Forward Intelligence Team
Encyclopedia
Policing in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland ....
to gather intelligence
Police Intelligence
Police intelligence refers to an element of the British police. Staffed by police officers and support staff, its purpose is to track and predict crime with a view to curbing it...
on the ground and in some circumstances, to disrupt activists and deter anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...
. They use camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
s, camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s and audio recorders to conduct overt surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
of the public. An unsuccessful legal challenge has been made against their use of overt surveillance, but in 2009 the Court of Appeal ruled that they must justify retention of photographs on a case-by-case basis. Any retained information is recorded on the crimint
Crimint
Crimint is a database run by the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London which stores information on criminals, suspected criminals and protesters. It was created in 1994 and supplied by Memex Technology Limited. It supports the recording and searching of items of intelligence by both police...
database.
Political activists have criticised FITs and said that they feel the aim of FIT deployment during protests is to prevent legal protests. Journalists have also complained that FITs attempt to stop them photographing protests and that they conduct surveillance of journalists. A campaign group, Fitwatch, formed in 2007 that aim to obstruct FITs and conduct sousveillance
Sousveillance
Sousveillance refers to the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies.Sousveillance has also been described as "inverse surveillance", i.e...
on the officers. Two members of the group were arrested at the 2008 Climate Camp on obstruction charges. A similar police surveillance unit, the Video Intelligence Unit is operated by Greater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police is the police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England...
. In June 2010, the Home Office announced it would review the use of FITs during public order policing.
History and Purpose
FITs were first formed in the early 1990s, as part of the Public Order Intelligence Unit (CO11Central Operations
Central Operations is a major directorate of the London Metropolitan Police Service that provides operational support to the rest of the service...
), a section of the Public Order Branch of the Metropolitan Police. They initially targeted football fans, hunt saboteur
Hunt saboteur
Hunt sabotage is the direct action that animal rights or animal welfare activists undertake to interfere with hunting activity.Anti-hunting campaigners are divided into those who believe in direct intervention and those who watch the hunt to monitor for cruelty and report violations of animal...
s and political protesters (since at least 1996), using camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
s, camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s and audio recorders to conduct overt surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
of the public. The police officers wear full uniform, and are intended to be a highly visible presence. Their uniform is sometimes different from normal police officers in that the upper half of their yellow fluorescent jackets is blue. Civilian photographers are also employed by the police to work alongside FITs. According to Scotland Yard, the aim of FIT teams at protests is to record evidence of protesters in case disorder occurs later on at a protest.
More recently the teams' purpose has been extended to routine police work on low-level crime and anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...
and police forces throughout the UK now have their own FITs. Despite the implication in their name that their function is to merely gather intelligence, they are also intended to have a deterrent effect. This approach has been reported to work in reducing reports of anti-social behaviour at times when FITs are deployed in specific neighbourhoods. Jacqui Smith
Jacqui Smith
Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith is a member of the British Labour Party. She served as the Member of Parliament for Redditch from 1997 until 2010 and was the first ever female Home Secretary, thus making her the third woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State — after Margaret Thatcher and...
, then Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
praised Operation Leopard that used FITs to target youths, in Laindon
Laindon
Laindon is a town in the west of the Basildon district of Essex, England.It is north of Laindon railway station on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. South of the railway station and line is Langdon Hills. Laindon and Langdon Hills are part of the Basildon post town.Until its abolition in...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
stating:
"Operation Leopard is exactly the sort of intensive policing that can bring persistent offenders to their senses... Relentless filming of them and their associates throughout the day and night"
Linda Catt, an activist, has suggested that their tactics are "designed to intimidate people and prevent lawful dissent". This view is echoed by a police debriefing of their operations at the 2008 Camp for Climate Action
Camp for Climate Action
The Camps for Climate Action are campaign gatherings that take place to draw attention to, and act as a base for direct action against, major carbon emitters, as well as to develop ways to create a zero-carbon society...
which praised FITs at the event for disrupting activists.
In June 2010, the Home Office announced it would review the use of FITs during public order policing. The move was influenced by the discovery that information collected by FITs, included that which was unrelated to suspected crimes, for example recording who made speeches at demonstrations.
In October 2010, FIT officers in plain clothes were spotted by a press photographer at a protest against companies avoiding tax
Tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax...
, despite Commander Bob Broadhurst
Bob Broadhurst
Commander Bob Broadhurst, QPM is the 2012 Olympics Gold Command for the Metropolitan Police Service. He was formerly Commander for Public Order and Pan London Operational Support of London's Metropolitan Police Service.-Police career:...
telling a parliamentary committee in May 2009, that only uniformed officers distinguishable by their blue and yellow jackets were involved in gathering intelligence at protests. The Metropolitan Police told The Guardian that it was necessary to deploy plain-clothed officers to "gather information to provide us with a relevant and up-to-date intelligence picture of what to expect". It was the first time that FITs are known to have been deployed in plain clothes.
