On cop-spies and paid betrayers (1): Doctor Bob Lambert & bloody McLibel

I haven’t properly blogged for a long time, but I have been following the #vancop situation, in its myriad guises, for a fair while, but have not had the time to put anything down. (Others have ploughed this furrow, I know, and ploughed well.) Today I found a moment to scribble something down…

I wonder if (former) Met spook Detective Inspector Bob Lambert (AKA ‘Bob Robinson’, Special Branch 1980-2006; infiltrated London Greenpeace 1984-1988; founder and head of the Muslim Contact Unit 2002-2007) knew any of the private spooks employed by McDonald’s to infiltrate London Greenpeace (1989-1991)?

 With a revolving door policy between NSY and the security offices of big business – and also the fertile environment for sharing or trading of information which that creates – it would be interesting to see from whence the roots sprang and whereto the branches grew.

For instance, McDonald’s security during the 1980s/1990s McLibel period (when two London Greenpeace activists, Helen Steel and Dave Morris, defended themselves against a lawsuit brought by the greasy clown’s boys) was run by ex-Met copper Sid Nicholson.

Nicholson was formerly a Chief Superintendent at Brixton; his number two at the McDonald’s Security Department was Terry Carrol, also ex-Met and an oppo from Brixton, before himself making Chief Superintendent at Carter Street. In evidence, Nicholson characterised his Security Department as “all ex-policemen“, and that ‘if he ever wanted to know information about protesters he would go to his contacts in the police‘.

A memo by Carrol from 1994 read out in court during the McLibel trial noted:

I had a meeting with ARNI [Animal Rights National Index, later grew into National Public Order Intelligence Unit/NPOIU] from Scotland Yard today who gave me the enclosed literature. Some of it we have, other bits are new.

Nicholson himself noted that he had “quite a lot of experience with Special Branch officers,” and that his first contact with them in relation to London Greenpeace had taken place at a meeting at McDonald’s HQ in September 1989.

After this meeting McDonald’s decided to hire two separate private detective agencies to spy on London Greenpeace, Bishops Investigation Bureau/Westhall Services and Kings Investigation Bureau.

Eveline Lubbers claims “at least seven [private] detectives” were embedded undercover in LG, from two different firms hired separately. (Some six of the paid informant-provocateurs are named by Lubbers, based on trial evidence published by McSpotlight.)

 From Bishops Investigation Bureau, there was Brian Bishop and Allan Clare. From Kings Investigation Bureau, there was full-time investigator Roy Pocklington (‘Tony’), ex-copper-turned-freelance nark Michelle Hooker (AKA ‘Shelley’), KIB secretary-cum-spy Fran(ces) Tiller née Davidson (‘Jan Goodman’), and one ‘Jack Russell’ (not thought to be the legendary Somerset wicket-keeper).

Hooker entered into a relationship (“a six month love affair”) with actual LG activist Charlie Brooke, which ended in mid-1991, when she left the operation – eight months after Maccy D’s served libel writes on five LG members for the ‘What’s Wrong With McDonald’s?’ leaflet.

 Clare admitted burgling London Greenpeace’s office, stealing documents, and carrying out illicit photography. Evidence he gave at the libel trial based on his claimed contemporaneous notes was found by the European Court of Human Rights to be not wholly accurate.

 The theft by McDonald’s-tasked private dicks was known to Nicholson, but he does not appeared to have been reported this criminal act to the police.

 Nicholson’s interest in London Greenpeace stretched back – on his own admission – to 1987, when first he saw the ‘What’s Wrong With McDonald’s?’ leaflet. Between then and his hiring of BIB and KIB in 1989, Nicholson personally visited both London Greenpeace’s postal address and an anti-McDonald’s Fayre at Conway Hall to try to ascertain the identities of those behind the leaflet, as well as tasking various McDonald’s Security Department underlings with the surveillance of London Greenpeace activists.

 But in his evidence he notes that “prior to the demonstration [of 21 October 1989] I was able to learn the identity of two of the organisers, Paul Gravett and Helen Steel.”

