WITH government ministers like Ian Duncan Smith anxiously insisting the results of their policies should be hidden behind secrecy, two stories illustrate the way police are guarding their right to spy on the public.
We are not talking about dangerous criminals or terrorists here, but about those who have been at the receiving end of violence, and tried to do something about it.
Duwayne Brooks and Stephen Lawrence were teenagers, on their way home one night in 1993 when they were chased by a racist gang, and Stephen was stabbed and bled to death, just yards from the bus stop where they had been waiting, in Eltham, south east London.
Now 40, and a former Lib Dem councillor, Duwayne not only gave evidence but campaigned along with the Lawrence family for those who had attacked them and murdered his friend to be brought to justice. Since then he has called for the Metropolitan Police to reveal the truth about spying that it conducted, not against the murder suspects, but against him and the Lawrence campaigners.
The Yard said it would hand over any material its officers had collated on him. But Duwayne says what he received from the Met were three pages of intelligence reports, all heavily redacted, so that only four sentences were visible. Even the dates were covered up.
“The Commissioner promised they would be open and transparent and said the Met would provide copies of documents held on me. Instead they sent me this stuff which is a waste of time. It clearly shows they are still holding information about me. Are they still covering up? Yes 100%.”
Stephen Lawrence's mother Doreen entered the House of Lords as Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, a Labour life peer, on September 6, 2013. Duwayne Brooks was awarded an OBE this month. But in 2013 a former police officer, Peter Francis, revealed that he had been employed to gather "dirt" on Duwayne Brooks and the Lawrences. Scotland Yard promised an inquiry.
The documents do show the police were keen to play up differences between Duwayne Brooks and the Lawrences. One sentence in the report suggests he supported the Movement for Justice, and had criticised Stephen's parents for reluctance to speak at rallies. Another sentence quotes Duwayne saying that “the black community should not walk on by when the police are stopping blacks in the street”.
BLACKOUT Heavily redacted document from the Met
He said: “How did they know that? I believe the redacted information would answer that.”
The Met said: “We made an undertaking to disclose material held on Mr Brooks to his solicitor. As explained, it was redacted to protect sensitive information.”
ANOTHER attempt to uncover what the Met's snoops are up to ran into the secrecy barrier this week when they refused to disclose whether undercover copper Mark Jenner was still on active service, citing "health and safety" grounds.
Jenner, who also used the name Mark Cassidy, posed as a joiner in 1996 and became active in the building union Ucatt until 1999. He also went to the Colin Roach Centre, which was particularly concerned about police violence. Jenner/Cassidy established a relationship, lasting five years, with a woman teacher, who bore his child, while he was collecting information on her involvement in environmental campaigns. (CORRECTION: (see comment) I confused this with another case, Jenner did not give this woman a child and she was not involved in environmental campaign. Shows danger of not checking facts when working late at night!)
A diary left behind by Jenner indicates that he was interested in building workers campaigning on safety issues. He even chaired some meetings. Former police officer Peter Francis has confirmed that Jenner, a member of the Yard's Special Demonstrations Squad, was an undercover agent.
But Metropolitan Police chiefs have turned down a freedom of information request asking if the former spy was still on duty, saying they would not “confirm or deny” any details of his activities.
The Met cited the need to protect “personal data” as well as the potential for “health and safety” breaches.
“It is deeply cynical for the police to be using personal data as an excuse to withhold information, when they had no hesitation to distribute workers’ personal details to blacklisters and ruin their lives,” said Ucatt acting general secretary Brian Rye.
A database of blacklisted construction workers, held contrary to the Data Protection Act, was discovered in 2009. It included details about workers' political views, out of work activities and families, and some of the information looked suspiciously as though it had been gathered by undercover police officers. Since then other information has been brought to light about meetings between senior police officers and employers.
“The police’s continued refusal to answer questions about their role in the blacklisting of ordinary construction workers is reprehensible,” said Brian Rye. "Everyone who had their lives blighted by blacklisting deserves the complete truth. That will only be achieved through a full public inquiry into this disgusting practice.”
Promising increased police surveillance to protect national security, Home Secretary Theresa May told MPs that the “snoopers’ charter” proposals blocked by the Lib
Dems during the last parliament were “too wide-ranging” and would be
tightened up. Former government lawyer Victoria Prentis, who was
elected a Tory MP last month, said that Britain was “lucky to have” its
spies. “They have been proved repeatedly to be both efficient and
decent and a great example of the values we hold so dear in this
country,” she said.
UNDERCOVER (and under-the-covers) COP Mark Jenner, aka Cassidy, spied on workers concerned about health and safety, and lived with woman he had befriended under false identity before moving on. "A great example of the values we hold so dear in this
country,”?
Investigate Blacklisting, says Nicola's Mum
ANTI-BLACKLIST campaigners seem to have claimed some success this week having set up stall at the Scottish National Party Trade Union Group meeting in Stirling.
NICOLA Sturgeon is being urged to set up a Hillsborough-style public inquiry into the scandal of blacklisting – by her mum.
Councillor Joan Sturgeon and her North Ayrshire colleagues want an official investigation into the shameful employment practice.
The Record previously told how almost 600 workers in Scotland were blocked from getting jobs by the Consulting Association.
Their blacklist was revealed after a raid by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2009. It led to the organisation being shut down.
Blacklisting was also mentioned by new Midlothian MP Owen Thompson in his maiden speech in the Commons, in which he also, ironically, praised the speech of fellow newcomer Victoria Prentis. BUT RMT trade unionists have been less impressed with the SNP trade union group's failure to back opposition to privatisation of Caledonian-MacBrayne ferries. http://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-responds-to-snp-trade-union-group-statement-on-calmac/
FAMILY of Jean Charles de Menezes held gathering outside Stockwell tube station where he was killed. This was early in January, 2006. Below, the big guy on the left was using a big camera taking close-ups of faces in the crowd.
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes are going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, using Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, on the right to life, to challenge the decision by British authorities that nobody should be prosecuted for his death.
The 27-year old Brazilian electrician was on his way to work when he was shot dead by police marksmen on a tube train at Stockwell, on July 22, 2005. Some thought the way he was shot several times at close range suggested an army-style killing rather than police action.
