Legislators have accused British police of being heavy-handed in dealing with demonstrators, just days before expected violent protests at next week's G20 summit of world leaders in London.Parliament's Joint Select Committee on Human Rights said police were misusing counter-terrorism laws and anti-social behavior legislation to deal with protesters. The criticism follows complaints about police handling of a climate-change demonstration in southeast England last year. Press TV's Uzma Hussain reports.
Showing posts with label Police Sate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Police Sate. Show all posts
3/28/09
UK police criticized over handling of protests
3/18/09
Caught on film and stored on database: how police keep tabs on activists
from the guardian, 11 March 2009:
Police footage obtained by the Guardian has revealed the crude monitoring methods deployed across the country against protesters, thousands of whom have their personal details stored on criminal intelligence systems for up to seven years...
* Paul Lewis and Marc Vallée
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 March 2009 19.30 GMT
[original article]
Shocking footage shot by police, accompanied by their own critical commentary, shows how their officers monitored campaigners and the media – and demanded personal information – at last August's climate camp demonstration in Kent.
At 11:37am on August 8 last year (2008), two police surveillance officers sat in a patrol car in Kent and switched on their Sony digital video camera.
When the tape started to roll, they stated they were "evidence gatherer" surveillance officers and explained the purpose of the operation. A lead surveillance officer and his assistant, they were on duty to help police the Climate Camp demonstration, an environmental protest against the nearby Kingsnorth coal-fired power station.
What the pair did not know when, 20 minutes later, they stood on a grass verge at the entrance to the camp and started work, was that their surveillance footage would be obtained by the Guardian. It would provide evidence of the crude monitoring methods used to glean information about campaigners and would prove that journalists are being targeted by police surveillance units.
This was no rogue operation. An investigation by the Guardian has established that surveillance footage such as that shot by the Kent officers is routinely uploaded onto a police database. In fact it seems that thousands of activists – from campaigners against Heathrow's third runway to anti-racism marchers – have their personal details stored on criminal intelligence systems for as long as seven years.
The Metropolitan police's Forward Intelligence Teams (FITs) and Evidence Gatherers (EGs) have over the last decade pioneered the controversial use of "overt surveillance", a technique now widely used by forces across the country at political demonstrations. It is designed to "record identifiable details" of protesters who may commit crime or anti-social behaviour and gather intelligence that could help police a public order event.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) recently commissioned the National Police Improvements Agency (NPIA) to establish a "national standard" for overt surveillance, to which all forces in England and Wales have signed up.
Surveillance officers receive briefings before protests about key targets and are handed "spotter cards" containing the images of individuals police want to monitor.
The operations are normally carried out by regular police officers who have received additional training in surveillance. The human rights watchdog Liberty – which did not know about the database – is challenging police surveillance tactics in a judicial review at the court of appeal.
Privacy rights
However police appear not to have disclosed to the court they were transferring the private details of campaigners to a database. Lawyers believe the transfer makes it more likely the technique is in violation of privacy rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
"The time is now 11.57 hours," said the lead officer. "We're up at point three, the front entrance to the climate camp site." The camera panned to show officers from West Yorkshire police, among thousands drafted into Kent from across the country in the £5.9m policing operation, searching activists as they entered the camp.
Kent police, which was in command of the operation, had activated an order under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, authorising officers to search anyone in the area for dangerous weapons. The film shows how police zoomed in on virtually any protesters in the area, noting down items of clothing or other distinctive features. They also appeared to have knowledge of some activists' past political activity, on one occasion noting that a protester had "spent a lot of time" at a different part of the camp. Others seemed to have been targeted for standing beside, or near, prominent environmental campaigners.
But whenever journalists were in the area, the lens was almost exclusively pointed at them. In total 10 journalists were monitored emerging from the camp, where they had been interviewing protesters.
The officers zoomed in to pick out the logo on the back of a Sky News cameraman's jacket, monitored several photographers and followed an ITV Meridian news crew, including the anchor of the evening show, Ian Axton.
"A lot of press officers aren't there. Just think they can bloody wander in and out of the field. It's wrong, I think," the lead officer remarked when the ITV crew was in shot. "I trust them less than the protesters."
Later, referring to ITV cameraman Pete Lloyd Williams, he said: "The time is now 13:19 hours. Same date. Same location. Press cameraman here. Being awkward a little. Being asked to stand back by officers on at least two occasions and then asked to stand by the inspector. Or asked by the inspector to stand out of the road. Coming out with witty comments."
After spotting a videographer and photographer across the road, the assistant officer said: "Inquisitive, ain't they – these two, by the pole."
The lead added: "He don't like having his photograph taken – that one there with the bald head."
The surveillance lens returned to the ITV crew after the pair overheard a discussion between an officer and Lloyd Williams.
"He's giving him a ticket if you want to record any of that? As to whether or not he wants to give his details," the assistant officer said.
The officers walked closer, to within earshot. "Did he give details?" asked the assistant officer. "Don't know if he did or not," replied the lead. "Think he just said he was from ITV Meridian. Don't know if he gave personal details." This was not a one-off event; the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has documented eight occasions over the last year when, it says, police surveillance officers photographed and filmed journalists.
