From Don’t Be On A Database
Durham Police unveils ‘bodycam intelligence database’
PHOTO: West Yorkshire Police
One of the UK’s smallest police forces, Durham Police, is reportedly gathering video captured by officers’ body worn cameras to create a ‘troublemakers’ database – contravening national guidance that officers should not use the technology as an ‘intelligence-gathering tool’.
Body Worn Video cameras, or ‘bodycams’ as they are more usually known, are now a global phenomenon. Most UK police forces use them routinely, as do forces in the US, Australia and Europe. Nor is it just the police that is using this technology: bodycams are routinely worn by bailiffs, security guards, even traffic wardens and council workers.
This is arguably one of the biggest single expansions of surveillance capacity since the introduction of CCTV, and one that is highly profitable for bodycam manufacturers such as Axon (formerly Taser International). Read more
Extraordinary judgment rubber-stamps unfounded link between anti-fracking and extremism
PHOTO: Peter Titmuss / Shutterstock
The Information Commissioner, in rejecting an appeal by Netpol over the refusal of the police to release details of a programme to ‘deradicalise extremists’, has endorsed unfounded and unsubstantiated links between anti-fracking protests and the threat of terrorism.
In October 2015, we asked Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside police for details of referrals made in the prior ten months through Channel, a ‘counter radicalisation’ process that is part of the government’s anti-terrorism Prevent strategy. Channel supposedly offers voluntary support to people identified as “vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism” and although there are a number of agencies involved in it, the police play a central role in its delivery. Rather than overall statistics, we asked specifically for the number of individuals seen as allegedly at risk through their involvement in anti-fracking campaigns.
Our requests were the result of concerns raised with us by campaigners from the region who were angered that their opposition to fracking had been used as an excuse to refer them to Channel, in most cases by universities or further education colleges. All related to an alleged ‘risk’ to adults rather than children.
In a startling determination, the Information Commissioner has said:
Channel may be appropriate for anyone who is vulnerable to being drawn into any form of terrorism… It follows from this that, for a referral to be made to Channel, it must be suspected that an individual is at risk of becoming involved in terrorist related activity.
In effect, the Commissioner is insisting nobody is referred unless there is a good reason for doing so – even if this is for nothing more than expressing legitimate political opinions about fracking. Read more
Resisting Prevent: an activist’s guide
PHOTO: Wikipedia
Netpol has put together a new guide for activists on how to start resisting the government’s Prevent strategy at a local level
As part of our support for Together Against Prevent, the campaign tactic adopted by a growing number of organisations, this guide is intended to help activists to organise locally in order to resist the government’s draconian and discriminatory Prevent strategy.
This is a first version that we plan to extend as we discover new ideas for action – if you have any suggestions, contact us. The guide is also a Creative Commons document so please feel free to copy, adapt and expand on it. The text is set out below.
Government unveils new ‘counter-extremist’ bill – but still cannot define what extremism actually means
PHOTO:: Jemny | Shutterstock
While most of the media insisting this week’s Queen’s Speech was largely overshadowed by the EU referendum, one new law proposed this week looks set to create even more controversy as existing ‘anti-radicalisation’ legislation, already sweeping, is strengthened further.
The government plans to introduce a Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill, which will ‘prevent radicalisation, tackle extremism in all its forms, and promote community integration’. A statement by the Home Office says it will protect “against the most dangerous extremists” and give police “a full range of powers to deal with extremism”.
Another counter-terrorism bill also formed part of the Queen’s Speech in May last year. It was subsequently criticised by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism laws, who said it risked legitimising “the state to scrutinise [and the citizen to inform upon] the exercise of core democratic freedoms by large numbers of law-abiding people”. A year on, that bill had completely failed to progress any further because the government has been unable to find a “legally robust” definition of what ‘extremism’ actually means. Read more
Four reasons to close down the police’s domestic extremism unit
Join the discussion online using the hashtags #DomesticExtremist and #ShutNDEDIU
Today is Domestic Extremist Awareness Day, an annual event launched by Netpol in 2014 to publicise how the label of ‘domestic extremist’ is increasingly applied by police to anyone involved in political dissent.
