114 arrested on conspiracy charges over alleged plan to protest

[e19896]

don't know, but there's a fair few possibilities.

could be a plant, could be some of the stuff I mention above, info picked up / overheard at the climate camp kettle, or could be that the police had simply added themselves to a relatively open email list and received enough details via email to piece it together, or a combination of some or all of the above.


the presence of 3 forces IMO doesn't actually necessarily indicate much advance notice of the operation, as it could also be a sign that the operation was pulled together using the Mutual Aid system to request urgent support from surrounding forces, though I think it's more likely they had advance intelligence.

Read my other post on this, but i feel there is a Police Informer within see http://autonomousnott.wordpress.com/ for a good update and links to past actions involving said alleged Police Informer,.

An action at an opencast went ahead no Police there, when we met in the dead of night at a community center, only those who needed to know had the information of where we was going to hit, 5am wake up we are all given a note telling us where said location was and the aim of the action, we was asked to rid ourselves of the note..

We move off, aksed to keep mobiles switched off etc, get to the location of Dolehill at Wingerworth, Chesterfield the place was taken out of service shall we say, it was then talked about going to occupy the office of RGB, of which we did some hours latter we are all nicked for the theft of a yoghurt, ie burgulary.

We are all detained and interviewed, not one of us talks apart from one person, we are all then charged and a court case of several months ensues, following this some of no longer was involved..

However the person who talked, is still active, and each time a Mass Action has been planned with them involved it has been nicked, further prove of what i call speculation, is during The G8 Ministers Meetings in Sheffield, The Police had a good idea of our plans, none was talked about on email or phones, but only in closed meetings of which alleged police infromer was there, and when the convergance space become a social center they become involved.

You might ask why did i continue to be involved, because i was told by trusted people what i thought was not fact, so move along, now following the nicking of 114 people i raise it again as a posibilty not an absolute, but it needs to be asked

In the meantime, we will need to keep a look out for the fallout of these arrests and support anyone who is charged. The cops have certainly not beaten climate change movement but we do need to rethink how we organise and act.http://autonomousnott.wordpress.com/

 

[free spirit]

Read my other post on this, but i feel there is a Police Informer within see http://autonomousnott.wordpress.com/ for a good update and links to past actions involving said alleged Police Informer,.

An action at an opencast went ahead no Police there, when we met in the dead of night at a community center, only those who needed to know had the information of where we was going to hit, 5am wake up we are all given a note telling us where said location was and the aim of the action, we was asked to rid ourselves of the note..

We move off, aksed to keep mobiles switched off etc, get to the location of Dolehill at Wingerworth, Chesterfield the place was taken out of service shall we say, it was then talked about going to occupy the office of RGB, of which we did some hours latter we are all nicked for the theft of a yoghurt, ie burgulary.

We are all detained and interviewed, not one of us talks apart from one person, we are all then charged and a court case of several months ensues, following this some of no longer was involved..

However the person who talked, is still active, and each time a Mass Action has been planned with them involved it has been nicked, further prove of what i call speculation, is during The G8 Ministers Meetings in Sheffield, The Police had a good idea of our plans, none was talked about on email or phones, but only in closed meetings of which alleged police infromer was there, and when the convergance space become a social center they become involved.

You might ask why did i continue to be involved, because i was told by trusted people what i thought was not fact, so move along, now following the nicking of 114 people i raise it again as a posibilty not an absolute, but it needs to be asked

I'm not discounting the possibility that there is an informer.

The release of historic records under the 30 year rule has shown that they've had high ranked long term informers in place in pretty much every vaguely effective campaigning organisation in the past, so we'd be pretty naive to think they'd not attempt it this time.

From what you're saying, it sounds pretty likely to be the case here. I'm a bit confused though, did this person give evidence that was used in court against you / everyone on that RGB action, or signed statements that were seen by anyone etc. if so, why has anyone allowed themselves to work with them again? and if not, how do you know that they talked?

 

[winjer]

wait, what?

when and where did I say anything about them being able to do this either on old phones, or without causing the battery power levels to drop?

you just dreamt that up.

Now who's picking fights for the sake of it?

 

[free spirit]

Now who's picking fights for the sake of it?

not me.

you pretty clearly implied that it was against the laws of physics for anyone to be able to use a mobile phone as a remote microphone / bug.