They had supposedly mistaken him for a terrorist suspect they were pursuing for attempted bombings the day before. The police story carried by the press was that Jean Charles had been wearing an unseasonal bulky coat, such as might be concealing a bomb or a weapon, and that he had vaulted ticket barriers in his hurry to escape pursuit and get on to the tube.
In fact Jean Charles was not wearing a big coat at all, just a light denim jacket, and he used his season ticket to go through the barriers in the normal way. An inquest held at the Oval in 2008 heard how police had been watching the south London block of flats where he lived, and followed him, although the man they were supposed to be watching had left London the night before and was out of the country. At one point a plain-clothes officer actually sat next to Jean Charles on the bus. When the electrician alighted at Stockwell he unknowingly passed two other police watchers as he walked to the tube.
Meanwhile, if any officer had any doubts that they were pursuing the right man, they could not get through. The communications officer in the crowded control room at Scotland Yard could not make himself heard above the excited din of those following the chase.
The inquest returned an open verdict.
Cressida Dick, the officer in charge at the Yard received a medal and was promoted acting Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She is now Assistant Commissioner of Special Operations.
Speaking about the family's decision to go to Strasbourg with the case, Patricia da Silva, a cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes said: "For 10 years our family has been campaigning for justice for
Jean because we believe that police officers should have been held to
account for his killing.
“Jean's death is a pain that never goes away for us. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11664591/Family-of-Jean-Charles-de-Menezes-launch-Strasbourg-human-rights-case.html
An interesting sidelight on this battle for justice is that while the authorities claimed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute anybody over Jean Charles' death, the police did put in an effort to spying on the family and their supporters and friends. They were subject to surveillance as were the relatives of Cherry Groce, who was shot by armed police in Brixton, and Ricky Reel, the student victim of a racial attack. A report acknowledged that the information
collected by a controversial undercover unit "served no purpose in
preventing crime or disorder".
The family and friends of Stephen Lawrence, murdered in south-east London, were spied on as they campaigned for justice. In fact, far more police work went into infiltrating and spying on their campaign than into pursuing the murder suspects. It is likely that one reason south London police were reluctant to proceed against Stephen's killers, besides institutional racism, was that one of the gang involved was the son of a professional criminal and police informer.
But more than one police force was engaged in spying on the Lawrence campaign.
"Greater Manchester Police has admitted
that it spied on people attending the Inquiry into the murder of
Stephen Lawrence, making it the fourth constabulary known to be
involved.
When the MacPherson Inquiry took place in 1998, it held a number of
hearings outside London. A GMP memo was issued on 8 October asking for
‘information or intelligence on groups or individuals who are likely to
be attending’ to be given to a Detective Chief Inspector in Special
Branch.
The spying appears to have been motivated by wholly political
concerns. There was no anticipation of any threat to public order, there
is no suggestion of anything criminal, and the memo makes no mention of
anything untoward.
Since there was no suggestion of illegal activity or threatened disorder from any of these campaigns, which were simply out to seek the truth and obtain justice, would we be unreasonable to suggest that what the police were after was any 'dirt' they could find or make up to try and discredit witnesses and campaigners, and cover up their own wrongdoing?
Trade unionists digging out the truth about blacklisting, mainly in the building industry, have come upon evidence that those compiling illegal files and selling information to employers were able to work hand in glove with police officers and undercover agents infiltrating the unions and meetings. So officers paid for by the taxpayer, including the workers, were being used to target workers who took up perfectly legitimate issues of safety and conditions, and help unscrupulous employers penalise them and their families by denying them work.
Environmental and other campaigns have also been targeted by undercover police, who went so far as to form relationships with women in groups they were infiltrating, and even father children by them, before disappearing on to other work. It is also well known that where campaigns are infiltrated, provocations and actions that land people in trouble with the law can follow. In perhaps the most notorious case an undercover agent named as perpetrator of a store bombing has been promoted and found an academic post.
While the government and tame media pretend that police need more powers for surveillance to protect us from terror, a campaign to raise public awareness of what the snoops and agents are really up to has been formed, and is promising new exposures coming along.
'BLACKLISTED' is a new book out exposing an old practice which has blighted the lives of thousands of workers and their families in this country, and despite breaching laws about data protection, not to mention human rights, is still no doubt going on.
Having unfortunately missed a book launch in the House of Commons on March 12, I was glad that one of the authors, Dave Smith, was able to make it to the Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils' AGM a couple of days later, to talk about the book, and some of his own experiences, and sign copies.
As well as getting writer's cramp inscribing messages in books, Dave has kept busy in other ways. He has been fighting his case against Carillion over blacklisting, which has ended with the company winning in the High Court because it appears, having been employed via an agency, Dave had no rights. Maybe he'll have to appeal to the European human rights court in Strasbourg, if the Tories don't win in May and take us out of the court (No Rights, please, we're British!?)
And on Wednesday night, Dave was lifted by police after a building workers' protest outside the Hilton hotel spilled over into Park Lane, stopping traffic. About forty workers were demonstrating outside the Construction News Awards in the Hilton, over the sackings of workers who raised health and safety concerns on the Crossrail project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLuP7iYDAfg
I remember a similar incident a couple of years ago when striking electricians resisting pay cuts blockaded white-tied contractors arriving for a dinner at a Park Lane hotel. On that occasion the workers and their sound system blocked Park Lane traffic for some time, yet police seemed unsure what to do, and I don't recall any arrests being made. That episode is mentioned in the 'Blacklisted' book. This time it would seem the Met had their instructions, and had decided whom to nick.
Dave Smith is secretary of the Blacklist Support Group. And the book he has co-authored with Phil Chamberlain does not just tell the story of blacklisting by employers and employer-funded organisations, from the Economic League founded in 1919 to its successor Consulting Associations. It looks at the links with police infiltration and spying on trade unionists, environmental campaigners and others.
It is worth remembering that blacklisting and victimisation of workers who raised safety issues does not just hit these workers and their families. It also affects those left in work who fear for their jobs and decide to keep their mouths shut even if they see something which looks wrong. And of course, those workers and members of the public who suffer harm or injury as a result of bad practices or neglect.
Yet while the government has been cutting right back on HSE inspections, and the police are talking about services they may no longer be able to provide, we hear nothing about the cost of police surveillance and infiltration -including use of agent provocateurs -against members of the public and legitimate organisations such as trade unions. Who authorised such operations, and how many are still going on?
The Blacklist Support Group are demanding a full public enquiry into blacklisting.