Let’s just recap: Between 1987 and 1989 Nicholson and his corporate security goons didn’t know who was in London Greenpeace; in September 1989 Nicholson meets with Special Branch. In October 1989 he knows the identities of two LG activists (both of whom would be served with writs). He then instructed the “two firms of enquiry agents” to further investigate London Greenpeace.

 In the course of the next two years at least seven spooks infiltrated the LG group on Nicholson’s behalf. Burglary, theft and other crimes were committed during the execution of this operation, to the knowledge in part at least of Nicholson. At least one private eye entered into an intimate relationship with one of the targets.

Collusion between police and the corporate security goons was such that in 1998 the McLibel Two defendants Helen Steel and Dave Morris went on the attack, and in 2000 won a £10,000 award and an apology from the Met in an out-of-court settlement for the disclosure by the police to McDonald’s of confidential information about them.

The case helped to expose how “police (including Special Branch) officers had passed private and in some cases false information about the McLibel 2 (and other protesters), including home addresses, to McDonald’s and to their private investigators”.

In addition to the award by the Met, a named officer, Detective Sergeant David Valentine, was also made to apologise for his own specific role. Finally, the Met was made to remind all police personnel across the Greater London area “of their responsibility not to disclose information held on the Police National Computer to third parties”.

On this victory against the Met Steel and Morris released a statement that resonates just as strongly more than a decade on:

At the eleventh hour the police pulled out of facing a case which would’ve demonstrated illegal police practices. In recent years there have been a number of publicised [sic] incidents of the police passing information about campaigners to private companies. It’s clear that their claim to be impartial defenders of the public is a hollow one. This collusion reveals the political role of the police in ensuring the wheels of big business keep turning. This case has forced the Met to warn all London police officers against such practices.

Which brings us full circle back to Bob Lambert, and a whole bunch of questions…

1. After his exit from London Greenpeace in 1988 did any other undercover police officers either remain inside the group, or replace him?
2. Did Special Branch pass on work product derived from Lambert (and possibly other cop-spies) to Nicholson, Carrol or others at McDonald’s, its Security Department or contracted external detective agencies?
3. What was the nature of the relationship between Nicholson, Carrol and McDonald’s on the one side, and Special Branch and ARNI on the other?
4. Were other police, security service or private sector agencies involved?
5. Furthermore, just what was Lambert’s role at Special Branch between his exit from undercover work in London Greenpeace in 1988 and his role in setting up the MCU in 2002?

In view of that last question, we are told that whilst at the Special Demonstration Squad Lambert was responsible for Detective Constable Andrew Jim Boyling (AKA ‘Jim Sutton’), who was infiltrated into Reclaim The Streets via anti-GM and hunt sab groups in 1995, staying behind the lines until 2000.

Both Boyling and Lambert are accused of lying to courts to preserve their cover; both Boyling and Lambert duplicitously entered into sexual relationships with activists on whom they were spying; both Boyling and Lambert sired children by these women. Is this coincidence, or an indication of the nature of the training Lambert offered his protégés?

(It is also interesting that the woman with whom Boyling became involved was someone he met in the immediate aftermath of the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism – an event that Reclaim The Streets had brought off successfully right under the noses of the Met and the City of London Police – at an RTS meeting to discuss how it had all gone. This was four years into his infiltration of the environmental movement.)

Through his time at the MCU, and in his subsequent academic (and journalistic) work, ‘Dr Robert Lambert MBE’ has striven to be seen as a moderate, a progressive, someone keen to engage with Muslim activists to, in the words of a Demos report, “service the needs of grass roots Muslim community groups tackling the adverse impact of al-Qa’ida inspired terrorist propaganda at close quarters in London”.

Yet even in an article about the MCU and its work with communities in the January/February 2007 issue of Arches, a magazine of the Cordoba Foundation, Lambert links “the strategists behind 9/11″ to “the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin”. For someone with an intimate understanding of anarchist and anti-authoritarian political movements, that is an interesting parallel to draw.

