nofuture
07-03-2009, 09:03 AM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/06/police-surveillance-protesters-journalists-climate-kingsnorth
Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.
Cheers. As the article points out though, this is routine nowadays in Britain. A few years ago I went to a fairly small scale protest in London in Trafalgar Square. Because it had admittedly drawn a few right wingers to it, this was the police excuse to have police photographers and video recorders there. One of the speakers pointed this out in his speech, which was good. All the police were of a 'bouncer' appearance (probably on purporse). Big stocky guys with iron jaws and shaved heads. It's all a nice intimidation tactic, and has probably been inspired by the Chinese authorities which do this routinely. If you cross the border into Tibet province from Nepal, you'll have up to 5 photographers and video tapers pointed at you in immigration. It's all psychological warfare to scare off anyone hoping to go in their political activism. Our police are using exactly the same tactic now. It's supposed to be there to capture loose cannons if they flip out, but its main purpose is probably to scare off other people from even attending protests.