In May the general secretary of the NUJ, Jeremy Dear, alerted the Home Office that journalists – particularly photographers – were "routinely and deliberately" watched by police surveillance teams.
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, replied that the government "greatly values" the free press, but "decisions may be made [by police] locally to restrict or monitor photography in reasonable circumstances". Senior police officers in turn also assured the NUJ that journalists were "not being targeted unfairly".
Moments after the camera stopped rolling at the Climate Camp, a group of journalists, including some of those caught on the surveillance footage, were followed by a team of surveillance officers to a McDonald's restaurant several miles from the camp.
Police filmed the journalists, who were using wireless computer networks to file their material, through the restaurant window. Kent police later apologised after complaints about the McDonald's surveillance incident and the use of the Section 60 order to subject journalists in the area to intensive searches.
Heavy-handed
Assistant chief constable Allyn Thomas, Kent police's commander of the operation, said in November his officers had not been properly briefed about actions they could "reasonably take when engaging with members of the press".
The forces's heavy-handed approach to the Climate Camp demonstration received widespread criticism, including in parliament.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, who initially claimed Kent police's approach had been "proportionate and appropriate", was forced to apologise to MPs after the Guardian revealed the 70 police officers he claimed had been injured in clashes with protesters had actually suffered from unrelated ailments such as bee stings and toothache.
Many of those captured in police surveillance footage – which is filmed at all types of political demonstrations – will want to know what their images are being used for. The raw data gleaned through police surveillance material is stored on marked CD-Roms in a warehouse, and is not searchable by the names of activists.
However, disclosures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the law firm Hickman and Rose, representing the NUJ, document how in the case of the Metropolitan police the surveillance material is "added to a corporate intelligence database". They continue: "If names are known, they will be included" and: "generally, records are retained for seven years".
Superintendent David Hartshorn, a senior officer from the Metropolitan police public order branch, told the Guardian the database in question was CrimInt, a general intelligence system used to catalogue details about criminal activity.
"In relation to what we can keep on databases, we are governed quite strictly on that," he said. "Obviously you've got the Data Protection Act but also, in terms of intelligence, we have to justify what we are able to keep on our systems.
"So for example, if we've got someone who is a known activist for a particular group, and we keep their images live on that intelligence database, along the side of that intelligence there will be a report justifying why that image is being kept." He added: "We can't just randomly take your photograph and hold it on a database. There has to be a reason for it."
Reasons, Hartshorn said, include if a person has a criminal record for activity relating to a demonstration or is an outstanding suspect for an offence.
He added a third category. "There are people we have seen on a regular basis involved but may not have been charged or arrested – but believed to be on the periphery." That might include people "bordering on civil disobedience" or "doing something more than attending a rally".
He said the data was reviewed annually to ensure it remains "valid". "Just because someone did something 10 years ago and they might, off chance, do it again in the future, that is unlikely to justify keeping them on the database."
Asked why law abiding citizens should be held on a database because of their political activity, he replied: "We have to be able to say: this person has been seen at this event. They've been dealing with a person who was arrested at this event. It's not just: we've seen them floating around, don't know who they are, we'll keep them."
Hartshorn conceded that police can use the database to search which political events an individual may have attended. Although surveillance teams attend hundreds of events each year, Hartshorn claimed not to know how many political activists have their details stored on CrimInt.
However lower rank surveillance officers have indicated in open court testimony that officers can search the database for "thousands" of protesters.
In trials of Jeff Parks, an activist from London twice convicted for blocking police cameras at protests, surveillance officers revealed, according to solicitors' notes of proceedings, that one reason they were monitoring him was to gather information for the database.
In December PC Dan Collins told the City of Westminster magistrates court that his material was uploaded onto a central "intelligence system" which enabled police to search the political history of Parks, as well as "thousands" of other protesters.
Last month at Tower Bridge magistrates PC Hall and PC Pritchard accepted that there was a general police database that would include records of surveillance material relating to Parks.
"From the evidence of police officers in these cases, it is becoming clear that the police are maintaining a systematic record, including photographs, of those who attend demonstrations or even political meetings," said Parks's solicitor Raj Chada, who is appealing against his client's convictions. "Our cases suggest if you attend an anti-war meeting or other political meetings, your photograph will end up stored on some database."
2/11/09
Dead Prez Fuck the Law
Slap a white boy. Snuff your landlord
Smash some windows. Break the camcord
Rob the corner store. Bomb the precinct
Take the CO. Stab the GT
Pimp the system. Bang for freedom
Fuck the high schools. Burn the prisons
Ride on the record labels. Jump your A&R
Fuck the contract. Push the AR
Get your bank up. Slip the banks up
Break the handcuffs. Invade the campus
Steal some pampers. Smash the cameras
Fuck the police. Grab the camera
[Chorus]
You wonder why we feel like fuck the law
You wonder why we write up on the wall
You wonder why we burn the cities down
Cuz we don't give a fuck, the time is now
You wonder why we feel like fuck the law
You wonder why we write up on the wall
You wonder why we burn the cities down
Cuz we don't give a fuck, the time is now
[Verse 2]
Cock your rifle. Rep your people
Fuck probation. Kidnap your PO
Run the roadblocks. Smash a TV
Fuck with DP. Steal the CD
Kiss my black ass. Nail the judges
Hang the lawyers. Ride for justice
Keep it gangsta. Kill the snitches
Get rid of the middleman. Control your business
[Chorus]
You wonder why we feel like fuck the law
You wonder why we write up on the wall
You wonder why we burn the cities down
Cuz we don't give a fuck, the time is now
You wonder why we feel like fuck the law
You wonder why we write up on the wall
You wonder why we burn the cities down
Cuz we don't give a fuck, the time is now
2/1/08
Keetley Expired?