An accident? A casual mistake? Or operational afterburn?

Four short years on from when he originally made that remark – and given his recent ‘little trouble’ coming out – that throwaway comment by Detective Inspector Lambert of the Yard (retd) seems better chosen, more deliberately chosen, and chosen for a reason. Our political movements aren’t infiltrated by the state for the fun of it.

Background on McLibel case

• ‘McLibel Case‘ (Wikipedia)

• McSpotlight (McLibel Two defence campaign website)

• ‘London Greenpeace – History and Past Campaigns‘ (McSpotlight)

• Fran Tiller interview (McSpotlight)

• ‘Curriculum vitae: Sid Nicholson‘ (McSpotlight)

• ‘Witness statement: Sidney Thompson Nicholson‘ (McSpotlight)

• ‘Met Police Pay £10,000 to McLibel 2‘ 5 July 2000 (McSpotlight)

• ECHR ruling 2003 (McSpotlight)

• ‘McSpying’ by Eveline Lubbers, chapter in Battling Big Business, ed. Eveline Lubbers

• McLibel: Burger Culture On Trial by John Vidal

Useful resources

• PowerBase

• SpinWatch

• ‘Bob Lambert’ (PowerBase)

• ‘Private security industry and the police: revolving door‘ (PowerBase)

• ‘Special Demonstration Squad‘ (PowerBase)

Articles and reports

• ‘Special Branch help McDonald’s‘ from Squall No.14, Autumn 1996 (McSpotlight)

• ‘McLibel pair get police payout‘ 5 July, 2000 (BBC News)

• ‘Bringing it Home: Community-based approach to counter-terrorism‘ by Hannah Lownsbrough, Rachel Briggs and Catherine Fieschi, 4 December 2006 (Demos)

• ‘Reflections on Counter-Terrorism Partnerships in Britain‘ by Bob Lambert, January/February 2007 (Arches magazine, Cordoba Foundation)

• ‘We need to listen to the man from special branch‘ by Seamas Milne, 14 February 2008 (Guardian)

• ‘Undercover policeman married activist he was sent to spy on‘ by Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Rowenna Davis, 19 January 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Ex-wife of police spy tells how she fell in love and had children with him‘ by Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Rowenna Davis, 19 January 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Unmasking the environmental infiltrators‘ by Tilly Gifford, 19 January 2011 (SpinWatch)

• ‘Progressive academic Bob Lambert is former police spy‘ by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, 16 October 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Police accused of allowing undercover officers to lie in court‘ by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, 19 October 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Second undercover officer accused of misleading court‘ by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, 21 October 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Police spy tricked lover with activist ‘”cover story”‘ by Paul Lewis and Rob Evans, 23 October 2011 (Guardian)

• ‘Undercover police had children with activists‘ by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, 20 January 2012 (Guardian)

Other notes

• Robert Lambert writer’s profile (Guardian)

• Staff page for European Muslim Research Centre, University of Exeter

Edited 24/1/12 to add tags, correct typos & for style.

Edited 25/1/12 for another fucking typo.

Edited 26/1/12 to add ‘Jack Russell’ & tidy things up.

Edited 26/1/13 for typos etc.

Never forget our dead: Fred Hampton, RIP

Fred Hampton

Born, 30th August 1948

Murdered, 4th December 1969

Assassinated by the State.

Tomlinson Inquest – Day 6: PC Simon Harwood to give evidence

Today is the day PC Simon Harwood is due to give evidence for the first time at the Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson on April Fool’s Day two years back. According to the court timetable, his testimony may overrun into tomorrow.

He will be preceded by Inspector Timothy Williams, his serial commander at 4TSG.

Tomlinson Inquest – Day 5: Two years on from the killing of Ian Tomlinson

Today is both the second anniversary of the death of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the police, and the fifth day of the Coroner’s Inquest into that death. The end of a life, and the end of a week of evidence.

