London Attack Places Security and Civil Liberties at Center of U.K. Election

          

British police and security services already have some of the most powerful surveillance laws in the world, with weak judicial oversight and little criticism on privacy issues from a public that generally trusts its government and Civil Service.

Surveillance cameras are everywhere, especially in cities, and there are relatively few restrictions on the mass collection of telephone and internet data by the government.

All of which raises the uncomfortable question of what more can be done to prevent the kind of terrorist attack that killed seven people in central London over the weekend. After three terrorist attacks in 73 days, Britain is engaged in a new debate about balancing civil liberties and security, just days before voting in parliamentary elections on Thursday.

It is a familiar dilemma in the United States, where President Trump’s effort to restrict immigration from predominantly Muslim countries is blocked by courts, as well as for governments across Europe, particularly in France, which has suffered even deadlier terrorist attacks than Britain in recent years.

France has repeatedly extended a state of emergency imposed after the November 2015 attacks in Paris. Despite the huge armed presence in public spaces and new detention and surveillance powers, the impact has been limited, and if anything it may be further alienating already marginalized communities.

Prime Minister Theresa May talked tough as she addressed the nation on Sunday, the morning after the attack at London Bridge and Borough Market. “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said.

Her comments were criticized as political and brought concerns about whether, if re-elected, her antiterrorism plans could be effective and also protect civil liberties. In her remarks, she announced a review of counterterrorism policy, harsher sentences for terrorism offenses, and an effort to crack down on “safe spaces” online and in self-segregated Muslim communities that can harbor extremism.

“It will only be defeated when we turn people’s minds away from this violence,” she said, and make young people “understand that our values, pluralistic British values, are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.”

That was a departure for the British government, said Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a politically conservative research organization in London that focuses on democracy and anti-extremism.

“For a long time, this government didn’t really look at the ideology of radical Islam, but law and order,” he said.

Mrs. May recognized on Sunday, he added, “that ideology is the central point, and that the ideological challenge will be tougher, to talk to communities and push them to resolve the ideological fight within themselves.”

François Heisbourg, a security expert and adviser to the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, agreed. For the last decade, he said, the British have promoted a policy of getting Muslim communities to cooperate with security forces, “which is pretty much the opposite of the French approach.”

Mrs. May is acknowledging that “the communities are not so good at policing themselves,” Mr. Heisbourg said.