Legal issues
LibertyLiberty (pressure group)
Liberty is a pressure group based in the United Kingdom. Its formal name is the National Council for Civil Liberties . Founded in 1934 by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith , the group campaigns to protect civil liberties and promote human rights...
brought a judicial review
Judicial review
Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...
of the overt surveillance practices in May 2008, which was decided in favour of the police, however the police were asked to clarify their evidence to the Court of Appeal, following an investigation by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper.
In May 2009, the Court of Appeal ruled that photographs collected by FITs of people who have not committed a criminal offence can no longer be kept. The ruling was made after Andrew Wood, an arms trade activist, was photographed after challenging the management of Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier is a publisher and information provider operating in the science, medical, legal, risk and business sectors. It is listed on several of the world's major stock exchanges. It is a FTSE 100 and FT500 Global company...
at their AGM
Annual general meeting
An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...
over them organising arms trade exhibitions. Wood argued that police had harassed him and infringed his right to privacy by photographing him. Lord Collins of Mapesbury said that the police presence had a "chilling effect" on people who were protesting lawfully. FITs have not been banned but they must now justify the retention of photographs on a case-by-case basis. As a result of the ruling the Metropolitan Police's public order unit, CO11 was forced to delete 40% of the photos of protesters that it held.
In a report about the policing of the 2009 G-20 London summit protests
2009 G-20 London summit protests
The 2009 G-20 London summit protests occurred in the days around the G-20 summit on 2 April 2009, which was the focus of protests from a number of groups over various long-standing and topical issues...
, Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, stated that the routine use of FITs at protests "raises fundamental privacy issues and should be reviewed". He also said that there was "confusion" over the role of FITs and advised that the Home Office should issue guidance over the legality of the surveillance of protesters and the retention of images.
Information processing
The information that FITs collect is stored on the CrimintCrimint
Crimint is a database run by the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London which stores information on criminals, suspected criminals and protesters. It was created in 1994 and supplied by Memex Technology Limited. It supports the recording and searching of items of intelligence by both police...
database, which is used daily by police officers to catalogue criminal intelligence. People are listed by name allowing police to determine which events individuals have attended. Photographs obtained by FITs are used to produce "spotter cards" consisting of people's photographs which allows officers to identify people at future events that they attend. For £10, people are able to obtain a list of protests that they have attended from the data held on Crimint under laws in the Data Protection Act 1998.
Academic response
A 2006 report, The Economics of Mass SurveillanceMass surveillance
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...
calculated that the use of FITs at mass gatherings involves gathering intelligence on roughly 1,200 people to record the actions of one person. The report also noted that most of the people on "spotter cards", used by the police photographers, were those involved in the organisation of protests and that FITs also attend meetings where demonstrations are organised.
Criticism
Fitwatch (formed in early 2007) campaign against FITs by actively obstructing their operations, and by passively opposing their operations by photographing units (a form of sousveillanceSousveillance
Sousveillance refers to the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies.Sousveillance has also been described as "inverse surveillance", i.e...
).
In June 2009,The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
released video evidence recorded by a FIT at the 2008 Climate Camp of alleged police brutality against two female members of Fitwatch. The women had asked police officers to reveal their shoulder number
Collar number
A collar number, also known as a shoulder number, Force Identification Number or occasionally as Force Number , identifies uniformed officers, Police Community Support Officers , and some police staff in UK police forces. Although now displayed on epaulettes A collar number, also known as a...
s, as at least four officers had not displayed them. The women attempted to photograph the police officers for evidence, but were forced to the ground, restrained with handcuffs, and had their legs bound with straps. They were then placed in restraint positions, arrested, charged and held in custody
Detention of suspects
The detention of suspects is the process of keeping a person who has been arrested in a police-cell, remand prison or other detention centre before trial or sentencing. One criticism of pretrial detention is that eventual acquittal can be a somewhat hollow victory, in that there is no way to...
for four days, including three days in HMP Bronzefield, before they were released on bail. The police later retracted all the charges against the women. The women lodged a complaint with the IPCC
Independent Police Complaints Commission
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.-Role:...
over the incident. The journalist George Monbiot
George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...
commented on this case, saying that "the police are turning activism into a crime" and that "the FITs' methods appear to have been lifted from a Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
training manual". He claimed that "anybody who is politically active is filmed, identified, monitored, logged, and cross-checked". A police debrief into the operation at Kingsnorth praised the deployment of FITs saying that they were "highly effective and gained good intelligence and disruption".