Thoughts and love to the whole Tomlinson family.

M26. 26 March. March 26. See you on the streets!

Via Deterritorial Support Group.

Useful links:

• FITwatch (includes pics of notorious cops to keep an eye out for)
• Freedom Press (lots of updates, legal advice etc)
• Green & Black Cross
• Legal Defence & Monitoring Group
• London IndyMedia update on blocs & routes

Key messages*:

1. NO COMMENT to all police questions
2. GIVE NO DETAILS IN A STOP & SEARCH and only give them if arrested and in a police station
3. USE A GOOD SOLICITOR eg Bindman’s, Birnberg Pierce, Hodge Jones & Allen

* Per GBC.

Green Scare book – sample chapter now available!

Will Potter has been following with interest and writing about the ‘Green Scare’ – by which governments, police agencies and corporations characterise non-violent environmental direct action as ‘eco-terrorism’ or similar – for several years now, and in April his book about the subject, ‘Green Is The New Red’, will be published.

If you are in the Washington, DC area on either Tuesday 19th or Saturday 23rd April, then you may want to crash a reading event or the launch party – more details on Will’s blog.

For the rest of us, there’s a sample chapter available for free…

If you’re not quite sure what this ‘Green Scare’ really is – or suspect that it’s a hullabaloo about nothing, then you’d be as well to check out Will’s intro to the subject:

“The No. 1 domestic terrorism threat,” says John Lewis, a top FBI official, “is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement.”

The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms.

Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. They have never even injured anyone. In fact, the only act of attempted murder in the history of the U.S. animal rights movement was coordinated by corporate provocateurs. Yet the FBI ranks these activists as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.

…Fear. It’s all about fear. The point is to protect corporate profits by instilling fear in the mainstream animal rights and environmental movements—and every other social movement paying attention—and make people think twice about using their First Amendment rights.

Industry groups say “this is just the starting gun” for the Green Scare. But this could be the starting gun for activists as well. I’ve talked with hundreds of activists around the country over the years. There’s a lot of fear. But there’s also a lot of rage. And that’s a very good thing.

Because today’s repression may mimic many of the tactics of the Red Scare, but today’s response cannot. It’s not enough to cowardly distance ourselves from anyone branded a communist, I mean, terrorist. Naming names and making loyalty oaths didn’t protect activists then, and it won’t protect activists now.

The only way activists, and the First Amendment, are going to get through this is by coming out and confronting it head-on. That means reaching out to mainstream Americans and telling them that labeling activists as terrorists wastes valuable anti-terrorism resources and is an insult to everyone who died in the twin towers. That means reaching out to other activists and saying loud and clear that these activists are just the canaries in the mine.

Together, we can stop they cycle of history repeating itself.

Not FIT for purpose? Police ‘Forward Intelligence Team’ implicated in student protest fit-up

Remember the Forward Intelligence Teams? Well, camera-wielding cops are back in the news again, this time in relation to the policing of the anti-cuts and student protests that exploded across the country at the end of last year. It seems that at least one FIT officer – according to the London Evening Standard – has been implicated in a shameless attempt to fit up a protester on false charges at the ‘DayX3′ protest on 9 December.

Unfortunately for the police involved it seems that the FIT cop was wired for sound and, after catching a young protester who had “breached a police cordon”, that officer was apparently recorded as he “conspired to falsely arrest the 20-year-old” with his colleagues. The arrestee sustained a broken tooth in the arrest. The circumstances are now being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

You may remember that the FIT has history with the IPCC. Experienced FIT cops, including PC Alan Palfrey from Camden, PC Steve Discombe and others, witnessed the deadly assault on Ian Tomlinson by riot cop PC Simon Harwood at the 2009 G20 protests, but failed to come forward and give evidence until long after the original police narrative (‘a tragic collapse/police under hail of missiles’) had been discredited. Their unwillingness to come forward helped stymy attempts to properly investigate the circumstances of Mr Tomlinson’s death, and Harwood – a veteran on the Territorial Support Group – was able to avoid justice as the clock ran down in his favour. The Crown Prosecution Service announced in July 2010 that no charges would be brought against Harwood.