It so happened that last week I received an e-mail from the Labour Party, inviting me to "ask Ed" any questions I liked. So I asked whether Labour would launch an inquiry into blacklisting. I am used to chairpersons not seeing my hand at question time, and I was not expecting blacklisting to be an issue our politicians want to discuss, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive this reply - not signed by "Ed" (or anyone else), but I'm not a fan of personality cults, and it is e-mailed from "frontbench" and on record nevertheless.
Dear Mr Pottins,
Thank you for your email regarding blacklisting in the construction industry.
Trade unions are an
important voice for people at work and in wider society, and have a
central role to play in boosting training, pay and conditions for their
members and helping Britain win the race to the top. At a time of rapid
global economic change and a cost-of-living crisis at home, it is vital
that the UK continues to have strong and modern trade unions as a
genuine voice fighting against discrimination and abuse.
That is why the next
Labour Government will launch a full inquiry into the disgraceful
practice of blacklisting in the construction industry. This inquiry must
be transparent and public to ensure the truth is set out. We should
also learn the lessons of the actions on procurement taken by the Welsh
Assembly Government with regards to blacklisting.
The choice at this election is between a failing
plan and a better plan for working families. Only Labour understands
that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed. That’s why
Labour’s plan offers a better future: for living standards, for the next
generation, and for the NHS. You can read more about Labour’s better
plan in our Changing Britain Together booklet.
With kind regards,
On behalf of the Labour Party
It's worth asking the questions like this, because you might get an answer, and if nothing else the politicians can't pretend no one is interested and they have not received any questions about the subject.
I won't be holding my breath waiting for Labour to hold a full public enquiry, but nor will we be holding our fire if Labour having got in fails to honour any such pledges it has made. And whatever public cynicism says about politicians and pre-election promises, you have a much better starting point for protest if the promises have been made.
MICK ABBOTT, in white Justice for Pickets tee shirt, with Ricky Tomlinson at Westminster
WIGAN building worker Mick Abbott, a dedicated fighter against the blacklist, and for justice for the jailed Shrewsbury pickets, has been honoured with a memorial plaque at the Casa, the club started by locked out and victimised Liverpool dockers.
A plaque commemorating the late Michael Abbott has been unveiled at The Casa on Liverpool’s Hope Street. The anti-blacklisting campaigner, who died, aged 74, last year after a battle with cancer, discovered files that showed he was blacklisted due to his trade union activities and his raising of concerns towards health and safety on construction sites. The plaque marks the first anniversary of his death. Abbott discovered that the first file against him dated back to 1964 when he was working on the construction of the Fiddlers’ Ferry. Upon this discovery, he fought for the rights of other men that had also been blacklisted from working on building sites. Researcher and Secretary of the Shrewsbury 24 campaign, Eileen Turnball, told JMU Journalism: “We meet in The Casa every month at The Casa to discuss blacklisting in Liverpool. Michael Abbott left us in 2014, but the blacklisting in Liverpool has always been prevalent, but it mushroomed after the 1972 building workers strike.”
This year will be forty years since the march from Wigan to London, of which Mick was one of the leaders, to demand the release of the Shrewsbury Two, trade unionists jailed on "conspiracy" charges after the 1972 building workers' strike.
The previous year I'd met some of the Wigan lads on a march against the 'Lump' system, called by UCATT, in Preston. They had brought placards about the Shrewsbury pickets on to the march, and a few of us came down from Lancaster to join them. Mick Abbott and his pals were surprised to hear that I was working on the Heysham power station site, as they told me they'd been unable to get jobs there, having previously worked on Fiddlers' Ferry. (My lack of power station background might have been an advantage, as was the irregular way I was smuggled on site by an Irish acquaintance, bypassing the main contractor Taylor Woodrow's procedure).
Determined not to let the jailed pickets issue be dropped or forgotten, Mick was with Ricky Tomlinson when, after his release, he protested at the 1975 TUC over the continued detention of Des Warren. Ricky had been refused permission to speak from the platform, while right-wing bureaucrats were allowed to slag off the pickets.
One of 12 siblings born in Kirkdale, Liverpool, Mick Abbott worked most of his life -when he could -in the building trade. He was a scaffolder, and a TGWU shop steward on several sites. Married with four kids, he was known as a warm, friendly man with a typically Scouse sense of humour, as well as a dedicated trade unionist.
There were 400 people at his funeral.
But even before their tributes, or the plaque at the Casa, Mick had been honoured, by being among more than 3,000 building workers on the blacklist. Documents he was able to obtain after the so-called Consulting Association was exposed refer to his involvement in the Fiddlers' Ferry strike and to his serious concerns over site safety. Des Warren, at his trial over picketing, famously said that there had been a real conspiracy - between the Tory government of the day, the building industry bosses, and the police. Labour Home Secretary Roy
Jenkins, one of the "gang and four" who went on to found the SDP, refused to release the two
pickets, so that as Ricky Tomlinson says, "We spent more time in jail under Labour than we had under
the Conservatives". A later Labour Home secretary, Jack Straw, told MPs
that government documents concerning the Shrewsbury trial must be kept
secret for reasons of "national security". But then this Straw, recently in the news over his readiness to take remunerative retirement work, declined the chance to peek at his own file with the security services, when he was Home Secretary.
Talking about the CA blacklist, Mick Abbott said last year; “My file goes back to
1964, and the last entry says that I rekindled the campaign for justice
for the Shrewsbury picketers in 2006. They have been watching me all
these years and passing this information around, blighting my life over
four decades.”
The struggle for justice for the Shrewsbury pickets, demanding that secret files be opened so that the sentences can be squashed, the construction safety campaign - revealed to have also been subject to police spying, - and the battle against the blacklist, have been shown to be interlocking.
A new book about the blacklisting is being launched this week.
STUDENTS occupying a building at Warwick University vowed on Monday that they would not leave quietly without a change of attitude from the authorities. They want apologies from the university and the West Midlands police over the way a previous protest was treated.
Last Wednesday police sprayed CS gas in the faces of students and threatened them with a taser. The protesting students, supporting the Campaign for Free Education, were occupying the reception area of the university administration building. Three students were arrested
As news spread of the police assault on what the students said was a peaceful protest over tuition fees, students and many academics around the country responded with messages of protest to the Warwick authorities and solidarity with the students.
