Oh, we have our recent anti-terrorist laws. They are pretty bad. Terrorism is such a dreadful thing that the mere suspicion of it seems (to the government) to justify the loss of civil liberties.

ASBOs work at the other end of the scale, in that they address minor annoyances - the kind of "offence" that would just get you a clip around the ear in the good old days. ASBOs attempt to formalise that, with the best of intentions. However, they can turn just about any action into an arrestable offence, which is again worrying from civil liberties point of view.

I don't agree about Guantanamo but I'm not going to debate that here.