Based on the pilot (and knowledge of the showrunner’s prior work), this Q&A series is going to be a cracker. I particularly like that the manner in which Jonathan Heawood engages with the subject encourages engagement from his readers. And, on that note, I would like to engage.

You ended the “other side of the argument” section by saying that “the argument rests on the assumption that the Government’s job [includes protecting us] … from thinking about terrorism”.

I want to test that with the following hypothetical scenario. A group calling itself “Action for Peace & Love” behaves publicly in a way which does nothing other than profess support for those two laudable aims. But, in private, they are planning murderous acts of terror using funds that they have raised from innocent and unwitting supporters. The State becomes aware of the group’s secret aims and wishes to stop them.

Cutting off the supply of donated funds will undoubtedly help with the government’s objective. But it will be hugely controversial if the government achieves that by invoking a law which puts the police under an obligation to arrest hundreds of people simply for waving placards in support of Action for Peace & Love. In this hypothetical scenario, the government is not protecting the public from thinking about terrorism; it is protecting the public from its collective ignorance about the group’s terrorist ambitions.

The case of Palestine Action is more complicated because the group has claimed responsibility for acts of violence against property. So supporters of Palestine Action are not quite so unknowing. That complication is troubling for reasons that @RobertSharp has already addressed in his earlier comment. But there have also been government statements that the prohibition of Palestine Action is based on “reasons which we can’t disclose because of national security.”

The public cannot, of course, know that the government’s claim is justified. That is troubling for anyone who likes hard evidence. But I am not (yet) willing to accept that the government’s case “rests on the assumption” that its job includes protecting us ”from thinking about terrorism”.