EU's secret network to spy on anti-capitalist protesters
By Stephen Castle in Brussels | 20.08.2001 09:53
(More Total control bullshits from EU dictators)
European leaders have ordered police and intelligence agencies to co-ordinate their efforts to
identify and track the anti-capitalist demonstrators whose violent protests at recent international summits culminated in the shooting dead by police of a young protester at the Genoa G8 meeting last month.
European leaders have ordered police and intelligence agencies to co-ordinate their efforts to
identify and track the anti-capitalist demonstrators whose violent protests at recent international summits culminated in the shooting dead by police of a young protester at the Genoa G8 meeting last month.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/europe/story.jsp?story=89632 EU's secret network to spy on anti-capitalist protesters
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
20 August 2001
European leaders have ordered
police and intelligence agencies
to co-ordinate their efforts to
identify and track the
anti-capitalist demonstrators
whose violent protests at recent
international summits culminated
in the shooting dead by police of a
young protester at the Genoa G8
meeting last month.
The new measures clear the way for protesters travelling
between European Union countries to be subjected to an
unprecedented degree of surveillance.
Confidential details of decisions taken by Europe's interior
ministers at talks last month show that the authorities will use
a web of police and judicial links to keep tabs on the activities
and whereabouts of protesters. Europol, the EU police
intelligence-sharing agency based in The Hague that was set
up to trap organised criminals and drug traffickers, is likely to
be given a key role.
The plan has alarmed civil rights campaigners, who argue that
personal information on people who have done no more than
take part in a legal demonstration may be entered into a
database and exchanged.
Calls for a new Europe-wide police force to tackle the threat
from hardline anti-capitalists were led after the Genoa summit
by Germany's Interior Minister, Otto Schily. Germany has long
pushed for the creation of a Europe-wide crime-fighting agency
modelled on the FBI.
Germany's EU partners rejected Mr Schily's call, judging that a
new force to combat political protest movements was too
controversial, but ministers agreed to extend the measures that
can be taken under existing powers. Central to the new push is
the secretive Article 36 committee (formerly known as the K4
committee) and the Schengen Information System, both of
which allow for extensive contact and data sharing between
police forces.
Under the new arrangements, European governments and
police chiefs will:
* Set up permanent contact points in every EU country to
collect, analyse and exchange information on protesters;
* Create a pool of liaison officers before each summit staffed by
police from countries from which "risk groups" originate;
* Use "police or intelligence officers" to identify "persons or
groups likely to pose a threat to public order and security";
* Set up a task force of police chiefs to organise "targeted
training" on violent protests.
The new measures will rely on two main ways of exchanging
police information. The Schengen Information System, which
provides basic information, and a supporting network called
Sirene – Supplementary Information Request at the National
Entry. This network (of which Britain is a member) allows
pictures, fingerprints and other information to be sent to police
or immigration officials once a suspect enters their territory.
Each country already has a Sirene office with established links
to EU and Nordic law enforcement agencies.
Civil liberties campaigners are dismayed by the plan. Tony
Bunyan, editor of Statewatch magazine, said: "This will give
the green light to Special Branch and MI5 to put under
surveillance people whose activities are entirely democratic."
Nicholas Busch, co-ordinator of the Fortress Europe network
on civil liberties issues, added: "People who have done nothing
against the law ought to be able to feel sure they are not under
surveillance ... By criminalising whole political and social
scenes you fuel confrontation and conflict."
Thomas Mathieson, professor of sociology of law at the
University of Oslo, said police could have access to "very
private information" about people's religion, sex lives and
politics. "It is a very dangerous situation from the civil liberties
point of view," he said.
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
e-mail:
The Indepenpendent
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
Witchhunt
20.08.2001 12:42
Why stop at the Stasi!?
:-(
Mustermann
e-mail:
spam@spam.spam
D'oh!!!!!
20.08.2001 18:56
Anyway, please write to the editor of the Independent to say two things.
First, thank him (it is a him) for the Independent's (reasonably (relatively (for a mainstream newspaper))) favourable coverage of the anticapitalism/antiglobalisation movement.
Secondly, do address the point about our ideas being "ill defined" and "wrong headed". The article in the review section says our ideas may be .... although the campaign to drop third world debt is justified, but we still have the right to peaceful protest.
It doesn't say our ideas ARE ..., it just says they MAY BE. The point is that we have the right to protest regardless of whether we are right or wrong. This is of course a valid point and an important one. However there is more than a hint of the suggestion that the author thinks our ideas are wrong and misguided and it is with this that we must take issue.
