LONDON – (AP) Secret trials. Curbing free speech. Three months in jail without charge. British authorities have hesitated to crack down in the past, largely because of human rights concerns and court actions that allowed radical Islamic activists to operate freely in Britain for years, raising money, beaming satellite TV spots and running Internet sites that condemn America and support al-Qaida.

No more.

The July bombings changed all that, much like the September 11, 2001 attacks led to stepped up security in the United States – and to a rollback in civil liberties – all in the name of national security.

It says something about these anxious times in Britain that both liberals and conservatives are trying to out-tough one another to make it clear that no one here will tolerate terror.

But critics and the Muslim community are raising concerns that the balance is being skewed between the rights of individuals and the need to prevent another attack in a country where many concepts of civil rights first took hold.

“I think we are getting into some dangerous territory,” said Sonya Sceats, an expert on international human rights law at the Chatham House think tank. “And that we are starting to abrogate some of the principles we use to define ourselves.”

Not only is Britain proposing to crack down on radical groups, close certain bookshops and deport hate-mongering clerics to countries that permit torture, Prime Minister Tony Blair signalled he may reconsider aspects of the Human Rights Act, a law some activists here had hoped would become the British equivalent of America’s Bill of Rights.

The soul-searching over how to battle al-Qaida while keeping Britain a free society mirrors a debate that has raged since the September 11 attacks. Anthony D Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, sees a disturbing pattern of US and British security fears feeding off one another.

For example, random subway searches were implemented in New York shortly after the London attacks – even though there was no apparent suggestion of an American link, Romero said. After 9-11, some American officials suggested the creation of a domestic spying agency like Britain’s MI5.

Romero is even more worried because Britain had been counted on to criticise, for example, US detention policies at Guantanamo Bay.

“Now you can de-fang one of the closest critics of the Bush administration’s civil liberties policies,” he said. “Now you can point to their own policies.”

Furthermore, Britain and America have in the past championed human rights around the world, but could find their standing as watchdogs undermined now.

“It will certainly undercut the ability of both governments to be advocates for changes on the world scene,” Romero said.

Conservative Party spokesman Patrick Mercer said this week that the country needed to strengthen border controls, create a homeland security office and do a better job of informing the public about what to watch out for in terms of terrorist attacks – and what to do in an emergency.

Britain’s police argue that authorities should be allowed to hold suspects without charge for as long as three months – rather than the two weeks now allowed under terrorism laws – because the global phenomenon requires time and expertise to combat.

Police want a new law making it a crime to withhold information on computer encryption and the right to suppress what was described as inappropriate Internet usage.

Police say mistakes may be made, but that cannot deter them. As London reeled from the deadly July 7 attacks on three subway trains and a bus and a series of failed bombings two weeks later, police gunned down a Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, inside a subway car, mistakenly believing he was a suicide bomber.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair apologised to the family, then warned that police would shoot to kill again to protect the city from suicide bombers – a stark message in a country where most police don’t carry guns.

Police investigating the attacks have arrested 40 people, charging 14 people in all.

A sweep earlier this week netted 10 foreigners – including firebrand Muslim cleric, Abu Qatada – so they could be deported in the interests of national security. Officials yesterday also barred radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri from returning to the country, saying his presence is no longer “conducive to the public good”.

Britain has refused in the past to deport people to countries where they may face torture, though Blair’s government has in recent days been securing separate agreements with Jordan, Algeria and Egypt to ensure deportees aren’t harmed.

Britain’s top legal official, Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer, told British Broadcasting Corporation radio that the government may seek to amend human rights legislation to make the deportations easier.

“The deportee has got rights, but so have the people of this country,” he said.

Security experts like Bob Ayers, also of Chatham House, said what Britain really needs to do is enforce laws already on the books that ban the incitement of hate.

“The right to free speech does not include calling for the death of the infidel,” Ayers said. “It doesn’t include calling for the overthrow of the country they live in.”