ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the direct impact that the post 2000 terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and the United States have had on public perceptions of threats to physical security and outlines the wider state powers of search and surveillance which were enacted as a consequence. This legislation has also led to a criminalisation of inchoate actions, such as encouraging terrorism, and to the demotion in significance of ex post facto evidence in favour of intelligence. It has also led to an increasingly close relationship between intelligence agencies, security agencies and domestic police forces. A reaction to what was perceived by civil liberties organisations as an unwarranted curtailment of privacy rights, then led to a reappraisal of surveillance and data retention powers. There was some rolling back of state power, but prior to the Snowden revelations, this was on a piecemeal basis.