So PLEASE I would urge everyone to write just a short message to the editor to make these points. Don't forget to thank him for the favourable coverage. It IS favourable. The Independent is not the Socialist Worker and it never will be but at least it's read by more people and at least it's not the Times. The Times has loudly denounced the whole movement. It thinks we're a travelling circus. That the Independent and particularly the guardian have been so positive (relatively, and everything IS relative) is a blessing and we should be grateful. We should be grateful because newspapers who give us favourable coverage need encouragement to make sure that they continue to do so and with increasing confidence. They need positive feedback.
And when they say stuff that's not too positive, then it really can't hurt to argue with this. So everyone write politely and make these two points and say anything else you want to say. Even if you just write two lines, think how good it would be if if everyone did that.
It doesn't take a minute, just click on the green email address and send them a quick note (or a letter or an essay or whatever you feel like). We've got to ENGAGE with the media. That's far more constructive than just slagging them off. If you want, engage with them AND slag them off. They do suck in so many ways, but in some ways they can sometimes be alright and if we can get them on our side just a little bit then that's a good thing.
:-)
Viva la revolucion!
Phil McLease
e-mail:
editor@independent.co.uk
Here's the article from the Review Section
20.08.2001 19:02
20 August 2001
One of the surest ways to ensure that Europe-wide policing initiatives are regarded with suspicion by the public is to try to identify and track small groups of troublemakers within larger, law-abiding movements. First it was football hooligans, when supra-national efforts were prompted by a riotous confrontation between some England fans and the Belgian police in Charleroi last year. Now it is anti-capitalist protesters. Again, politicians feel impelled to act, because of the televised scenes of mayhem at the summits in Gothenburg and Genoa. Clearly, lessons must be learnt, but our governments seem in danger of learning the wrong ones.
Our Prime Minister made a fool of himself at the time by instantly supporting the Italian police in Genoa, before he had established any of the facts about the abrogation of the human rights of several British citizens, arrested while they slept.
Now, his Home Secretary has lent his support to a new EU apparatus designed to pool intelligence about violent protesters. Nothing wrong with that in principle, except that it must be perfectly obvious that police forces in Britain and elsewhere do not have much information about the tiny groupuscules of anarchists and others who are keen on violent clashes with the authorities. Just as with football supporters, what such an initiative means in practice is that expensive surveillance will be carried out on groups of people who are merely suspected of association with violence. These are resources which would be much better deployed fighting the more pressing threat of terrorism from groups such as Eta and the Real IRA.
The next step will be to deny the right to free movement of those suspected of doubting the benefits of "globalisation", which will not prevent violence at summits. Many football supporters, against whom nothing had been proved, were prevented from travelling, while some of those who were allowed through continued to punch, brawl and knife their way around Europe.
This is a more sensitive point in relation to summit demonstrations, because those who are not intent on violence have what should be an inviolable right to free expression. Many of the protesters' complaints may be ILL-DEFINED OR WRONG HEADED (my emphasis - Phil McLease), although the campaign to persuade G8, IMF and World Bank meetings of the urgency of Third-World debt relief was justified. But the right to protest should be defended unto death, not hemmed in and harassed by the agents of the state, whether operating at a national or a supranational level.
Also from the Leading Articles section
Now Conservatives must choose: purity of principle or sensible compromise
Sex and science
We must root out privilege from the universities
Let's not be nice to Archer
The Conservative Party is not yet in terminal decline. But it could soon be...
me again
e-mail:
editor@independent.co.uk
Let's stand up for ourselves.
20.08.2001 22:43
Rob
e-mail:
editor@independent.co.uk
Hmm, wait a sec?
21.08.2001 00:01
The story is highlighting the abusrdity of the spying and the obvious, grave human rights issues.
I do not think snarling at them for not running a black-red flag up their mast will help. politely disagreeing, sure.
After all, as annoying as it is, the fact that they are not standing on our side idealistically will make the punters of a knee-jerk disposition more inclined to see the issue for what it is: persecution, and be less suspicious of it as "lefty mithering."
And yes it is nice to see that Guardian is starting to realise there is more than one face to anti-capitalism. But, I do think we have bear in mind that none of these institutions will fling their arms wide open to us and bear in mind that it IS progress.
Perhaps, a more CONstructive approach would be to ask the Guardian and Independent to give IndyMedia some column space to put its case for itself to illustrate the anti-capitalist perspectives clearly?
Just my tuppence worth!
:-)
Mustermann
e-mail:
spam@spam.spam
conservative decline?
21.08.2001 11:01
Gill
e-mail:
odormouse@aol.com