'Removing civil liberties doesn't decrease anything but civil liberties' ... An anti-nuclear protest at the 2006 Labour Conference. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Taking Liberties started out as a story of social injustice, a portrait of people who had suffered as a result of their loss of social liberties. My initial thesis was this: how much do you have to increase the crackdown on civil liberties in order to decrease the threat of terrorism? I imagined this thesis would be illustrated by some kind of sliding scale. But shortly after starting work I had a revelation that my whole concept was totally flawed. There is no sliding scale. Removing civil liberties doesn't decrease anything but civil liberties. You might as well wash your car as a way of protecting yourself from terrorists.
There's no doubt that the people at the top have done a great deal over the past few years to piss off the people at the bottom. I think that Blair is an idiot. I think he's lost it. I think he's blinded by power, and I think he is fundamentally not up to the job. But my father always brought me up to have a healthy scepticism for conspiracy theories. Nine times out of ten, these things are a case of pure incompetence. I believe that the government panicked in the wake of 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings and have got it spectacularly wrong. I'm not sure there is any darker, Machiavellian agenda behind their recent actions.
I'm happy to admit that Taking Liberties is an unashamedly partisan documentary. The obvious elephant in the living room with this film (no pun intended) is Michael Moore. But I do think that what we have done is very different to what he does. The idea was to let people tell their own story, rather than have some irritating presenter bouncing around in the foreground. For some reason that technique doesn't seem to play well in the UK.
Making the film has involved me getting arrested, punched and being physically sick from hearing the experience of torture victims. But worst of all was meeting Geoff Hoon. It showed me more than anything how our country is being run by a gang of lawyers who cover their own backs and convince themselves that what they are doing is legal and right. Hoon is a deeply unpleasant character. He has no connection with the facts; he only has a connection with the legal argument.
Right now we are trying to serve an ASBO on the home secretary John Reid for anti-social behaviour towards Muslim communities in Britain. Going by the Home Office's own guidelines, anyone whose behaviour is causing alarm and distress to local residents should be subject to an ASBO. By making such inflammatory statements in the press, John Reid's behaviour has caused a lot of harassment where I live and work in Tower Hamlets, London. We have put a petition together and as soon as we hit 1000 signatures we are going to the ASBO officer to make our case.
Maybe that's the biggest thing I've learned from making Taking Liberties: that individuals can make a difference. I've spoken to so many committed people, and yet the vast majority of the public remains so apathetic. We can only blame the Blair government so much. The people let them get away with it and the people have to start doing something about it. Myself included.
