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Now this is really frightening...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/24/strathclyde-police-plane-stupid-recruit-spy
Not surprising, but certainly frightening...
UK plc can afford this apparently...
Not surprising, but certainly frightening...
UK plc can afford this apparently...
0
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I wonder if the recipients ask for the tax free assurance in writing.
No?
Copper on his Facebook wants to commit violence apparently...
If you want to live in a society where Police regularly look to recruit informers for political reasons with public money then yes, this is fine - triangulate this with everything we've seen since the G20, then with the willingness of ACPO and the Met to share sensitive information on a grand scale with private companies, plus the evidence of past collusion between police and private security firms to allow assaults and extra-judicial violence to take place - of the type Amnesty eventually got George Monbiot's attackers prosecuted for, and I am very worried.
So who will reign them in? You certainly can't depend on Zanu Labour to do it - they're going to be dependent on the police to make sure they stay in power in the next few months. It was the cops at the Met who spoke about a "summer of rage", remember. Ministers also know full well they wouldn't last 5 minutes without their precious police protection. So the cops can do whatever they damn well please - and don't they know it!
The moment the police abandon New Labour is the moment the regime will collapse. To any coppers reading this - for this government has given you the right to spy on what we all do online, of course - just remember who refused to give you your full pay rise last year. They'll try the same trick again with you...
The actions of organisations like Plane Stupid, ie invading airports and disrupting the runways, or others who try and get into the machinery of power stations to shut them down, or the morons who threaten workers at HLS and who destroy property of people who work for organisations connected to them aren't legal protests, and only legitimate in the eyes of those involved.
I think the police are right to try and get info from them. I have a right to free flowing electricity and air travel that isn't disrupted, if the protestors try and disrupt that then the police should be doing everything they can to stop them.
Hmmm...I've had another little thinky about this and I'm not in entire disagreement with you actually...
I do think that equating the actions of Plane Stupid with the Huntington Life Sciences is a bit unfair; but the right to have undisrupted services is certainly also something that it's within the reasonable remit of the police to prevent.
The parts at which I am still against this is:
1) The amount of money spent
2) The manner in which targeting, data use and 'preventative policing' is deployed.
3) The actions that are deemed legitimate and illegitimate
The final point is the most pressing in my view - the record shows that airport expansion will continue despite any assurances to the contrary, and that economic growth will be privileged over ecological stability. In particular, that people living near will be forced off the land to accommodate this. If this is not a legitimate cause for resistance I do not know what is...
1) We don't know the amount of money spent (more than £20 according to the peeler, but also less than the thousands of pounds some informers had been paid).
2) Against a group which was potentially using criminal means, with an informant who had just been released on bail. Now you may agree with the aims, same as some people would agree with the aims of SHAC, but that doesn't mean they should be given a free pass for illegal activity
3) Recruting informers is legal, recruiting agent provacteurs is not. So recruiting her as an informant would be legal