So just what legitimate purpose do the FITs serve? We have seen, as with the Tomlinson case, that these so-called experts in political protest are not actually very good at identifying ‘domestic extremists‘ (as their bosses in the publicly unaccountable National Public Order Information Unit like to call any protesters they don’t like – which boils down to anyone involved in effective activism) – otherwise why would they point out a luckless bystander like Ian Tomlinson for TSG special treatment?

We have also seen FIT officers direct violent attacks on activists when they question why some cops are not wearing their identifying numbers in order to have them photographed against their will, even when they knew full well who they were, in a manner consistent not with any desire to maintain public order or to prevent crime, but to embarrass, humiliate or otherwise harm recalcitrant protesters.

And now we appear to have FIT cops directly involved in brazen attempts to subvert the law, and possibly even to assault those they do not like.

But then should we expect anything else? The FITs are police units tasked with ‘harassment policing’ – identifying, surveilling, folllowing and hassling persons of interest in a range of fields, be it in relation to football fans, antisocial behaviour on housing estates or political protest. Their targets might never have committed an offence; but then that is the point – this is, after all, harassment policing, in which the message is loud and clear: if you come onto our radar, we will do our best to intimidate you, scare you, threaten you.

No, the reason the FIT are tolerated, nurtured, supported by the police is clear – to make life uncomfortable for anyone who challenges the status quo, to grind down those who fight against injustices and inequalities (by means legal or otherwise), and to dissuade others from taking action by illustrating just how unpleasant it can be. It’s education in action: pour encourager les autres.

Balkans Scrapbook – remembering the Yugoslav Civil War through news cuttings, photographs and documentaries (plus Bolivian adventurers, Hungarian fascists, Irish bouncers, British spy cops…)

I’ve long been interested in the Balkans and the break up of the former Yugoslavia, so it’s good to see Balkan Scrapbook, a blog pulling together newspaper clippings, pictures and documentary film on what went down in the early 1990s.

It’s not been up long, but there’s already some interesting content, with new stuff being uploaded all the time. The focus at the moment seems to be on foreign fighters taking part in the conflict, and the death of journalist Paul Jenks near Osijek in east Slavonia, Croatia. Jenks was investigating the earlier death of Swiss reporter Chritian Würtenberg, who himself had joined the International Platoon (PIV) fighting with the Croatian HOS militia whilst looking into links between it and a pan-European fascist network. John Sweeney (he of shouting-at-Scientologists fame) was a colleague and a friend, and he returned to Osijek nearly three years after Jenks’ death to try and uncover what had happened – which made for a riveting documentary film, Dying For The Truth, which opened the Travels With My Camera strand on Channel 4.

The whole torrid tale brought together damaged ex-servicemen in search of excitement, wannabe warriors, and some seriously scary political soldiers – not least Eduardo Rózsa-Flores, a Bolivian-born Hungarian-Spanish Catholic fascist (try saying that in a hurry) who came to lead the PIV. Flores had turned up in Croatia ostensibly to work as a journalist, but soon set up the PIV under the patronage of Branimir Glavaš, a regional powerbroker subsequently convicted of war crimes.

After the deaths of Würtenberg and Jenks, and a third PIV volunteer, Anthony Mann Grant – all blamed on Serbs, but with many unanswered questions hanging in the air – Flores did a runner to Zagreb, before melting away from the Balkans. Ultimately he was involved in a right-wing secessionist movement in Bolivia, and he was shot dead by security forces there in 2009, alongside fellow mercenaries Mario Tadic, a Croatian, and Előd Tóásó, variously described as a Romanian and a Hungarian, plus Irishman Michael Dwyer.