You then state essentially that it's not possible on older phones, or without causing a noticable drop in battery power, which would kinda imply that it was technically possible on newer phones but that there would be a noticable drop in battery power... ie not against the laws of physics at all.

what is against the laws of physics would be for a phone to be able to do this when it's power source has been removed... so we get back to this being a sensible precaution as it removes any possibility of this method of surveillance being successfully used against you.

for me this is not an argument for the sake of it, as it's discussing the finer points of what is and isn't a sensible precaution to take against the probable increased intelligence services interests in our movements activities, and could be the difference between successful actions, and a series of pre-emptive busts that demoralise the entire movement. So IMO it'd be helpful if you would either expand on your statement to explain why you believe it's against the laws of physics, or retract / modify / clarify it.

that is the sole purpose of this interaction from my side anyway

 

[winjer]

you pretty clearly implied that it was against the laws of physics for anyone to be able to use a mobile phone as a remote microphone / bug.

No, I clearly implied that it was not a sensible precaution, but a paranoid delusion to believe that the state might be listening to any mobile phone, any time. You've provided no reason for anyone with even a basic knowledge of electronics or mobile networks to think anything different, if you can't be bothered to even think this through to that level then there's no point me explaining it any further.

 

[winjer]

Wouldn't be at all suprised if the cops had an informer within the group. Wouldn't be a cop or a spook - more like somebody connected with the activist movement who they have 'turned' - possibly through threateneing to prosecute him/her for something else.

My understanding is that the Climate Rush folk were very loose with details over email lists, crossposting etc, so I think a proper informer is not likely.

Aynone know if MI5 got a dedicated team targetting environmental protestors?

Not since they shut down F branch, it's the job of the Branch.

 

[e19896]

I'm not discounting the possibility that there is an informer.

The release of historic records under the 30 year rule has shown that they've had high ranked long term informers in place in pretty much every vaguely effective campaigning organisation in the past, so we'd be pretty naive to think they'd not attempt it this time.

From what you're saying, it sounds pretty likely to be the case here. I'm a bit confused though, did this person give evidence that was used in court against you / everyone on that RGB action, or signed statements that were seen by anyone etc. if so, why has anyone allowed themselves to work with them again? and if not, how do you know that they talked?

We all did no reply in interviews, they talked and said person x did eat said yogert, dispite the fact we all agreed to keep our mouths shut, at court it was much the same, i decided to trust them regards G8 Sheffield, but events and happenings lead me to thinking they talked againe, now this and i know there involved at the planning stage of such events, but as said all speculation..

 

[ymu]

and if the paranoid activists are correct then listen in to the meeting via any mobile or fixed line phones that haven't had the battery removed... not entirely sure how possible the last bit is (though it defo works on landlines)...

It's possible, and it is used by law enforcement agencies. The only paranoia is whether your grouplet is enough of a target for this stuff to be used against them.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-150467.html

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

 

[ymu]

Oops. Sorry. Missed the last page. Apologies for redundant post.

 

[free spirit]

No, I clearly implied that it was not a sensible precaution, but a paranoid delusion to believe that the state might be listening to any mobile phone, any time. You've provided no reason for anyone with even a basic knowledge of electronics or mobile networks to think anything different, if you can't be bothered to even think this through to that level then there's no point me explaining it any further.

er no, this is what I said if you'd care to read it and play a little game of spot the difference.

I very much doubt that the police have the ability to do much electronically beyond the odd wire tap, but GCHQ would have the ability to have computers sat there constantly churning through data on thousands of mobile phones, email accounts etc etc to do stuff like pattern analysis, look for unusual clusters of mobile phone locations together to indicate potential meetings, and if the paranoid activists are correct then listen in to the meeting via any mobile or fixed line phones that haven't had the battery removed...

there's a major difference between listening to any phone at any time, and being able to listen into specific targeted phones at specific targeted times, such as when several known activists mobile phone signals put them together in the same location which would potentially indicate that a meeting could be taking place, that might be worth a listen.

note that my opinion has not altered from the first statement to the last, precisely because I have thought this through, yours on the other hand has wibbled about all over the place from saying it defies the laws of physics to saying that it can't be done on old phones or that it'd use up power from the battery (well duh).

believe what you want to believe, but don't go around spouting stuff about posts I make defying the laws of physics if you're not prepared to even expand on the point to show what you mean... at least don't do that and not expect it to get my back up.

 

[ymu]

Batteries out before leaving home then.