Three members of Fitwatch were convicted for obstructing FIT officers in June 2008 as they attempted to photograph those attending a No Borders
No Border network
The No Border Network refers to loose associations of autonomous organisations, groups, and individuals in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and beyond...
meeting in London. In July 2010 the Inner London Crown Court overturned the men's convictions, with the judge stating that the protesters' human rights may have been violated by the FIT officers.
On 15 November 2010, the hosts of the Fitwatch blog were asked by the Police National E-Crime Unit
Police National E-Crime Unit
The Police National E-Crime Unit is a part of the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, dedicated to combating e-crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
to take down the website due to it "being used to undertake criminal activities". The request came after a post on the blog after the 2010 student protest in London, which advised students of actions they should take if they were concerned that they were photographed at the demonstration, such as cutting their hair and disposing of clothing they were wearing. Emily Apple, one of the founders of the site told The Guardian, "Nothing in that post [giving guidance to student protesters] has not been said before on our blog or on other sites". On 17 November 2010, the Fitwatch website returned, hosted on a web server
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....
outside of the UK.
The National Union of Journalists
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists .-Structure:...
(NUJ) has criticised FITs for their surveillance and sometimes violent harassment of working journalists. Marc Vallee, who was hospitalised by police after documenting a protest, has said that the teams limit freedom of the press
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
and called on the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
to confirm that the police had no right to restrict the work of photojournalists. Bob Broadhurst
Bob Broadhurst
Commander Bob Broadhurst, QPM is the 2012 Olympics Gold Command for the Metropolitan Police Service. He was formerly Commander for Public Order and Pan London Operational Support of London's Metropolitan Police Service.-Police career:...
, who is in charge of public order policing at the Metropolitan Police, said in a statement to the NUJ in 2008 that journalists, "on the production of a valid form of accreditation will be able to continue with their work". The NUJ are to make a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner due to the Metropolitan Police failing to provide details on the surveillance of journalists under the Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...
. Bob Broadhurst told photographers at an NUJ conference that he had no faith in the National Press Card (a form of press pass
Press pass
A press pass grants some type of special privilege to journalists. Some cards have recognized legal status; others merely indicate that the bearer is a practicing journalist...
) despite journalists needing to prove that they are bona-fide newsgatherers to an independent authority before they are issued.
The BBC TV series Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
produced an episode entitled What ever happened to people power? in July 2009 which discussed the use of FITs in targeting activists and journalists.
Similar police units
Greater Manchester PoliceGreater Manchester Police
Greater Manchester Police is the police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England...
operate a Video Intelligence Unit, whose plainclothes officers confront and video certain freed prisoners as they leave prison after serving their sentences. They also record footage of people involved in anti-social behaviour
Anti-Social Behaviour Order
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order or ASBO is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders, introduced in the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, were designed to correct minor incidents that...
on the streets. The aim is to give other police officers up to date information on the appearance of people who have broken the law. Video footage that they collect is constantly replayed on television screens in rooms that officers complete their paperwork in. Footage that they have recorded has also been uploaded onto YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
in an attempt to catch people they believe have reoffended.
This has resulted in several offenders being sent back to prison after breaching licence conditions. Since the unit formed launched in 2006 more than 900 hundred people have been filmed by the unit. Not all of these people are suspects in crime however, people can be filmed if they are thought to associate with prolific offenders or if they have been stopped in an area of high crime under suspicious circumstances. Kieran Walsh, a civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, said the unit's work "could have implications" for the force under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to privacy. He believes that filming must be a "proportionate and reasonable" response to a crime and that this does not appear to be the case as people are being targeted over what they might do in the future. It is uncertain as to how long data collected by the unit is to be kept but GMP currently anticipate it will be stored for 5 years.
See also
- Police intelligencePolice IntelligencePolice intelligence refers to an element of the British police. Staffed by police officers and support staff, its purpose is to track and predict crime with a view to curbing it...
- COINTELPROCOINTELPROCOINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
– A project by the FBI which investigated and disrupted dissidentDissidentA dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
political organizations within the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
External links
- "WANTED!". 21 December 1995, SchNEWSSchNEWSSchNEWS is a free weekly publication from Brighton, England, which has been running since November 1994. The main focus is environmental and social issues/struggles in the UK – but also internationally – with an emphasis on direct action protest, and autonomous political struggles...
54. - Alan Lodge (Tash)Alan LodgeAlan Lodge , also known as 'Tash' is an English photographer based in Nottingham who has focused on alternative movements since the mid 70s....
, "All about my 'BIG BROTHER'...!!". January 1999. - Matt Salusbury, "Caught on camera". 15 September 2003, New StatesmanNew StatesmanNew Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
- Fitwatch website