About 1,000 students took part in a demonstration on the university's Coventry campus on Thursday morning, following which a group of campaigners took control of the entire top floor of the university’s conference centre, the Rootes Building. Although the term has officially ended the students were continuing their stay this week, and have smuggled a Christmas tree into the building.
"The group was visited by academic registrar Dr Michael Glover on
Friday before a letter was sent which asked them to end their trespass
on the site.
University spokesman Peter Dunn has since confirmed the protesters could be forcibly removed.
He
said: “As with all of these occupations, we reserve the right to bring a
protest to an end if protesters do not bring it to an end themselves.”
Earlier, replying to an e-mail from vice chancellor Nigel Thift which
alleged a security officer had been assaulted and a door broken, the
occupiers had called the vice chancellor a liar, and accused him of
showing more concern about a door than the lives of students. Their
statement said they were building a community, and invited others to join them.
News of occupations at Warwick and even mention of the Rootes building brings back memories.
It was back in 1970, when Warwick, under innovative vice chancellor Jack Butterworth, was one of the bright and shiny new universities set up under the Wilson government's policy of expanding access to higher education and promoting modern technology and business.
Students who peacefully occupied the administration offices without resistance came upon a remarkable collection of documents in an unlocked file. One was a letter from Rootes Motors (later to become Chrysler) management, marked 'Strictly Confidential', with a report of a meeting on Coventry Labour Party premises. My late friend and comrade Harry Finch, a shop steward at Alfred Herbert machine tools, was mentioned, but the main focus was on the speaker, Dr.David Montgomery, a visiting American academic at Warwick's Centre for the Study of Social History.
Gilbert Hunt, a Director of Rootes Motors, member of the University Council and chairman of its Building Committee, had sent his corporate Director of Legal Affairs, accompanied by a security officer, to listen in on the meeting. The object of this surveillance was apparently to ascertain if Montgomery, who had a trade union background before his academic status, and was meeting trade union activists in Coventry, could be prosecuted under the 1919 Aliens Restriction Act.
Another letter found in the files concerned the political background of a student applicant for a place at Warwick. Underneath was scrawled the message "Reject this man", initialled "JB" -presumed to be Butterworth.
The Warwick University occupation back in 1970 spearheaded a nationwide campaign by students concerned about secret files and the use to which they are put, which reverberates today with the much more serious campaign by workers fighting against blacklisting. Professor E.P.Thompson, whom Butterworth himself had appointed, resigned from the University, and wrote the book, Warwick University Ltd., relating the student discoveries to what can happen when a university is too close to business.
Jack Butterworth went on to become Lord Butterworth, a Tory peer.
While the Warwick university campaigners were settling into their occupation, a different aspect of the place of universities, and of police on university premises, was brought into focus at the London Metropolitan University, on Holloway Road, on Friday.
Around 25 protesters, assembled under the banner of “Islington Against
Police Spies”, handed out leaflets and spoke to students, staff and
passers-by about the employment of Bob Lambert, the former undercover cop who infiltrated environmentalists groups. Using a different name, Lambert established a two-year relationship with one unsuspecting campaigner, and fathered a child with her, before disappearing to restart his career elsewhere.
Last month the force apologised “unreservedly” for Mr Lambert’s actions
after agreeing to pay out £425,000 compensation to the mother of the
child.
Bob Lambert has also been accused, under parliamentary privilege, of planting a bomb in a department store as part of an operation to discredit animal rights activists. In June 2012 Green MP Caroline Lucas said in Parliament that Lambert
had planted a fire bomb that caused £340,000 worth of damage to the
Harrow branch of Debenhams department store in 1987 as part of his
undercover work in the Animal Liberation Front. Lambert denied this. Two
animal rights campaigners served four years in prison for similar attacks.
Dave Smith of the Blacklist Support Group says Lambert is also implicated in the police gathering of information supplied for the purpose of blacklisting trade unionists.
The official position now is that Mr Lambert works part-time as a senior lecturer in London Met’s John Grieve Policing Centre. He is an expert in counter-terrorism and has published articles about hate crime. He became a doctor after completing a terrorism studies PhD at Exeter University.
In a statement, London Met said: “While we recognise the mistakes Bob made in his police career, for which he has apologised and displayed deep regret, we have absolute faith in him as a lecturer and member of our community. During a 31-year policing career, Bob made a significant contribution to tackling terrorism, political violence and hate crimes in London which, along with his strong academic record, makes him a valuable asset to criminology teaching at London Met.” http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2014/dec/fresh-protests-over-%E2%80%98police-spy%E2%80%99-lecturer-working-holloway-road-university
FROM RADICAL ACTIVIST to respectable academic? The roles of police agent Bob
Just over a month ago, on October 23, 2014, the Metropolitan Police Service agreed to pay £425,000 to a woman called Jacqui whose child was fathered by a man called Bob Lambert. Obviously this was no ordinary paternity suit. Jacqui said she did not know at the time of her relationship with Lambert that that he was an undercover police officer. The Met agreed to pay up in return for Jacqui dropping a legal action alleging assault, negligence, deceit and misconduct by senior officers.
Jacqui was a 22-year-old campaign activist when she met Lambert, who was passing himself off as a fellow campaigner and using the pseudonym Bob Robinson. She gave birth to their son in 1985. When the boy was two years old his father vanished, and she told BBC News she had received psychiatric care after learning the officer's real identity.
Jacqui was one of several women who said they were duped into relationships with officers who were spying on them. Scotland Yard said it "unreservedly apologises for any pain and suffering" but added that “the Metropolitan Police Service has never had a policy that officers can use sexual relations for the purposes of policing”. Scotland Yard had previously refused to either confirm or deny whether Bob Lambert was a Special Demonstration Squad operative, despite his own admissions to journalists. However, it was forced to change its position in August 2014 after a legal ruling.
Fathering children under a false idenitity then doing a runner is not all that Bob Lambert has been accused of. In June 2012 Green MP Caroline Lucas said in Parliament that Lambert had planted a fire bomb that caused £340,000 worth of damage to the Harrow branch of Debenhams department store in 1987 as part of his undercover work in the Animal Liberation Front. Lambert denied this. Two animal rights campaigners served four years in prison for attacks such as this.
In 2013, it was reported that while undercover with London Greenpeace, Lambert had co-authored the 'McLibel leaflet', which resulted in a defamation lawsuit from McDonald's Corporation that took ten years to resolve.
