The last year has seen sweeping changes in the policing of protest, of which a continuing theme has been police surveillance and intelligence gathering to intimidate and frustrate freedom of protest. The outcome of police surveillance of protesters can be serious. Simply by virtue of attending political demonstrations and events over a period of time, protesters can end up with their details and images on the police intelligence database. Whilst this is in itself a profound invasion of privacy, individuals on the database could ultimately find themselves targeted by police for searches, snatch-squads and other unpleasant treatment.
Kettling police powers
This year I won my judicial review against the police, establishing that police misuse of Kettling for indiscriminate fishing expeditions is unlawful. In my own case I was kettled for several hours and not allowed to leave under threat of arrest until I gave personal details and complied with individual police filming. The experience was degrading and disempowering, but due to my family commitments that day I had felt no option but to comply. My successful judicial review challenged both the misuse of police powers for intelligence gathering as well as the state’s decision to retain my data and images. It is now beyond doubt that the police may NOT demand that protesters be individually filmed or their details taken as the price for leaving a kettle.
This year the role of Police Liaison Officers (PLOs) as an intelligence gathering tool has also been publicly confirmed, by way of both the revealing cross-examining of Chief Inspector Sonia Davis at the Critical Mass trial and more recently on the release of the PLO training manuals under Freedom of Information requests. The intelligence-gathering function of PLOs came as no surprise to groups such as Netpol and Fitwatch who have long asserted this to be the case. Protesters have sought to protect their privacy from this invasion by way of refusing to engage with them, and by ‘kettling’ them with banners and brollies.
We have all been shocked by serial abhorrent revelations of police spies abusing women and stealing the identities of dead babies, to infiltrate activist movements and affect the course of the justice campaigns of families of murdered people from black communities. In direct contrast to the shameful behaviour of these men has been the inspirational courage of those survivors who seek to legally challenge and uncover the extent of this practice.
UN: protesters in UK made to feel like “Enemies of the state”
This year the UN Special Rapporteur Mr Maina Kiai published his report on Freedom of Assembly and Association in the UK. Within his preliminary findings he identified that with respect to the police spies scandal, the state had acted in a manner befitting of a ‘banana republic’ and called on authorities to undertake a judge-led public enquiry, with a view to giving a voice to survivors and paving the way for reparations. The UN Special Rapporteur also criticised heavily the existence of numerous police intelligence databases filled with personal details of protesters through both overt and covert means. He criticised the state’s frequent conflation of ‘extremist groups’ with protesters and acknowledged that many have felt themselves as being perceived by police as ‘enemies of the state’ simply for exercising their right to protest. I was privileged to have contributed to the report and welcome Mr Kiai’s findings.
Data surveillance
We are also now only beginning to become aware of the extent of state surveillance of communications networks via shady deals allowing GCHQ to access data through the US PRISM surveillance programme. There can now be no question that anything we commit to telephone conversation, text, social media or email cannot be regarded as secure. Observation of good security culture amongst activists has never been more relevant.
A recent example of the police’s use of overt surveillance to intimidate has been the stalking by Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) officers of anti- militarist protesters during the week of action against DSEI arms fair. This has included following activists onto buses and trains, into shops and even public libraries. There are also reports of protesters from the recent Legal Aid protests being followed for up to an hour after having left the demonstration. In the face of overt filming and stalking protesters quite understandably are compelled to protect their privacy by exercising their right not to comply with police filming, by choosing to mask up at demonstrations and by blocking police filming with placards, banners and brollies.
Mass arrests
In tandem with the police’s surveillance of protesters has been a dramatic increase in the use of mass arrests under s14, both as a way of committing large numbers of people’s details to the intelligence database, as well as an exercise in intimidation and a mechanism by which to prohibit freedom
of protest by way of excessive police bail conditions. The police have virtually declared ‘open season’ on antifascists, as vast numbers of people have been propelled through the arrest and indefinite police bail machine, accused simply of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alongside this mass attack on freedom of protest, surveillance tactics have continued. As well as committing vast amounts of individuals to the intelligence and PNC databases, officers will have obtained vast new amounts of data to mine via arrestees’ phones. At Westminster anti-BNP demonstration in June, officers were seen holding police lines with one arm whilst with the other, checking protesters’ faces against images on their police smartphones (the new way of carrying the old police spotter cards). At Croydon counter demonstration against the BNP, printed out lists of the faces of activists were seen left out in the front of police vans. Amidst the more indiscriminate mass arrests of antifascists there have also been a smaller number of seemingly targeted snatches of individual activists.
Creating a culture of fear and paranoia
The state use surveillance against protesters for multiple ends. Of course a primary aim is to gain information to sabotage our networks and shut down expressions of dissent. But it is also to paralyse our movements by creating a culture of fear and paranoia. These are troubled times and currently there is much to be angry about. Students have undeniably been betrayed by the current government. Young people are priced out of education and are then sanctioned and stigmatised when they can’t find work because the politicians have crippled the economy via shady deals with their corporate fuckbuddies. Immigrants, disabled people, the unemployed and single mothers are demonised with divisive rhetoric because those in power know that as long as those bearing the brunt of the cuts remain divided they cannot present a sufficiently strong resistance.
Fighting back in the courtroom, on the streets
There is much to be angry about, and our rage is legitimate. State surveillance of those compelled to raise their voices in healthy dissent is at present for many activists an uncomfortable fact of life. BUT we must challenge its worst excesses both in the courtroom and on the streets. We must maintain good security culture in our organising processes and promote active noncompliance with intelligence gathering processes. Most importantly we must not allow the threat of state surveillance to paralyse our movements by preventing us from joining up struggles and from welcoming new people to our movements. We must continue to engage with each other and with the world.
I will be speaking at the Defend the Right to Protest National Conference on 27th October 2013. I would urge all those who can to attend so that we can discuss these issues and how we might work both individually and collectively to counter the use of state surveillance and so protect all of our freedoms.
Susannah Mengesha
To book your place for the conference go to: http://www.defendtherighttoprotest.org/national-conference/
Leave a Reply