 

[david dissadent]

You have to admire the balls of the police officer who ordered this raid. I mean it’s a huge career risk ordering 200 police to swing into action to stop a climate protest and hoping to god no one gets shot in Nottingham that night. You will have one hell of a day explaining why all those officers were not out preventing gun toting gangsters if something does go awry, hell if anyone gets burgled Id imagine the local press might have the odd word to say about the allocation of police resources.……

Unless this crowd planned something pretty fucking spectacular like a couple of kilos of C4 in a turbine hall or a truckload of ANFO outside the EON headquarters then this looks totally OTT. On the whole these protests merely replicate mechanical failures that any fitter or engineer would see on a regular basis. Chaining yourself to a conveyer belt? Well not unlike the drive motor packing in is it. Somehow industrial civilization in the UK does not come to a grinding halt with every turbine failure or conveyer belt that packs up in a Power station.

I keep getting the overwhelming impression that someone at the home office has a real bee in their bonnet over climate change activists. Maybe their Mrs ran off with a crusty from greenpeace or something.

 

[Corax]

Batteries out before leaving home then.

Even better I'd have thought, would be to leave it at home and use a cheaply-obtained, unregistered pay-as-you-go instead.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

A good graun piece from the activist POV. Apols if already posted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/apr/14/activism-climate-change

 

[free spirit]

Even better I'd have thought, would be to leave it at home and use a cheaply-obtained, unregistered pay-as-you-go instead.

to a certain extent, but unregistered phones could fairly quickly be linked for intelligence gathering purposes as being of interest based on calls made to other phones being watched etc.

but there's been mention of the government wanting to make it so that all mobiles have to be registered, so this avenue may well not be open for long

 

[lopsidedbunny]

I did read the the police broke into the wrong building by mistake and rasacked the "self-funded" special needs school by mistake the building they were after was a building next door so in the mean time the police had taken all the equipment meant for the school's use. The School is damaged beyond repair and as it self funded they have no money to repair what been taken or damaged. So they had to closed down the school until the lenghtly reclaiming damages from the police materised....

read link...

Climate Raids - Police Wrongly Break Into School and Seize Learning Equipment
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/427466.html

 

[laptop]

"We thought protesters were planning to gum up a power station with Plasticine®"

 

[david dissadent]

The suggestion by a lawyer on Newsnight was that the arrests were aimed at getting the bail conditions. Sort of an easy means of imposing ASBOs.

 

[e19896]

Climate change activists seem to be split into two camps.

1. Eco-toffs and their middle class arse-licking sycophants:

These fuckers want to save the planet by restricting the working class to charabang day trips for holidays so that they can continue their jetset lifestyles on the back of working class carbon savings. Unfortunately, in terms of climate, these daft twats have carbon footprints that far outweigh any savings that would be gained from reducing the working class to forelock tugging peasants.

2. Dozy primmo hippies:

These year zero Pol Pot tits would like us all to scratch a living dirt farming turnips so that we can eat them by candlelight - fucking mental bastards. Yes Reinold, I mean you.

I care about the environment in which I live, and the world that my grandchildren will inherit, but the antics of these idiots only encourages me to burn railway sleepers, old tyres, lignite and plastic packaging to spite them.

 

[Corax]

Yay for solidarity....

 

[laptop]

Of course, the only working-class people that climate change affects are the turncoats who have learned to read and understand what's going on - so fair enough?

 

[e19896]

Yay for solidarity....

Do not get me wrong the actions of The Police was out of order, but ive no time for the politics, or class of those involved, but will defend there right to protest (to some extent) I will defend the freedom of speech and self protest:

 

[Wilf]

Climate change activists seem to be split into two camps.

1. Eco-toffs and their middle class arse-licking sycophants:

These fuckers want to save the planet by restricting the working class to charabang day trips for holidays so that they can continue their jetset lifestyles on the back of working class carbon savings. Unfortunately, in terms of climate, these daft twats have carbon footprints that far outweigh any savings that would be gained from reducing the working class to forelock tugging peasants.

2. Dozy primmo hippies:

These year zero Pol Pot tits would like us all to scratch a living dirt farming turnips so that we can eat them by candlelight - fucking mental bastards. Yes Reinold, I mean you.

I care about the environment in which I live, and the world that my grandchildren will inherit, but the antics of these idiots only encourages me to burn railway sleepers, old tyres, lignite and plastic packaging to spite them.

I personally haven't got much time for Plane Stupid and there is a bit of a history of rich youngsters claiming 'leadership' roles in environmentalism (Zac Goldsmith et al). However, generalising from that that the whole movement is anti-working class is pointless. Moreover, this just isn't the thrread for it.

