I have lived in California since 1976, less 4 years, and I really ask those who are the prayerful kind of person to hope and pray that we do not have a major catastrophe here, weather wise, as it occurred to me today that the since the east coast tragic storm ($71 billion) - the enormity of money to take care of Cal if anything happens- might just be the economic straw that breaks us.......I do not want to be a negative but we have 1/3rd of the population here and still some moneymaking power.......I do not, of course wish this to happen anywhere else......The trouble that bothers me is that it was reported that the super storm that was so awful- could happen again??????? I don't know where they get this info from, but who knows??? Also, let us keep us all, including back East in our prayers, not to mention the rest of the world.....Carol B There is HAARP, but wouldn't it be kind of insane of them if they started this type of thing again......Not to worry, just let's keep hope, grace, love for all.....
UK: Secret Police in Dock
Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 01:29 AM CDT
An important high court case is currently being decided upon that will, whatever the outcome, have a massive impact on radicals and anarchists, especially those who play an active role in putting their politics into practice.
Secret Police in Dock
An important high court case is currently being decided upon that will, whatever the outcome, have a massive impact on radicals and anarchists, especially those who play an active role in putting their politics into practice.
John Catt, a 87 years old anti-war and anti-militarist campaigner based in Brighton, has launched a landmark legal challenge against the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner over their controversial £9 million publicly funded secret ‘domestic extremist’ intelligence database on political activists.
The lawyer representing Catt told the judges he had come to court to fight for “a citizen’s right lawfully to manifest his political views without being labelled a domestic extremist subject to a special and apparently arbitrary form of state surveillance”.
The police acknowledged in court that they hold a secret dossier on Catt detailing his attendance at 66 different protests over a four-year period. The documents show police logged personal details, including that of his daughter, which are stored and provide ‘intelligence’ for other forces to use. It is also understood the data is sold to clients such as energy companies exploiting power plants and airline companies involved in the expansion of airports and flights, and other businesses that may be targeted by campaigns or activists.
The ‘domestic extremist’ database is run by the discredited National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), under the authorisation of ACPO and the Metropolitan Police command. It was this same unit which employed under-cover police spy, Mark Kennedy, to infiltrate environmental groups for several years. It also spent £3 million of public money on spy cameras targeting Muslims in Birmingham, which provoked such a public outcry that they had to be withdrawn.
ACPO is also currently being investigated internally for its role and the manner in which it employed and encouraged undercover police to infiltrate protest and anarchist groups.
Catt, who has been involved in the Smash EDO campaign to get the illegal arms manufacturers closed down, is challenging the legality of the database under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to private life), the Data Protection Act 1998 (breach of legislation on personal and sensitive personal data). If he wins his judicial review it will have far reaching consequences for the already beleaguered secret political police and their surveillance methods, and will open the doors for all those radicals who data is stored by ACPO to pursue a grievance against the private company and have their database destroyed.
In response the lawyer representing both ACPO and the Metropolitan Police told the court: “Where you engage in public activity [demonstrations] you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
The judges are expected to return their verdict sometime before the summer.
Image courtesy of Smash Edo website: http://smashedo.org.uk/
This article appeared in the March issue of Freedom newspaper see here
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