After his own time undercover Lambert was in charge of other police officers doing the same kind of work. He deployed officers into Reclaim the Streets as well as campaigns for justice by families of black people whose deaths were mishandled by police, such as Stephen Lawrence. In addition to his role in the Special Demonstration Squad, he was
head of the Muslim Contact Unit from its establishment in 2002.
So what is Robert Lambert doing with himself these days? No longer wearing his hair long like he did in wilder times, the under the covers police agent is now a 'respectable' academic.
After his career in the police force, he became a lecturer at the
University of St. Andrews and a part-time senior lecturer at the London
Metropolitan University. He was co-director of the European Muslim
Research Centre in the Department of Politics at Exeter University until August 2011.[3][4]
Robert Lambert works part time lecturing on Criminology and Policing at London Metropolitan University.
Besides environmental and anti-racist campaigners, trade unionists
defending their right to work and organise believe they have scores to
settle with Lambert. Dave Smith of the Blacklist Support Group says the "expert" on Muslim terror has a dark past, not confronting terrorism but infiltrating peaceful campaigning groups. "He is directly implicated in
police attempts to spy on, smear and
discredit Stephen Lawrence's family campaign regarding police failures
to investigate Stephen's racist murder in 1993, and also in the
'mysterious' passing on of Special Branch files to a private company
paid by large construction firms to compile a blacklist of trade
unionists active in the building trade, many of who were victimised and
fired."
Now a college lecturer himself, long blacklisted building worker Dave is joining with others to tell London Metropolitan University it has no business employing Robert Lambert. " He is a known liar, spy and exploiter of women - not in any way a
fit person to be trusted teaching students at a University that likes to
portray itself as 'progressive'.
'
We aim to keep up pressure
on London Met until they fire him. Join us in our picket of the
University building where he works this Friday."
12.00 – 2.00pm
LMU Tower, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB
Contact
Islington Against Police Spies, email: islingtonagainstpolicespies@gmail.com
.
For more information on Bob Lambert and other undercover police activities, contact:
HOW LAING O'ROURKEHANDLE PROTEST. Dave Smith of the Blacklist Support Group being removed after trying to make his point at construction firm's Dartford headquarters
WORKERS fighting against the blacklist in the building industry are angry that the Metropolitan Police would ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that Special Branch and undercover cops have been snooping on the Construction Support Group.
Phil Chamberlain, an investigative journalist whose work led to the Information Commissioner's raid on the employer-funded Consulting Association, causing it to close in 2009, had made a Freedom of Information request for “copies of any files held by the Metropolitan Police (including Special Branch) on the organisation called the Blacklist Support Group. This is a group campaigning for the rights of those refused work because of their union activities.”
The Metropolitan Police Service S responded on October 9 that it was in the “public interest” for them to refuse to “confirm or deny in order to safeguard national security” the existence of files on the Blacklist Support Group. It did though admit it held information that “some information is held that may ‘relate’ to the Blacklist Support Group.”
The raid on the Consulting Association, a successor to the notorious right-wing Economic League, revealed that data was illegally stored on thousands of people, concerning their personal and family life and trade union or political activities. Not all were building workers. The companies who subscribed to this service were also interested in environmental campaigners. They also apparently discussed what could be done about a Glasgow university who reported unfavourably on safety in the North Sea oil industry after the Piper Alpha disaster.
But building workers were particularly vulnerable because of the nature of the industry. What has happened is that a trade unionist who tries to organise colleagues on a site, attends meetings, or simply tries to raise concern over health and safety issues at work, is not only liable to be victimised, but becomes the subject of a secret report which follows him or her through life. They can no longer get a job even when there is work about, and of course their families suffer.
If the Special Branch or undercover cops are spying on those who campaign against the blacklist, then as has been revealed in the Stephen Lawrence case, the police have been pursuing the families of the victims of crime, rather than the perpetrators.
As for the claim that they cannot admit anything or disclose documents, on "national security" grounds, this is the very same pretext that government has been using for refusing to release documents on the Shrewsbury building worker pickets that were jailed.
It is as good as an admission that so far as police and the state are concerned, workers who fight for their rights are still what Thatcher called them, that is us, the Enemy Within.
It has been evident all along that whatever the law may say, and whatever we may be told about "equality before the law" and the police force being neutral, the state and private sectors of the snooping industry have been working hand and glove.
A Commons Select Committee investigation found that the undercover police unit known as the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU) attended and gave powerpoint presentations to meetings of the Consulting Association blacklisting organisation. The head of the covert blacklisting organisation, which was financed and controlled by major construction companies, was prosecuted for holding illegally files on construction workers. Construction firms paid on a case-by-case basis for frequently inaccurate information contained in these files.
The difference between this and the police activity is that whereas the bosses paid for the Consulting Association and private detectives etc, we the public are expected to pay for the Special Branch and other agencies to spy on ourselves! And we are not allowed to see the results. It is evident from some of the Consulting Association files revealed that their material did not just concern workplace activity or come from employers sharing information.
The Metropolitan Police service notes there was a pre-agreed police line on queries about the Consulting Association. “IF ASKED: is it true that NETCU shared information with the Consulting Association? We do not discuss matters of intelligence.”
Supt Steve Pearl, who ran NECTU, is now a director at Agenda Security Services, which provides employment vetting services. His former boss, ex-Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell, who was the senior police officer in charge of the UK police domestic extremism machinery between 2004 and 2010, is currently head of global security at Laing O’Rourke – one of the construction companies subscribing to the Consulting Association.
Following exposure of how the police Special Demonstrations Squad and other secret units conducted undercover - and under- the -covers - spying on women activists, the High Court ruled in September against them using the "neither confirm nor deny" formula. Some women currently suing the Metropolitan Police are also on the Consulting Association blacklist. See http://www.hazards.org/blacklistblog/
But it seems the Met are in no hurry to clear up speculation and answer allegations concerning their collaboration with the bosses' blacklist. Blacklist Support Group secretary Dave Smith is one of a
number of campaigners who have been refused copies of their own personal police files.
Dave says: “It is without doubt that the police and security services are spying on trade unionists fighting for justice on the issue of blacklisting. They have colluded with big business to deliberately target trade unionism over decades. Shrewsbury, Orgreave, blacklisting; the list goes on and on. The refusal to provide any information whatsoever smacks of an establishment cover-up. Blacklisting is no longer an industrial relations issue: it is a human rights conspiracy.”