 

[e19896]

I personally haven't got much time for Plane Stupid and there is a bit of a history of rich youngsters claiming 'leadership' roles in environmentalism (Zac Goldsmith et al). However, generalising from that that the whole movement is anti-working class is pointless. Moreover, this just isn't the thrread for it.

So we are talking about 114 people being nicked, no doubt some of them if not all of them are as you said, and what here is not the place to point it out? this is no generalising if what we are told they was going to do ie shut down a power station on a bank holiday monday (to be true?), a time of peak power, this bigest impact it would have had is upon the working class, those useing the power and those working there.

Of course this was an indirect anti working class attack, I disagree with power stations, but simply saying there wrong lets on mass close one down is not in any circumstance going to win over the working class, not going to make us think of alternatives, such as wind power etc.

The whole climate change debate is based upon bogus information, no doubt modern life is having an impact of Mother Earth, (yes I hug trees) and I do try and lead a life that work with Mother Earth not against her, but these sad mothers are a part of the problem and closing down a power station is not going to change much, it might get an headline, feed the ego of those involved for a while, no what will change people is direct communication education.

I do take issue with how the Police acted on this, because first they come for The Middle Class then they come for the Working Class etc., how they acted is of concern for us all, but I will also ask was it right for them in the first place to go for a Power Station like this, and I will say of course not, yes due to fact of me being openly classiest (it would be lie not to say this) but the wider impactions of there ill thought out, not planed so well actions.

 

[moon23]

to a certain extent, but unregistered phones could fairly quickly be linked for intelligence gathering purposes as being of interest based on calls made to other phones being watched etc.

but there's been mention of the government wanting to make it so that all mobiles have to be registered, so this avenue may well not be open for long

Yes or you take your new phone home and it's located at your home address or run through the system and crossed referenced with being turned on as your over phone gets turned off, or you buy new phone with your own phone on you and it's linked to point of sale.

It's not fool proof. Face it we live in a 100% survillance society, big brother has won and you either need mass revolution or to use legal methods of change. We were far too complicent about allowing the state to build the infastructure to trap us in a virtual prison.

 

[GoneCoastal]

Interesting article about pre-charge bail conditions (apols if already posted) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/apr/14/activism-pre-emptive-action

(And how wide open for abuse they are)

 

[winjer]

Shame Bibi is so crap on facts.

"A limited form of this came along in the criminal justice bill in 2002" - Criminal Justice Act 2003

"A couple of years ago, for example, post-charge bail conditions were imposed on members of activist group Fit Watch which prevented them entering the M25"

Fitwatch didn't exist a couple of years ago (June 2007 for pedants), and those conditions were imposed much more recently.

 

[winjer]

It's possible, and it is used by law enforcement agencies. The only paranoia is whether your grouplet is enough of a target for this stuff to be used against them.

Or well-funded enough to buy Nextels.

 

[GoneCoastal]

Shame Bibi is so crap on facts.

"A limited form of this came along in the criminal justice bill in 2002" - Criminal Justice Act 2003

"A couple of years ago, for example, post-charge bail conditions were imposed on members of activist group Fit Watch which prevented them entering the M25"

Fitwatch didn't exist a couple of years ago (June 2007 for pedants), and those conditions were imposed much more recently.

Fair enough... I only picked it up because it was on a twitter feed

 

[SpookyFrank]

They will need to re-think how to balance open-ness with security. Bloody hell that sounds like the neolab excuse for security paranoia. The state might be determined to make us all paranoid as they are.

It's a tricky issue alright, but we should remember that there is a clear difference between being security conscious as an activist and paranoia and secrecy displayed by the state. An activist is responsible for his or her own actions and nothing else and so has every right to keep secrets, particularly from a state with an ever diminishing appreciation of the concept of fair play; the state acts in our name and is funded by us and so has no right whatsoever to keep secrets from us.

In my activist days I had my doubts about some of the precautions people took when planning actions (won't list them here, if you know what I mean then you'll know what I mean) and whether they didn't amount to excessive paranoia. This raid is proof that the plod really do think it's worthwhile to use extensive surveillance against peaceful activists however, so I guess I'll have to rethink that one.

Apols if it has been posted already but this article is a good discussion of all the guilty-until-proven-innocent skullduggery employed by the pigs in this case. No surprise that they're opting for ridiculous bail conditions, harassment and petty theft as punishment rather than troubling the courts, given that the last 'conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass' case in Nottinghamshire was thrown out of court...