MICK Keelty, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, protesteth too much
Has federal police boss reached his use-by date? Sushi Das January 31, 2008
. And embarrassingly for him, his protests are becoming more preposterous and hysterical.
The most unpalatable element of his accusation this week that journalists have misinformed the public over counter-terrorism cases and undermined the judicial system is his shameless hypocrisy.
And his call for a media commentary blackout on the reporting of these cases until all legal avenues have been exhausted raises the question: on which hilltop does Keelty stand when he makes such demands of Australia's robust democratic institutions?
In Keelty's ideal world there would have been no public scrutiny of the Mohamed Haneef case, which collapsed spectacularly after the AFP and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions made crucial mistakes — mistakes that were revealed by the media. The Indian-born doctor was charged last July with providing a mobile phone SIM card to a terrorist organisation. The charges were later dropped because of lack of evidence.
Let's refresh our memories over key events. There was the incorrect assertion that Haneef's SIM card was found in the exploded jeep at Glasgow airport. This claim was used to support the ongoing detention of Haneef.
First Keelty tried to blame the prosecutors and then he tried to blame the British police for providing wrong information — a mistake the British police say they corrected before Haneef was charged.
The AFP knew the SIM card was not in the jeep when they laid the charges and they knew the prosecutor misinformed the court. The AFP did not immediately correct the mistake. In fact it did not seek to correct information in the public domain until the ABC revealed the SIM card was recovered hundreds of kilometres away in Liverpool — exactly where Haneef had left it. This was followed by Keelty's garbled comments about the SIM card being in "in the vicinity of London" and "still at Glasgow". His subsequent failure to entirely dismiss an Indian "dossier" alleging Haneef had links to al-Qaeda was plain dirty.
When charges against Haneef were finally dropped, Keelty tried to blame the DPP, saying police were obliged to charge Haneef on the prosecutor's advice. The DPP presses charges based on evidence put forward by the police.
Last year Keelty attacked the media for making police investigations difficult and he savaged Haneef's barrister, Stephen Keim, for leaking a transcript of the AFP's interview with Haneef. Everyone's to blame but him.
Then in a speech to the Sydney Institute this week, he attacked media manipulation of public sentiment, acting in the defensive manner of someone who believes he has no case to answer. The AFP has many media spokespeople and they all want to spin the news their way.
At least when Keim gave the transcript to The Australian, he owned up to it. He took responsibility.
But who has taken responsibility for the "secret information" about the case that police claimed could not be divulged — the innuendoes, smears and leaks that look suspiciously like they came from the police themselves?
In calling for the creation of a "society of editors" that police and intelligence chiefs can use to brief the media in an off-the-record forum to set matters straight, Keelty displays that he knows little of the competitive media environment. It would take only one editor to breach the rules, one leak to a blogger, one whisper in the wrong ear.
Keelty's boo-hoo-hoo antics belie the AFP's woeful record on the Haneef case. The cops got clobbered and they know it. Keelty just can't handle it, so he lashes out at the media because there is no one else to blame.
The saddest thing about this whole drama is that Keelty has a reputation for being a good cop. He is respected by many in the force and applauded for the AFP's expert handling of matters after the Bali bombings.
The AFP has done excellent work catching terrorists in conjunction with the Indonesian police. He was unfairly pilloried for stating the plain truth after the Madrid bombing when he said Australia's involvement in Iraq had made the threat of terrorist attacks worse, and he even got slapped down when he said climate change posed a threat to national security.
One might have expected, after heading the AFP since 2001, through some tumultuous times for Australia's crime fighting forces, that he might have been mentioned in this year's Australia Day honours.
Since the AFP failed to remain independent and above politics as Howard government heavies weighed into the Haneef case to exploit popular insecurities, it's hard to see how the AFP under Keelty is going to redefine itself.
And redefine itself it must, to some degree, under the Rudd Government, which has signalled that while it is not about to soften tough counter-terrorism legislation, it will broaden its national security strategy to include a new focus on social policy to build bridges with the Islamic community.
On the domestic terrorism front, things have been going awry for Keelty for some time. But sheeting the blame home to the media, the very same media that his spin doctors seek to manipulate, is unworthy of his office.
If he hasn't already lost it, he is on the precipice of losing the public's trust. Perhaps the time has come for Keelty to hand in his badge.
Sushi Das is a senior writer.
Email: sdas@theage.com.au
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