Besides seeking legal redress from companies which blacklisted him and others, Dave continues to publicise the issues, and has asked friends to share the photograph above of what happened when he went with fellow-campaigners to the headquarters of the big construction giant Laing O'Rourke recently.
Safe in their hands
VIGIL FOR RICHARD LACO, killed on Laing O'Rourke site. As I've said, blacklisting is often linked to another issue in the building trade, and that is safety, or the lack of it. The accident rate can even go up when times are hard, because bosses are anxious to cut corners and be competitive, firms push bogus self-employment making workers responsible for their own protection, and workers fear speaking up about conditions and ways of working will result in their being singled out as "troublemakers".
Certainly many of those who found themselves on the Consulting Association files appear to have committed the "offence" of becoming safety reps. Yet with already insufficient HSE inspections being hit by cuts, the government of Old Etonian toffs who have never done a day's work proclaiming building and other industries "safe", and even regulations like those on asbestos being undermined, the need for workers to organise, and protect their safety at work, has never been greater.
Anyway, seeing that photo of the brother being manhandled from Laing O'Rourke's headquarters reminded me of another protest, that I attended.
Union officers revealed they had not been allowed on site, where the company has a £600 million
contract to build the Crick medical research centre. Nor were Richard Laco's workmates allowed off site to join a vigil outside the gate. The management claimed they were holding their own event on site, but Richard's gilfriend was not allowed in, and had to plant her wreath of flowers with others at the gate.
Five years ago Laing O'Rourke were fined over the August 2005 death of a worker at Heathrow. The firm was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive along with SGB Services Ltd, a supplier of construction equipment. Both pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act. Laing O’Rourke Infrastructure Ltd was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £75,000 costs. SGB Services Ltd was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £30,000 in costs.
Matthew Gilbert, a 27-year-old carpenter from Plymouth and a 21-year-old engineer’s assistant, Parminder Singh, from Slough, had been standing on a concrete slab when it collapsed and fell 17 metres to the level below. Gilbert was killed in the collapse, while Singh suffered extensive scarring, along with a broken back, broken leg and a broken jaw.
The court heard that SGB failed to ensure Threaded Shoring Adaptors, TSAs which they supplied were able to carry maximum loads. The company had carried on supplying defective TSAs despite a recall programme, and two of these failed, causing the concrete slab to collapse. The HSE investigation also found that Laing O’Rourke Infrastructure Ltd failed to have adequate systems in place to inspect the quality and condition of the TSAs before they were used in safety-critical applications, and had failed to remove sub-standard TSAs from use when warned.
HSE Inspector Karen Morris said: “The tragic death of one man and the serious injuries suffered by his colleague could have been prevented if both companies had had more robust systems in place. “This case demonstrates an extremely serious failure of both the principal contractor and the supplier to ensure the materials they supplied for the work were fit for purpose.”
Another Laing O'Rourke worker was killed at Heathrow at the beginning of October. Philip Andrew Griffiths, 38, who had been working on the airport's terminal 2 car park on night shift, was hit by a dumper truck that was being used to move a broken down hoist.
A Met Police spokesperson said: “Police were called by London Ambulance Service at 04:46hrs on Thursday, 2 October to Cayley Road, close to the Ground Floor Car Park at Terminal 2, Heathrow Airport, following reports of a road traffic collision. “Officers attended and found a man in his thirties suffering serious injuries following a collision with a truck". The victim died shortly before 5.45.
http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2014/10/02/laing-orourke-worker-killed-at-heathrow/ HSE officials say they are investigating. The £77 million Terminal 2 car park is near completion Laing O'Rourke say they are aiming to eliminate all accidents not just the fatal ones on their sites. Perhaps they genuinely are. But I'd sooner trust workers' self organisation, trade unionism, and safety representatives, along with campaigning for a change in policy and government, for that "health and safety culture" that David Cameron and his friends despise.
EXPLOSION on April 20, 2010 killed 11 workers. Well was not finally capped until September 19. Meanwhile oil kept flowing, killing marine life amd polluting coastline. By 9 July 2011, roughly 491 miles (790 km) of coastline in Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida remained contaminated by oil. US government blames BP, and relatives of dead men say drilling company ignored warnings.
A LEADING British scholar who investigated the Piper Alpha oil disaster has published an analysis of the Gulf of Mexico disaster examinining what BP should have known and could have done about the causes.
The author is Professor Charles Woolfson,
formerly of the University of Glasgow, and co-author of the landmark
study of offshore oil industry safety, Paying for the Piper detailing
the reasons for the loss of 167 lives in the Piper Alpha oil rig
disaster off the shores of Scotland.
Professor Woolfson's name was a surprise find uncovered when the files of the blacklisting Consulting Association were opened, showing the extent of blacklisting of workers in the building industry. It suggested that oil companies might try to put pressure on the University to cut his tenure short, possibly leading to other academic institutions closing their doors too for fear of losing funding.
Evidently Charles Woolfson has not let this frighten him from taking on the oil giants again. He examines the reasons for BP's
safety failures in the Gulf of Mexico in a new publication in current
issue of New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational
Health Policy.
Says Woolfson, "What's really startling and
wholly depressing are the similarities not the differences in the basic
causes underlying the two disasters, Piper Alpha and Deepwater Horizon.
Although these events are separated by over twenty years, the global
industry was supposed to have learned important safety lessons in the interim.
Yet a major British oil multinational, BP, was seemingly oblivious to
this previous catastrophic safety failure in 1988, to date the world's
worst offshore disaster, occurring on its own doorstep."
Key
among these similarities are attempts to create a business-friendly
regulatory regime offshore, weak inspection and enforcement procedures,
prioritization of commercial considerations over the safety and
well-being of personnel and the wider environment.
"It's only
when you look at the forensic detail of how a bad company operates in
the real world that you see the true picture emerging. Then you can
begin to ask questions about how this kind of disaster could happen,
what can be done to prevent it happening again and, not least, who is to
blame" said Woolfson.