This year, we are calling for the closure of the National Domestic Extremism & Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU), the discredited police unit responsible for surveillance on protesters. We are also asking you to share why you think the NDEDIU should shut down.
Here are four reasons we think are important – share yours using the hashtags #DomesticExtremist and #ShutNDEDIU on Twitter and Facebook. Read more
Domestic Extremist Awareness Day 2016 – shut down the NDEDIU
On 5 February, the third annual #DomesticExtremist Awareness Day is calling for the closure of the discredited police unit responsible for surveillance on political dissent.
If you are an anti-fracking campaigner, you may have been branded a domestic extremist by a Prevent anti-radicalisation workshop, or identified as one when stopped unexpectedly at a UK airport. A whistle-blower has revealed police were so desperate to stop a Green Party peer from discovering the extent of their labelling of her as one that they improperly destroyed files she had asked for.
The police, it seems, remain obsessed with finding so-called ‘domestic extremists’ amongst campaigners and activists. In spite of the launch of a public inquiry into the activities of undercover police officers, however, there remains little real scrutiny of the Metropolitan Police’s National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU). Read more
Is Prevent the least transparent public programme in Britain?
‘Violent extremists’? Balcombe anti-fracking defendants gather outside court in 2013. PHOTO: Netpol
Police forces in north west England have refused to confirm whether they use opposition to fracking as an example of ‘extremism’ in training delivered to hundreds of people – and will not say how many anti-fracking activists were referred this year to a controversial ‘anti-radicalisation’ process
The government’s counter-terrorism Prevent strategy is now a statutory duty for most public authorities since the introduction this year of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. Its guidance insists it offers a “risk-based approach”, through a multi-agency programme called Channel, to ‘help’ individuals from becoming ‘drawn into radicalisation’. Information about allegedly vulnerable people is shared between a number of different agencies to individually tailor “the most appropriate support plan” for them.
However, this ‘helpful’ programme is extremely lacking in openness and accountability. In spite of the potentially severe consequences of the state intervening to impose ‘support’ on someone arbitrarily accused of extremism, it is almost impossible to find out any information about Prevent or its equally secretive Channel process. Read more
Activists can help European case against protest surveillance
PHOTO: Matt Brown on Flickr
Can you help us challenge the domestic extremism database?
In March 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the gathering and retention of Brighton campaigner John Catt’s personal data by police, while he took part in protests, was lawful. Mr Catt has now lodged an application in the European Court of Human Rights, seeking a ruling that by monitoring and retaining information about people’s lawful political activities the UK is violating the privacy rights of its citizens. Read more
Wearing a mask is a way the Zapatistas invite everyone into the struggle
PHOTO: Shannon on Flickr
Why do the Zapatistas wear masks?
Wednesday’s student protest includes a call for protesters to cover their faces to protect their privacy. This guest post, by London Mexico Solidarity Group, is a reminder, however, that in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the Zapatistas wear masks to ensure they are seen.
On January 1st 1994, at half-past midnight, on the inaugural cusp of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the US and Mexico, 3,000 masked Zapatista soldiers emerged from the jungle and mountain villages of the southeastern state of Chiapas and occupied seven towns, including the historic colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas.
Behind the black balaclavas or red kerchiefs, were faces with distinctive Mayan features typical of the people native to these lands who have been resisting repression, exploitation, racism and genocide for centuries. Read more
Resisting surveillance – even at St Pancras International
Protesters kettled at London Eurostar solidarity action. PHOTO: indyrikki
It remains unlawful for police to require identification and submission to filming as a condition for release from a kettle
The decision by British Transport Police (BTP) to use Railway Byelaws [
, 174 kB] to obtain personal details from people taking part in recent Calais solidarity action does not change the basic advice to protesters – you do not have to consent to having your photograph taken or comply with demands to provide your name and address as a condition of release from a kettle.
The principle that the police have no powers to force people to give their details, or comply with police filming and photography, simply because they are held in a kettle, is contained in the High Court ruling on the Mengesha case in 2013. Lord Justice Moses made it clear that “it was not lawful for the police to maintain the containment for the purposes of obtaining identification, whether by questioning or by filming. It follows that it was not lawful to require identification to be given and submission to filming as the price for release.” Read more