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Police tactics seek to ‘intimidate people and prevent lawful dissent’

Friday, March 13th, 2009

It comes as no surprise to me to read that “Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years” (Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters, 7 March). As a regular protester, I have long decried to a seemingly deaf world the ham-fisted and sinister surveillance techniques described in your article, even ensuring that my comments are recorded by police cameras.

So while I am pleased to read that “Liberty, the human rights group, is challenging the police surveillance tactics in a judicial review at the court of appeal”, this action is long overdue.

You say that “Overt surveillance by police forward intelligence teams (FITs) or evidence gatherers (EGs) is designed to record potential criminal activity and gather useful intelligence.” But to me it seems clear that it is designed to intimidate people and prevent lawful dissent.

While these techniques were “Pioneered by the Met’s public order branch in the late 1990s”, Sussex police have also made great efforts to advance them, particularly against the people who protest against the US defence company ITT/EDO in Brighton. Through determined perseverance, I have had complaints about intrusive and prolonged filming by Sussex police EGs upheld, including when I was followed and filmed for two and a half hours during an anti-arms-trade march, even though my yellow tabard clearly indicated that I was a legal observer for the protest. This continued well after the march had ended, and even extended to waiting for me outside shops and a cafe.

When the boot is on the other foot however, it is another matter. Twice I have had a camera snatched from me by police officers when I tried to film their actions in public, with one officer even trying to delete the footage. Although an EG had filmed the latter, my Data Protection Act request for video footage could only uncover stills of everything but the offending moment. I was told that my next port of call would be the National Public Order Intelligence Unit in London, which in itself has sinister undertones.

I have already had an “of interest to public order unit” Sussex police marker placed against my vehicle on the Police National Computer for attending three peaceful and lawful protests outside ITT/EDO, resulting in a stop and search of my vehicle under the Terrorism Act 2000 in London in July 2005.

It therefore seems a logical development that the process of criminalising innocent protesters has been extended to secretly storing their data on Crimint, a database about criminal activity. Superintendent David Hartshorn asserts that the police, “in terms of intelligence, have to justify what we are able to keep”. But it would appear that this justification can be pretty flimsy when Hartshorn believes it is reasonable for people like me who have no criminal record to be kept on such databases because we are “seen on a regular basis” at demonstrations.

I have just reread the tiny printed flyer Sussex police rarely give out at demonstrations entitled “Why are you filming me?” Absent from the reasons stated - which it maintains are in compliance with privacy rights under the Human Rights Act - is the transfer of images to Crimint. I look forward to seeing the government account for this in court.

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More calls for BT Phorm ban

Friday, March 13th, 2009

BT must be stopped from deploying technology that uses people’s personal internet communications to make money from advertisers, the government was told this week.Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman, asked in the Lords for the government to delay the rollout of interception-based online advertising until its legality had been established under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

She told Computer Weekly that Ofcom, the Information Commissioner, the Home Office and the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) were all passing the buck. Phorm could normalise a level of snooping not even attempted by the Home Office’s stalled Interception Modernisation Programme. Other ministers have praised Phorm for its enterprise.

Opponents of the Phorm deep packet inspection technology brand it illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee said Phorm breached a fundamental principle of the internet: that the lower TCP/IP stacks were as sacred as the contents of people’s written letters.

Phorm CEO Kent Ertugrul accused critics, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at a Parliamentary side meeting, of “neo-Luddite entrenchment”. He claimed Phorm used technology to fix the same privacy problem it created. US Congress has already called a halt on interception advertising.

Richard Clayton, a Cambridge academic who has analysed Phorm’s system, said it was entirely illegal.

City police refused to prosecute BT for its Phorm trials last year. The CPS is considering whether to allow a private prosecution. Phorm might be permitted by section 3.3 of RIPA, which allows interception of communications without a warrant when necessary for the provision of a telecoms or postal service.

Mark Ballard

Have Your Say: More calls for BT Phorm ban
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FBI Declines 2 Of 3 Information Requests

Friday, March 13th, 2009

A private study said the FBI tells two out of every three Freedom of Information Act requesters that it can’t find the records they requested.

The study by the National Security Archive, a private group that publishes declassified government documents, said that failure rate is five times higher than other major federal agencies.

The Archive awarded the FBI its Rosemary Award for the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency.

The award is named for former President Richard M. Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods who’s known for claiming to have accidentally erased 18 1/2 minutes of a White House tape recording during the Watergate era.

The award is given annually around Sunshine Week, when journalism organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

An FBI spokesman said the reason for the huge number of no-records responses is that “it’s become a cult phenomenon to ask the FBI for records.”

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Obama Administration Declares Proposed IP Treaty a ‘National Security’ Secret

Friday, March 13th, 2009

By David Kravets |

President Barack Obama came into office in January promising a new era of openness.

But now, like Bush before him, Obama is playing the national security card to hide details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated across the globe.

The White House this week declared (.pdf) the text of the proposed treaty a “properly classified” national security secret, in rejecting a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International.

“Please be advised the documents you seek are being withheld in full,” wrote Carmen Suro-Bredie, chief FOIA officer in the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The national security claim is stunning, given that the treaty negotiations have included the 27 member states of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand, all of whom presumably have access to the “classified” information.

In early January, the Bush administration made the same claim in rejecting (.pdf) a similar FOIA request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

If ratified, leaked documents posted on WikiLeaks and other comments suggest the proposed trade accord would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers’ communications.

In his first days in office, Obama publicly committed himself to transparency, instructing government agencies to err on the side of public access and divulge information whenever possible under the Freedom of Information Act. Obama recently released a trove of documents relating to the Bush administration’s rational for torture of enemy combatants and other abuses.

At the same time, though, Justice Department lawyers have been arguing in court that the “state secrets privilege” should bar lawsuits over the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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