Podcast: How terror overturned our legislation
Before 11 September 2001, the Danish counter-terror legislation consisted of a so-called corps ban, which was introduced in the 1930s, prohibiting different political groupings from appearing in uniforms. Apart from this the law was not particularly concerned with terrorism.
This changed after the attacks in New York. First, we got terror package 1 in 2002 and then terror package No. 2 in 2006 after the attacks in London and Madrid.
Today, Danish counter-terror legislation consists of a large number of sections that prohibit both terrorism and supporting terrorism, encouraging terrorism, being recruited by terrorist organisations and much more. In addition, the counter-terror legislation gives the authorities a wide range of powers in relation to monitoring and investigating citizens.
The Danish counter-terror legislation takes into account virtually everything you can imagine with regard to terrorism, and the legislation has been criticised by many sides for being excessive. But is it? And how has the counter-terror legislation actually been used in practice – and potentially abused?
We will look closer at this in this special edition of the podcast Juristeriet, where we, together with three of the University of Copenhagen's most prominent legal experts, are scrutinising Danish counter-terror legislation and investigating where it stands here 20 years after 11 September 2001. Among other things, we are talking about foreign fighters, mass surveillance and how the rule of law is being squeezed by our innumerable attempts to end terrorism.