Historically, the UK government has been renowned for exercising its powers in countering terrorism, starting way back in the 1700s when it removed civil liberties such as the right to habeas corpus. In 1938, the Prevention of Violence Act was passed with the aim of ending terrorism. Whereas the definition of terrorism did not properly come out in the Act, the piece of legislation aimed at preventing terrorist violence in Northern Ireland as a result of ensuing threats from the Irish Republic Army (Honeywood, 2016). The law empowered law enforcement officers in Northern Ireland to stop and search without a warrant, register suspects of terror and deny travel. Despite the Act having been introduced as a “temporary measure”, it continued to exist until 1954. Two decades later, the Prevention of Terror Act of 1974 was passed, introducing the notion of proscribed organizations. These are groups that the government had designated as terrorist organizations. Definition of Terrorism
The prevention of Terror Act of 1974 provided the first definition of terrorism, which formed the foundation for subsequent laws. Section 9 of the Act defines terrorism as, “the use of violence for political ends, and includes any use of violence for the
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The Act provides for the police to seize travel documents for both national and foreign citizens, whom they may suspect to be traveling for the purpose of supporting terrorism overseas. Under previous legislation, police went through a lengthy process to obtain the authority for seizure of passports. However, the fact that the power of police to stop travelers arises from port information, observation or intelligence raises concerns that police will use racial