speaking recently to several people caught up in the pre-wedding police raids on squats, a pattern has emerged. having just read a guardian article on snoop software supplied to governments, i offer an alert to activists who may have had computer equipment seized.

last week, several squats and some private homes were raided by police in what is generally thought to have been pre-emptive strikes against any possibility of dissent on the royal wedding day.

however, on speaking to residents from three of the squats, it has emerged that police were taking computer equipment like laptops, but not seizing any data drives.

if they were really seeking information or evidence, the drives would surely have been seized too.

my mind went to a guardian article i had just read about a british company offering sophisticated software to the egyptian government designed to infiltrate activists' computers and provide a backdoor for total monitoring and control of their computers.

the company, 'gamma international', is licensed to sell their 'finspy' products only to governments.

if your computer was seized by police, it may be sensible on its return to back up data and then do a complete diskwipe and clean install, otherwise, there is no guarantee that rogue 'trojan' software will not be monitoring your every stroke without your knowledge.

with the recent increase in use of undercover police in britain, and the recent 'anti-terrorist' suspension of civil liberties in france, there is no doubt that deployment of surreptitious and covert techniques is on the increase against peaceful dissent, so vigilance against unlawful intrusion should be considered quite seriously.