Dwyer had been a security thug working at Shell’s Corrib gas pipeline project in County Mayo, where Integrated Risk Management Services had accrued a reputation for violence against environmental protesters, before he was apparently recruited for the Bolivian adventure by other IRMS goons with a background in Magyar autonomist politics. As if to demonstrate how the world is getting smaller, the Metropolitan Police’s “vancop” agent provocateur PC Mark Kennedy, AKA Mark ‘Flash’ Stone, had previously infiltrated the anti-Corrib activist groups, which were of great interest to Irish and British police as well as business interests and private security groups.

But I digress – if you’re interested in the former Yugoslavia and all that happened there in recent history, then keep an eye on Balkan Scrapbook.

Edited 9 September 2012 to reflect move of blog.

News of the World phonehacking scandal: “Edmondson definitely isn’t going to grass up Coulson”

So, Ian Edmondson, assistant editor of the News Of The World newspaper currently embroiled in the phonehacking imbroglio, has had his lawyers put out a letter to emphasise that the reason ex-NOTW editor Andy Coulson today resigned from his lucrative role as Tory spin doctor is definitely not that Edmondson was going to “turn Coulson in”.

Phew! As long as we’re clear on that – and thanks to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger tweeting a copy of the letter there can be no doubt that many more people know that it would be entirely improper to so much as think that the reason renowned bully Andy Coulson jumped ship had anything to do with the possibility that ex-acolyte Edmondson was ready to spill the beans.

PSB LAW LLP
Media House,
4 Stratford Place,
London W1C 1AT
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7355 8900
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7355 8901
http://www.psblaw.co.uk

Our ref: EP/pw/E001-003
Date: 21st January 2011

URGENT

NOTE TO EDITORS/BROADCASTERS

Ian Edmondson (News of the World)

This firm represents Ian Edmondson and, following the resignation of Andy Coulson today, there has been suggestion that Mr Coulson resigned because our client “…was about to turn Coulson in…”.

This is to notify you that such an allegation is entirely false and defamatory and we have instructions to take appropriate action in relation to that statement and any repetition of it.

All our client’s rights and remedies are fully reserved.

Mr Edmondson requests that any and all enquiries directed to him should be addressed to this firm and, in that regards, the following emails will be of assistance:

eddie.p@psblaw.co.uk
polly.w@psblaw.co.uk

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

-END-

Hart broken: Dodgy right-winger David Hart dies on Twelfth Night

You know, that sometime-advisor to Thatcher, freelance strike-breaker, self-appointed guardian of the citadel, playwright, he who bankrolled failed drug dealer Paul Staines, etc, etc, etc…

Anyway, he popped his clogs yesterday. No mention from Guido yet.

The youth are revolting! #dayx2 – DON’T CHAT TO FEDS!

Banner at Trafalgar Square from today’s London end of the #dayx2 anti-cuts protest, screencapped from excellent vid by The Gabber:

Plenty of great, inspiring, take-no-shit-from-cops action across the country.

Here in Bristol around 2,000 people played cat-and-mouse with police, streaking across town from College Green, through the University precinct, into Broadmead and Cabot Circus, taking over roads and streets… I hear there was something of a kettle towards the end, but for the most part it was a highly mobile and militant mob which one step ahead of attempts to contain it. Well done people!

UWE occupied – momentum builds for Wednesday’s nationwide student walkout protest against fees & cuts

No, this isn't UWE, it's the Wills Memorial Building at the University of Bristol. Nice image, though - from isnotnecessary.wordpress.com

 

A group of students has occupied part of the University of the West of England (UWE) campus at Frenchay in Bristol.

The occupation has taken place in protest at rising fees and cuts at the University. Spokespersons for the protest say that it is in solidarity with staff and students across the country as well as for future generations who will be squeezed by the cuts.

On Wednesday 24 November there will be protests led by students – at universities, colleges and schools – across the country.

