An assumption of innocence

Subject: An assumption of innocence.

Quite clearly there is a wide gap between the parliamentary committee members and life as it is lived on the ground. A report has been published criticising MI5 for not adequately following up on monitoring known potential terrorists when they re-enter the country after training by ISIS.

The committee is made up mostly of men, men gifted in the sly obfuscation which is the double speech which determines how well a politician performs in his or her job. There must be few professions other than perhaps the legal profession, which rely on sidestepping what "they know to be the truth" for statements which are pre-vetted by the 'party' for political ends.

To the ordinary man or woman in the street, it is questionable that people who are seen as a threat to the security of our citizens are protected by the laws which are designed to protect the innocent when even the term, innocent is a minefield of assumption. Until a crime is committed you are innocent and unless you catch the criminal/terrorist either gathering the equipment to build a bomb or are caught carrying one, then the guys remain innocent. You are not guilty for thinking or wishing and therefore as things stand, in terms of the law they, MI5, can only monitor what is going on around the potential terrorist until they step over the line.
Clearly the officials hands are tied. But it is also clear that when they don't follow up the information and an act of terrorism takes place then condemnation is also fair. Not just the terrorist but in the sad case of 'Baby P' where social services didn't draw the conclusions which seem obvious after this bruised and battered toddler eventually died and revealed a trail of missed opportunities to rescue the child from its parents.
One gets the impression that the complexity of laws designed to protect the individual from the authorities are the clincher when it comes to the criminal avoiding jail time.
We have to ask, would we like an authoritarian diktat where people are thrown into custody on the slimmest accusation or see people get away with all types of crime for the privilege of giving everyone an assumption of innocence.