Much can be learned from the way in which Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent of the Guardian, explains the concept of "control orders;"
The use of the passive voice is always a warning sign. "Believed to be involved", by whom exactly? Not by a judge or jury but by the Home Secretary, on the basis of secret evidence she will allow no court to test. Indeed, if a victim of such an order succeeds in having a court overturn it, the Home Secretary can simply issue another. Double jeopardy does not apply.
If there is "no case to be brought that meets the criminal standard of proof", then (if innocent until proven guilty) nine innocent people are detained in our country. This is no legal nicety. The burden of proof should always be on those who would imprison you. That is at the heart of the values "counter-terrorism" is supposed to defend. To detain someone without due process of law is – quite simply – wrong. No political career should long survive support for such an outrageous idea. Yet Mr Dodd's anonymous source in the intelligence services suggests politicians can't survive not supporting it;
"…The review was conceived at a more benign time, but now there is the threat of a Mumbai-style attack, and the increased threat from Irish terrorism. Do ministers want to take that risk? The power is used sparingly. It is about a very small number of dangerous people…"
"Dangerous?" So he says but is unwilling to prove. The Guardian (forgetting, as usual, that its very name is a reference to Juvenal's question "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?") tells us that "security services and police have so far won their argument that there is no alternative to control orders." How can that be so when the "alternative" existed for centuries in Britain and still exists in most other countries?
We have a choice and, as a society, we are choosing wrongly. If you doubt that, consider the company (modern and historical) we are keeping in making the choice we have.
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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