In Bristol the action timetable for Wednesday looks like this:

11am – University of the West of England Walkout begins across all campuses
12am – University of Bristol Walkout begins
12:30pm – All students (school, college, university) from across the city to assemble opposite Senate House, Tyndall Avenue
1:15pm – March to Wills Memorial Building

Links & contacts:

• Bristol Walkout
• UWE Walkout
• Bristol Anti-Education Cuts Email: aec.bris@gmail.com
• Anti-Cuts Action Bristol & Bath (anti-authoritarians/anarchists)
• Bristol Anti-Cuts Alliance
• Anti-Cuts Protests (national)
• UK Uncut (national)
• National Campaign Against Cuts & Fees
• Ten Eleven Ten (national) (building on student protest in London on 10 November)
• November 10th Defence Campaign (national) (supporting students victimised at student protest in London on 10 November)
• FITwatch (national) (tactic/campaign to prevent police Forward Intelligence Teams stifling protest)

See you on the streets!

WE ARE ALL FITWATCH: Round one won…

Here’s a nice little message from May First/People Link, the US-based progressive internet network to which the new hosts of the FITwatch blog, Tachanka, belongs. In many ways it is a heartwarming note on which to conclude the recent attempt by the police to silence political dissidents challenging the status quo…

We have again provided a protective environment for a website under attack. This one is www.fitwatch.org.uk, a site which monitors and publicizes the activities of England’s Forward Intelligence Team program: a program of demonstration and political activity surveillance.

Last week, student protesters in the UK organized a massive demonstration to protest eduction cuts. 50,000 people marched and dozens have been arrested. Fitwatch has been reporting on the demonstrations and offering support to the movement.

On Monday, Nov. 15, 2010, Fitwatch’s U.S.-based host, justhost.com, received an email from England’s Police Central e-Crime Unit. The email requested that justhost take the Fitwatch site off-line because it was being used for “criminal activity”.

Justhost immediately complied: removing the site and blocking Fitwatch organizers from accessing any of its files. Commercial hosts take sites down for many reasons but blocking an owner of data from accessing it is an action that goes beyond the normal and it is a bizarre capitulation to a police department that has absolutely no authority over this provider.

What exactly did Fitwatch do wrong? It published a story offering suggestions to protesters who might have been captured in videos or photos and are worried about being arrested. The suggestions included tips on getting rid of the clothes you were wearing, seeking legal counsel, etc.

When the site came down, May First/People Link member Tachanka intervened. In less than a day, they had restored a backup of the site to a server hosted with MFPL and had the site live.

But this is wider than the actual story because the implications here are huge. This takes place during a period of very intense movement activity in England with very large, militant demonstrations. There is significant interaction between that movement in the streets and the UK’s large movement of progressive Internet activists. Clearly the government is reacting to this collaboration in the way these governments are most familiar with: repression.

Clearly, as these governments need to begin to understand, repression fails. With the news of the take-down, support for Fitwatch spread throughout England and expressed itself in many ways. This overwhelming reaction was accompanied by a meteoric spike in the site visits: we know because our monitoring system picked that up.

This kind of quick, coordinated response is what we need and what will be needed from now on as government’s attempt to deal with valid, on-point protest with stupid, bullying tactics.

The world’s movement, working through the Internet, is not backing down.

Here are a couple of links:

http://www.fitwatch.org.uk

http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/17/fitwatch-back-after-met-police-ban/

Abrazos,

Alfredo

- –
Alfredo Lopez
Co-Director
May First/People Link
Growing Networks to Build a Just World
http://mayfirst.org

Chair — Information Communications and Technology Working Group
United State Social Forum 2010
http://ussf2010.org

We are all FITwatch – and this time WE won. Let’s make sure we are ready for the next time they come for US.

WE ARE ALL FITWATCH: A moment of victory – FITwatch blog back online…

In the words of the FITwatch blog team:

We’re backs!

And with a secure server, massive coverage and a clear message that we’re here to stay.