BP faces new litigation in the
Spring of 2013 following its guilty plea to US Justice Department
charges which resulted in the largest criminal fine in US history. , The article, Preventable Disasters In The Offshore Oil Industry: FromPiper Alpha To Deepwater Horizon by Charles Woolfson, can be downloaded at the New Solutions web site: http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?id=f7064451341g3664 New Solutions, Vol. 22(4), 2013
From Special Branch to Special Brew, Special Courts and Rendition
NO LONGER A TEAM, but testimony from MI5 whistleblowers Annie Machon and David Schayler, seen here in happier times, should not be discarded.
MENTION of Consulting Association blacklister and snoop Ian Kerr, who
has just died when he might have been called to give more evidence
about his activities and the companies he served, has brought to mind
the bigger picture of surveillance, of which Kerr's business formed a
part. What were his relations, and those of the Economic League before
him, with the Secret State which we pay to watch over us?
MPs have been discussing the Justice and Security Bill, which is supposed to provide for oversight of the intelligence and security services, but actually provides among other things for secret courts where the spooks would be able to present their case against you, while like Kafka's hero in "The Trial" you would be kept in the dark as to what you were accused of, and of the evidence given against you.
From what I saw of today's debate some backbench Tory MPs showed more concern about the danger to civil liberties than leading Labourite and former Home (and later Foreign) Secretary Jack Straw, even though he was once on MI5's files himself from his supposedly left-wing student union days. We did get challenges to the authority of the secret state from the decent duo Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, and SDLP MP Mark Durkan from Foyle recalled how Tony Blair tried to buy off his opposition by offering committee places.
With fewer than 20 members in
the chamber it seemed as if issues like secret courts, extraordinary rendition
and oversight of security and intelligence services are not that important to MPs, though among those batting for the Establishment were Straw and former Tory Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, appointed chair of the Security and Intelligence Committee by David Cameron in 2010, and due to hold this post for the duration of this parliament.
Just as well these two were there in case anybody talked about them in their absence. Straw is at the centre of accusations over rendition to Libya which have led to a million pound payout to save MI6 agents appearing in court. Further back when British intelligence was plotting with al Qaida and Libyan dissidents to assassinate Gaddaffi, Malcolm Rifkind says he knew nothing about the conspiracy.
We are supposed to believe the security services and special powers they are seeking are only there to protect us from terrorists, but as former MI5 officer Annie Machon observes, "We are already seeing a slide towards expanding the definition of
“terrorist” to include “domestic extremists”, activists, single
issue campaigners et al,..."
Back in the Cold War years the bogey was Soviet spying and subversion, and not all the tales were untrue, but as Machon says in her book "Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers", the criteria set out by Home Secretary David Maxwell-Fyfe in
1952 could be widened. "He called on the services to identify any individual engaged
in undermining Parliamentary democracy, national security and/or
the economic well-being of the UK by
violent, industrial or political means. In fact, many would argue
that groups who used only political means to get their point across
were merely exercising their democratic rights".
"In fact, MI5 devoted such significant resources to subversive
groups from the 1940s to 1993, when subversion was finally
downgraded, that F2 claimed to know more about the finances of the
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) than the Party did itself!
In communism’s heyday from the 1950s to the 1970s, around 60 desk
officers – each with a number of support staff – spied on the CPGB
alone, although F Branch had dwindled to around nine or ten desk
officers and agent runners, plus around 20–30 support and
secretarial staff by the time I arrived in 1991.
"In
February 1991 I joined F2. The section was tucked away in a
little-known MI5 building in Bolton Street, Mayfair. The office was a
classic, run-down civil service affair, with battered old wooden
desks, lime green wall paint and threadbare carpets. The section
when I joined had no computer system; all its records were on paper, a
fact which surprised me, as easily accessible information is
essential to an intelligence service. " (but also subject to the Data Protection Act -RP)
"My
‘job title’ was F2B/5, and I was in charge of a small team
investigating the SWP. David joined F Branch a year later as F2C/7,
to study anarchists, communists and extreme right-wingers. David and
I met in F2 but we didn’t start going out with each other until spring
1993. Our eyes met across a crowded operations room, he always likes
to joke.
"Despite my assessments, senior management
in F2 ensured that the SWP assumed an increasingly prominent role in
the work of the branch. MI5 management unremittingly applied
pressure to me to beef up the case for the study of the SWP,
particularly after its (legitimate) support for a number of
industrial disputes in the early nineties, which of course posed no
threat to national security or Parliamentary democracy. Despite
the pressure, I still succeeded in terminating the last remaining
telephone tap targeted against an individual subversive in the UK –
Tony Cliff, the SWP’s founder – and drastically reducing the number
of agents who for decades had been run against the SWP at great cost to
the taxpayer. However, senior managers still insisted that a
telephone tap stay in place on the party’s HQ.
Even
then, F2 policy dictated that any individual who attended six or more
meetings of the Socialist Workers’ Party was recordable as a
‘member: Trotskyist organisation’, even where the service knew
that many individuals attended these meetings to protest against
specific issues such as the NHS cuts or the poll tax, subjects of
legitimate dissent.
...........
"F2,
being tucked away in the little-known MI5 building on Bolton Street
off Piccadilly, was a relaxed section, with quite an esprit de
corps. Consequently, during our time there David and I either
personally reviewed or were shown by our colleagues the following
PFs. Few of those listed actually belong or belonged to subversive
organisations. According to MI5, they have or had ‘sympathies’
with these or other groups and are therefore worthy of MI5
investigation:
"John Lennon, Jack Straw MP, Ted Heath
MP, Tam Dalyell MP, Gareth Peirce (solicitor), Jeremy Corbyn MP, Mike
Mansfield (barrister), Geoffrey Robertson (barrister), Patricia
Hewitt MP, Harriet Harman MP, Garry Bushell (journalist), Peter
Mandelson (European commissioner), Peter Hain MP, Clare Short MP,
Mark Thomas (comedian), Mo Mowlam (politician), Arthur Scargill (NUM
leader, who famously had his own recording category: unaffiliated
subversive), Neil Kinnock (politician), Bruce Kent (peace
campaigner, )Joan Ruddock MP, Owen Oyston (businessman), Cherie
Booth aka Blair, Tony Blair MP, David Steel (politician), Teddy Taylor
MP, Ronnie Scott (jazz musician), Robin Cook MP, John Prescott MP,
Mark Steel (comedian), Jack Cunningham MP, Mohammed Al Fayed
(businessman), Mick McGahey (former union leader), Ken Gill (former
union leader), Michael Foot (politician), Jack Jones (former union
leader), Ray Buxton (former union leader), Hugh Scanlon (former union
leader), Harold Wilson (politician), James Callaghan (politician),
Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian journalist).
