Taking Out The Trash

Legal protest groups targeted by corporate spies

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Ethical Consumer magazine and Reclaim the Streets were among the perfectly legal groups illegally targeted by an offshoot of the notorious Economic League, MPs have been told.

Jack Winder spent 30 years with the League – which kept files on people it considered subversives on behalf of corporations. He rose to become its director of research. He told MPs on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee that after the League folded he and a colleague, Stan Hardy, set up Caprim “to warn companies about threats to their well-being”.
He said clients did not include construction companies such as Sir Robert McAlpine, which gave Caprim
£10,000 as a “goodwill” donation, with the proviso that it kept clear of the work of the Consulting Association.
The Association was set up in 1993 by another former League official, Ian Kerr, to provide intelligence on individuals specifically for building firms. It was a raid on the Association by the Information Commissioner in 2009 which exposed the secret blacklisting operation and led to the MPs’ investigation. The committee had previously been told that McAlpine was instrumental in setting up the
Consulting Association. It paid the League £10,000 for its Services Group files, on individuals and organisations, set up for the construction industry after the building workers’ strike of 1972 to target those involved.
While Mr Kerr was collating information for dozens of construction companies, Mr Winder and Mr Hardy
were touting their advice to other sectors.
He said: “During the 1990s, the sorts of things which exercised our minds were campaigns against
multinational companies. You had the Transnational Information Exchange in Amsterdam, which had offshoots in this country, Multinational Monitor based in Washington. You had campaigns against the City of London culminating in three consecutive years of riots run by an outfit called Reclaim
The Streets. These were anarchists.
"We made it our business to find out what was going on and warn the companies.
“You had the whole ethical industry. People who set themselves up as arbiters about what was ethical.
They advised investors and how shareholders should vote.”
Mr Winder said they targeted campaigners against the defence, pharmaceutical and agrochemical
industries. He named GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Rhone-Poulenc, Zeneca, Monsanto, Rio Tinto, J P Morgan and Morgan Stanley as among Caprim’s clients.
He denied any links with the security services though he admitted that he regularly met Special Branch
officers while with the League.
Over 15 years, Caprim’s turnover totalled £1 million, according to Jack Winder, but folded in 2008 because it lost clients and he was looking to retire.
Ian Kerr died at the end of last year.

Filed for Tribune Feb 6, 2013

On guard

Update: Kerry McCarthy has blogged in support of the Prevent programme in Bristol. Also I've found the article on Prevent in Bristol which I wrote for my MA earlier this year. It needed a sub and designer but I think there are some interesting elements. Download

Below are PDFs from two features I recently did for the Big Issue in the North about counter-terrorism efforts. One of Project Griffin and the other on the Prevent programme. It is being reported that Prevent could be on its way out though, as one of the people I interviewed suggested, that may just mean out of local authority hands and into police hands.

As for Griffin; my thanks to Leicestershire Police for inviting me along to their training day. I now have a lapel badge and certificate. My FoI requests on Griffin in other forces turned up some vaguely interesting material - it's clear that the broad structure is dictated from the centre but individual counter terrorism officers are devising the exact training sessions as local needs dictate. The question about whether Griffin-trained civilians are being heavy-handed towards innocent photographers remains but the session I was at didn't give that impression.

One thought sparked from the briefing I attended was about the extremely professional film we were shown about a shopping centre bombing. It was produced for ACPO by Pukka Films using mock BBC news footage. I wonder what the guidelines are for the BBC on how much they allow their news 'brand' to be used for fictional purposes? You assume that CNN or Sky are happy everytime a film uses a 'fake news' clip because its product placement. Is it the same for the BBC? Something for another FOI request perhaps.

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Chalk up a victory

Supporters of a student arrested for writing slogans about liberty in chalk on a pavement celebrated the CPS dropping charges today....by writing slogans about liberty in chalk on the pavement outside court.
Paul Saville and supporters handiwork can be seen here and Paul's blog is here.
The Bristol Evening Post report on the charges being dropped has all the detail and you can hear the man himself being interviewed on Jones The News.

CPS drop charges against student chalker

I wrote previously about Bristol student Paul Saville who was arrested for criminal damage for writing a poem about liberty on the pavement  - in chalk.
Paul was due to appear before magistrates in Bristol this week but received a letter at the weekend telling him the CPS have dropped the charges.
Which is obviously a sensible conclusion to what would have been a colossal waste of time and money against someone exercising their right to free speech.
Paul's case was widely reported and united civil libertarians on the left and right. I'm not aware of anyone else getting the Guardian civil liberty hero of the week award and the conservative Young Britons' Foundation's hero of the week award.
However, Paul still has a DNA sample taken from a first arrest for chalking on a pavement where he was given a caution and that remains on file. Comedian and activist Mark Thomas explains in this video how you might go about clearing your DNA file from the national database.
I understand Paul still plans to have a gathering of his supporters outside Bristol Magistrates Court at 9.45am this Wednesday to protest against the way he has been treated and highlight some of the civil liberty questions his case throws up

You can't do that, I'm one of you

Iain Dale writes with regard to the arrest of Damien Green: "We don't yet live in a Police State, but one be forgiven on nights like this from wondering if we are headed that way."

Marvellous how the Tories get so worked up when they find themselves on the wrong end of the police.

Trade union members who get involved any significant disputes suffer this all the time and have done for decades. I remember my stepfather going on strike when he was at BT. He was one of the local organisers. Since he worked for the phone company he knew taps were placed on the phones of union activists. The strike threatened to shut the city of London exchange and so had to be undermined.

The low level harassment of union members going about their lawful business is common - but you never hear much from the Tories about police state and civil liberties then.

Does that mean I think Green should have been arrested? Absolutely not, and if government ministers were involved it shows gob smacking stupidity and arrogance.

Do I think Green is some civil liberties martyr? Definitely not. He gets the luxury of TV crews recording his release, many others do not.

PS: Hopi Sen has some measured words on this (particularly comparing it to the cash for honours arrests). Tom Harris similarly has put some perspective on it.

I don't think journalists should be arrested for getting leaks so why should Green be nicked? The cops must have known how this would play... it feels like we're missing a part of the puzzle.

The future is now

Interesting report from the civil liberties monitoring group Statewatch on EU surveillance proposals.

The EU is currently developing a new five year strategy for justice and home affairs and security policy for 2009-2014. The proposals set out by the shadowy "Future Group" set up by the Council of the European Union include a range of highly controversial measures including new technologies of surveillance, enhanced cooperation with the United States and harnessing the "digital tsunami". In the words of the EU Council presidency:

"Every object the individual uses, every transaction they make and almost everywhere they go will create a detailed digital record. This will generate a wealth of information for public security organisations, and create huge opportunities for more effective and productive public security efforts."

You can see the press release, an eight page conclusion and the full report.
But if you're thinking of posting (or that this post is) some loony EU conspiracy claims - any government is going to try this on if it's got the capability and we're looking the other way.