas, they are open to abuse sometime in the future. Freedom and liberty has to be constantly guarded and fought for. You cannot expect government to be benign, and for your good to safeguard your liberty. It will not do that, it will safeguard its own, and you being freedom and liberty-loving, are a threat to that.

If you've nothing to hide, and have nothing to fear, why then the systematic reduction in your freedom, liberty and personal privacy? Simply because, your government considers you to be a potential terrorist, and will misuse the terrorist act to defend, not you, but itself. Individually, you are expendable, collectively, you are a mob. See Naomi Wolf - From Freedom to Fascism ( A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot). This is not just happening in Britain, but around the world. See the movie and discern for yourself, it just might open your eyes.

This is a collection of true stories, all products of the UK's New Labour government and the so-called War on Terror. It opens with the bus-full of peaceful demonstrators (friends of mine) on their way to Fairford to complain about it's being used for bombing expeditions to Iraq, stopped, brutally forced to remain on the (no-toilet) bus and escorted back to London by a horde of police vans and bikes.

The patch-work continues with Walter Wolfgang, the elderly and eminently respectable party member roughed up by ape-men for shouting 'Rubbish' at Jack Straw, Pinochetist Home Secretary. Rose and Ellen, two young sisters arrested on a peaceful demo at an airport, held in solitary for 36 hours, thrown out in the night, their money and mobiles stolen by the police, and warned that speaking to each other would violate their terms of bail. Mouloud Sihali, found innocent in court, but then imprisoned in his own home for two years. Omar Deghayes, a British resident who has been held in Guantanamo for five years and is being left at the mercy of the government that murdered his father.

Also the RAF war veteran arrested for wearing an anti-Bush and Blair T-shirt; an innocent man shot in a police raid based on a faked-up claim about a Ricin poison factory, and a major new change in the law to allow the government to stop one man from keeping his lonely anti-war vigil outside the Houses of Parliament.

Britain has a history of control freakery: in Malaysia after 1945 we separated off the ethnic Chinese population, putting them in reservations where they could be controlled while we maintained war with the Chinese insurgents outside. The UK today is looking ever more like a large reservation, with the sea for a wall. The government contends that we are threatened from outside, and just like anyone with a paranoia problem, makes that threat a reality by its pre-emptive wars. This allows it to behave as the 1939 government did, removing all our rights for our own good.

Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proved Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. All listed on the screen, and one-by-one, ripped off. Taking Liberties portrays these real stories of liberty loss using up-dated interviews, citizen/journalist footage, newsreel, stunts, and comment from comedian Mark Thomas, Observer writer Henry Porter, Tony Benn, Amnesty, academics and lawyers. Narration from Ashley Jensen (Extras, Ugly Betty); a powerful soundtrack with tracks by, among others, Oasis, Radiohead, The Stranglers and Franz Ferdinand. It almost loses pace 80 minutes in, but the content carries it. By turns horrifying and good-humoured, it's being touted as the UK's equivalent of Fahrenheit 9/11, but it is without the former's flaws, and it's of much more immediate importance. A pity that the distribution deal limited it to out-of-town multiplexes in the UK, so much of its target audience were unaware of its very existence. CLIFF HANLEY

It is probably best that I hold my hands up from the start and say that, in regards this film I am a member of choir. I am pretty liberal but on the subject of terrorism legislation I do think I have a right to an opinion because of my experiences as a Northern Irish man in England. I note that some critics of this film have criticised it for the way that it does paint things in a very bad light and, while I agree to a point, I do also think that there is a certain amount of "it'll never happen to me" thinking, similar to the "if you have nothing to hide what is the problem" school of thought. However having been arrested and held for being on the same street as Prince Charles would later visit that same day (after several court appearances, the charges were thrown out). So I do have a certain amount of sympathy with those that fear being wrongly targeted by those given the powers to do so if they wish.

However I must be careful not to let me agreeing with the politics of the film totally cloud my view on it because, as much as I agree with it, it is not that great a documentary. It is too simplistic in some regards and it just seems to throw examples at the screen in the aim of hitting the audience with so much stuff it has no time to digest, consider or reflect. The strongest documentaries build their case and let you come along with them to the point where you find it hard to disagree; those films that simply dollop it out are doing the audience a disservice and tend to be those that fail to win over anyone other than those who already agree with the message. So it is here and it is a real shame because moment by moment it is compelling stuff. While nowhere near the degree where we cower in our homes after curfew, liberties are being squeezed and the many examples make it hard to ignore as an issue. However it doesn't pull it together in a focused fashion and ultimately seems to think the point will just make itself. The rather rebellious tone suits some of the material but at times goes too far and again makes this a film "for the audience" – the closing song is the most extreme example of this and quite unnecessary.

It is a shame it is not better because it is an important topic but, while it is compelling stuff, the failure to really deliver a killer argument or a strong structure is its undoing in regards winning the hearts of the undecided viewer. Goes without saying that, for the choir, it is great stuff, but I wanted it to do more than just tick the target audience box.