"David and
I also came across a file called: ‘Subversion in contemporary
music’, which consisted of press clippings about Crass, then a
well-known, self-styled ‘anarchist’ band; the Sex Pistols; and, rather
surprisingly, UB40. ...
"The
‘subversion’ of cabinet ministers Harriet Harman and Patricia
Hewitt was to have been leading members of the National Council for
Civil Liberties (NCCL — now Liberty), the very organisation designed
to protect us from such unwarranted abuses of our liberties. At one
point, David came across a series of minutes on a file dating from the
early 1980s. They were written by Charles Elwell, a publicly named
and notoriously paranoid former head of F2 who saw a red under every
bed, and who had successfully argued that members of the executive
of the NCCL were recordable as ‘suspected sympathiser:
Communist’, simply for being members of the executive. He based
this assumption on the fact that, as one or two leading members of
the NCCL had Communist sympathies, the organisation was therefore
by definition a Communist front organisation.
"This
went beyond MI5’s own rules. It justified its work against
legitimate non-subversive organisations such as trade unions, CND,
the NCCL and the Greenham Common women by saying that it was not
investigating these organisations or their members per se but was
investigating subversive penetration of these groups.
"As
a result, MI5 gathered ten thick volumes on both the Greenham women
and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Inevitably, as a
result of this, F2 gathered personal information on and details of
legitimate political activists, which were passed to ministers in
official Security Service reports – then known as Box 500 reports —
under the guise of revealing subversive penetration of these
organisations. The service also had a history of gathering
information on trade union activity and industrial disputes on the
same basis. However, it again went beyond a strict study of
subversive activity, and passed information relating to
legitimate industrial protest to ministers and the police.
"The
decision regarding the Executive of the NCCL meant that MI5 could
investigate an individual — that means tap their phones, follow
their movements, break into their houses, place a bug in their homes —
simply for being a member of the Executive of the NCCL, without
having to establish any other connections to communism. This was
clearly a breach of democratic rights.
"David’s
main area of responsibility in F2 was for the anarchist group Class
War and the rump of the Communist Party, which had decided to plug on
with Marxism-Leninism, after the rest of the CPGB had renounced it and
become the Democratic Left. He was surprised that MI5 still devoted
such extensive resources to these groups. During recruitment, he had
been told that MI5 was no longer looking in any great depth at
subversives. MI5 lore had it that the study of Class War was beefed
up in the wake of the Poll Tax riot in London in 1990, after the
group’s posters and banners were seen on the news coverage.
However, according to Special Branch officers, the violence in
Trafalgar Square had started when front-line anti-riot police had
lost control and turned on the demonstrators.
"By early
1992, Class War was a disorganised collection of around 200
anarchist individuals. As such, it posed no real threat to
Parliamentary democracy or national security. F2 had no phone
intercept on Class War because it did not have an HQ. However, the
authorities did devote considerable resources to the group.
"Some
years before David had joined F2, a Metropolitan Police Special
Duties Section (SDS) agent, codenamed M2589, had penetrated Class
War. Unlike the vast majority of agents recruited by MI5, he was not a
member of an organisation who had been ‘turned’ by the service. He
was a full-time policeman from Special Branch under deep cover. For
six days a week, he lived, ate and breathed the life of a class warrior
before returning to his normal life with friends and family for a
day. Whether Class War merited this kind of resource intensive
coverage is open to debate. I quote David:
'When I
met M2589 in February 1992, at a safe house in London, it was quite
obvious that this peculiar arrangement had affected the agent
psychologically. After around four years of pretending to be an
anarchist, he had clearly become one. To use the service jargon, he
had gone native. He drank about six cans of Special Brew during the
debrief, and regaled us with stories about beating up uniformed
officers as part of his ‘cover’. Partly as a result, he was
‘terminated’ after the 1992 General Election. Without his
organisational skills, Class War fell apart.'
"Did
the agent make Class War more effective while he was there? In other
words, did the state actually provide resources, which contributed to
the spread of anarchism?"
In her blog "Using Our Intelligence" back on September 28 Annie Machon warned:
"I would suggest that the concept of secret courts will prove fatally
dangerous to our democracy. It may start with the concept of
getting the Big Bad Terrorist, but in more politically unstable or
stringent economic times this concept is wide open to mission creep.
We are already seeing a slide towards expanding the definition of
“terrorist” to include “domestic extremists”, activists, single
issue campaigners et al, as I have written before. And just recently information was leaked about a new public-private EU initiative, Clean IT,
that proposes ever more invasive and draconian policing powers to
hunt down “terrorists” on the internet. This proposal fails to
define terrorism, but does provide for endemic electronic
surveillance of the EU. Pure corporatism.
Allowing secret courts to try people on the say-so of a shadowy,
unaccountable and burgeoning spy community lands us straight back
in the pages of history: La Terreur of revolutionary France, the creepy surveillance of the Stasi, or the disappearances and torture of the Gestapo.
Have we learned nothing?"
Since they quit MI5 together, Annie Machon and David Schayler have parted company, though they were still campaigning together when I saw them at a public meeting in Willesden some years back, bringing in their train a bunch of 9/11 conspiracy theorists who looked incongruously like they had strayed from a Countryside Alliance protest.
Apparently she left him when he took not to Special Brew but more exotic mind-altering substances. Schayler is reportedly living in a squat with something called the Rainbow movement, wearing high heels and a frock, and telling people he is the messiah, as well as quoting the famous Protocols. That sounds like MI5 alright, though he also believes the world will end in 2012. We've still got a couple of weeks to go.
Annie blames the security services for having pushed David Schayler to a breakdown. On the other hand he could be putting on a good act to persuade them he is no longer a threat and keep them off his back. It would make sense when you think what has happened to some others who knew too much.
Annie Machon herself has lectured for, among others, the 9/11 Truth campaigners. But whatever we think of David Schayler or Annie Machon now, what they have to say about their experiences and what they learned while working for the intelligence services deserves to be taken seriously. It seems to be being born out rather than refuted by new evidence.
UNDERCOVER (and under-the-covers) COP Mark Jenner, aka Cassidy, spied on workers concerned about health and safety, and lived with woman he had befriended under false identity before moving on.