On Monday night we received notification that our site had been suspended due to “attempting to pervert the course of justice” due to our posting offering advice to the Millbank students. Whilst the email requesting the site be closed on the basis it was being used for “criminal activity” came from DI Paul Hoare, from the Police Central e-crime Unit, the authorisation to close was given much closer to home, by acting Detective Inspector Will Hodgeson. Hodgeson, who was involved in the first Fitwatch case, and has sat through many of our trials and appeals, evidently finally had enough and decided to shut us down.

However, through totally underestimating the power of social media, this pathetic attempt has failed miserably. Within minutes of networking what had happened, people were re-publishing the post anywhere and everywhere. There are now over 100 sites carrying the original post – we haven’t managed to count them all. We have been overwhelmed by the support and solidarity and send massive thanks to everyone who’s offered to help and reposted the information. If we haven’t replied personally, it’s only because we’ve been inundated, and haven’t had time.

This was a real attempt to squash dissent and criticism of the police, as well as attempting to stifle common sense advice to protesters subject to a witch hunt by the right wing press. The solidarity given by so many people has ensured this hasn’t happened, and has shown we can fight back. Even if we were to be arrested and prosecuted now, we would still be grateful to CO11 for the amount of publicity they’ve generated for us.

We’re back, and we’re stronger than ever.

WE ARE ALL FITWATCH: FITwatch press release on the Met Police taking down website

FITwatch press release concerning the shut down of fitwatch.org.uk by the Metropolitan Police

NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release

15th November 2010

*Police shut down activist website after support of demo students*

Police have shut down an activist website for openly supporting the student demonstrations at Millbank. FITwatch – a direct response to police Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) – has a history of challenging excessive police surveillance and breaches of civil rights.

The website was shut down at the request of the Metropolitan police after FITwatch issued advice to students fearful of arrest after the Millbank demonstration. A number of national newspapers made reference to an activist ‘anti-police site’ that urged demonstrators not to panic into giving themselves up.

“Our advice was simply good sense based on the understanding we have of police operations”, said Val Swain, a FITwatch activist. “We don’t want to see students arrested, convicted and criminalised for what was an entirely justified action.”

The Metropolitan police applied to the websites host to suspend the site on the grounds that it was involved in ‘criminal activities’- specifically, ‘attempting to pervert the course of justice’.

“This is an attack on freedom of speech,” said Emily Apple, another FITwatch activist. “The police don’t like what we do. They have seized a flimsy excuse to shut us down, and are trying to silence criticism of the police, and support for political dissent”

*For more information, contact:*

defycops@yahoo.co.uk

Notes for the Editor:

i. The use of the domain name www.fitwatch.org.uk has been suspended following a request to the web hosting company, Just Host, from the Metropolitan police. The Met claimed the site was being used for ‘criminal activities’ following comments made on the blog following the student demo at Millbank. The police stated that the blog was being used in an ‘attempt to pervert the cause of justice’.

ii. Fitwatch published an article on Friday 12th November that contained advice to protesters who were fearful of being identified by press photography, cctv or FIT. That advice has been copied widely around the internet, indicating the support that FITwatch has received on this issue. A copy of the post can be found at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/11/468002.html?c=on#comments

iii. FITwatch contributed to a major story on the police use of ‘protester databases’ in the Financial Times on 17th October 2009.

iv. FITwatch was also in the news in July when the Evening Standard reported on a court victory by three Fitwatch supporters who had successfully challenged the right of police to place attendees at an open public meeting under surveillance. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23860752-protesters-rights-were-violated-by-met-surveillance.do

v. A number of FITwatch activists are currently taking legal action against the police for assault and unlawful arrest

vi. A number of newspapers including the Mail and Independent carried the story of ‘anti-police’ website giving advice. The Independent stated:

“Activist websites have published step-by-step instructions to those who fear they may be identified and arrested in the aftermath of the violence. One anti-police site told participants to destroy potential evidence, including clothing and any distinctive jewellery worn. A contributor urged demonstrators not to panic or give themselves up as a result of the flood of media coverage.”

vii. The last post to the site before suspension was highly critical of the way the police have been capitalising on the aftermath of the protests to defend their own budgets and justify repression of protesters.