Independent report. All the headlines will be devoted to Abu Hamza: most people will remain unaware of Babar Ahmad and the terrible injustice that has been done to him.

Human rights judges today ordered a halt to the extraditions of Babar Ahmad and radical preacher Abu Hamza, both wanted in the US on terror charges.

Independent report.

Babar Ahmad, 35, is the longest-serving prisoner held without charge or trial in the UK. In his first media interview since his arrest on a US extradition warrant in 2004, Mr Ahmad tells Robert Verkaik that he is the forgotten victim of the 'war on terror'. In March 2009, he was awarded £60,000 in compensation after an admission by the UK's anti-terrorist police that they subjected him to 'grave abuse, tantamount to torture' during his first arrest in December 2003. Corresponding via email from a secure isolation unit at Long Lartin prison, he calls on the Government to charge him or release him. Today, the European Court of Human Rights rules on his case.

Independent report.

The personal bank accounts of British citizens will be made available to American investigators working on counter-terrorism cases when MEPs approve a request made by President Obama today.

The controversial deal raises serious concerns about the privacy rights of British and other EU citizens whose personal banking affairs are held on a giant database that covers the vast majority of bank-to-bank financial transactions across Europe.

Guardian report.

Counterterrorism police have targeted hundreds of surveillance cameras on two Muslim areas of Birmingham, enabling them to track the precise movements of people entering and leaving the neighbourhoods.

The project has principally been sold to locals as an attempt to combat antisocial behaviour, vehicle crime and drug dealing in the area. But the cameras have been paid for by a £3m grant from a government fund, the Terrorism and Allied Matters Fund, which is administered by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Spencer Dalziel on the Inquirer.

Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg has performed an about face on the Government's power to stop the US from extraditing accused UK hacker Gary McKinnon.

The Deputy Prime Minister has thrown the prospect of a Home Office tribunal for McKinnon into doubt after suggesting that neither he nor anyone else in the coalition can save the UFO hunter from a US show trial.

Craig Murray writes.

I am delighted today that Teresa May has called in the McKinnon case for consideration - something New Labour refused to do. It does appear that Conservatives and Lib Dems are going to keep their promises and stop the McKinnon extradition.

This is great news. Even better news is that page 14 of the full coalition agreement promises to change Blair's vassal state extradition treaty in the UK.

Craig Murray writes.

We have the first fake terror scare since the election - and Theresa May has jumped in on the authoritarian side.

Josie Appleton on the Guardian's CiF.

A Manifesto Club survey found that people in their late 20s and 30s are being routinely checked not just for buying alcohol, but also for attempting to purchase items such as barbecue skewers, bleach, paracetamol, UHU glue, matches, cigarette papers, even a "gentleman's manicure set".

[...]

Challenging this culture of ID checking is as crucial as taking on the ID card scheme itself. As free citizens we should not have to produce our papers at the local supermarket. We must assert again our right to pass.

John Lettice reports in Teh Register.

Second-generation biometric passports will be scrapped alongside ID cards and the National Identity Register by the new Tory-LibDem government, probably as part of a merger between the LibDem Freedom Bill, and the Great Repeal Bill advocated by some sections of the Tory party. It isn't as yet entirely clear what will be in this Bill, but there is sufficient common ground between the two parties for it to be one of the easier tasks for the new government.

Paul Chambers describes his ordeal on the Guardian's CiF.

The reason for the arrest was a tweet I had posted on the social network Twitter, which was deemed to constitute a bomb threat against Robin Hood airport in Doncaster: "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" You may say, and I certainly realise now, it was ill-advised. But it was clearly frustration, caused by heavy snowfall grounding flights and potentially scuppering my own flight a week later. Like having a bad day at work and stating that you could murder your boss, I didn't even think about whether it would be taken seriously.

Richard Godwin in the Evening Standard.

If I were to use this column to announce my intention to nail-bomb the London Aquarium, would you think I was serious?

Well, I am. I have had it up to here with the sharks who live in the main tank there. Stupid hammerhead bastards. They have been annoying me long enough, with their nasty little gills, their beady little eyes. I intend to teach them a lesson they will never forget, a lesson involving nails and bombs.

[...]

The case naturally raises troubling legal questions about social media sites. Also about how many exclamation marks signal a joke (two is not enough, clearly!!!).

BBC report.

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian-born British resident, was arrested in the UK shortly after the attacks amid claims that he was a key member of the plot.

He was held in custody for nearly five months before being released when a judge found there was no evidence to link him to any form of terrorism.

Register article.

The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record.

His crime was a persistent refusal to give counter-terrorism police the keys to decrypt his computer files.

The 33-year-old man, originally from London, is currently held at a secure mental health unit after being sectioned while serving his sentence at Winchester Prison.

Gary Marshall on techradar.com.

The bill doesn't include anything about banning sites politicians and the military don't want you to see, but it doesn't need to. By including a clause that could enable the blocking of sites accused of copyright infringement, the bill could block Wikileaks, and collateralmurder.com, and any site that attempted to mirror the clip. The footage, like many things Wikileaks is given by whistleblowers, is copyrighted material.

Guardian report.

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, was ordered by a court yesterday to announce whether the government accepts responsibility for one of the UK's longest-standing miscarriages of justice.

The court of appeal gave Straw 28 days to decide whether Lotfi Raissi, a pilot wrongly accused of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is entitled to compensation from the government.

Independent report.

Personal information concerning the private lives of almost 1,000 British Muslim university students is to be shared with US intelligence agencies in the wake of the Detroit bomb scare.

The disclosure has outraged Muslim groups and students who are not involved in extremism but have been targeted by police and now fear that their names will appear on international terrorist watch lists. So far, the homes of more than 50 of the students have been visited by police officers, but nobody has been arrested. The case has raised concerns about how the police use the data of innocent people and calls into question the heavy-handed treatment of Muslim students by UK security agencies.