Project Champion Review - CCTV and ANPR mass surveillance ghettos in Birmingham

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The Guardian has a good summary of a limited investigation conducted by the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Sara Thornton QPM, into the public relations disaster which was the West Midlands Police Project Champion.

This was a Labour government approved and funded plan to literally create CCTV Camera and Automatic Number Plate Recognition enforced apartheid ghettos in two districts of Birmingham.

Such mass surveillance schemes attack or destroy the fundamental human rights to freedom of travel and freedom of association, of millions of innocent people. Such schemes are a victory for our enemies, who aim to destroy our free society and help to create domestic extremists or terrorists.

The full text of the actual Review: Project Champion Review (.pdf)

N.B. this was not a full inquiry, with powers to punish the guilty or incompetent bureaucrats, however the Report is reasonably hard hitting in its conclusions.

This Review benefited from the expertise of one of our favourite Cross-Bench Peers, the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The blame for this scandal should not be heaped entirely on the West Midlands Police.

  • Who will cross examine the roles played by the West Midlands Police Authority and Birmingham Council ?

  • Since the £3 million was approved from central government public anti-terrorism funds, who will identify and cross examine the bureaucrats and politicians responsible for this evil Orwellian mass surveillance scheme ?

  • Who will investigate the Home Office (especially the Office for security and Counter-Terrorism) , ACPO (TAM), the Security Service MI5 and the "Prevent" strand of the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy ?


    To Prevent

    This is a long term and vital element of CONTEST, focusing on building relationships with all members of the community and enhancing links with key organisations.

    Our 'Prevent' work will provide not only reassurance to vulnerable groups but also potentially impact upon the underlying causes of terrorism and diminish support for terrorists.

If the appalling NuLabour cheerleader Hazel Blears is allowed to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee. then they cannot be trusted to investigate this scandal properly. Hazel Blears was the Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government when this Project Champion was proposed implemented. She was politically responsible for at least part of the PREVENT strand of CONTEST - so there would be an obvious conflict of interest whenever.the ISC looks into this policy area.

She cannot be trusted to keep classified documents secret, so her presence on the ISC will mean that they will not be given full access to documents and witnesses - see the previous Spy Blog article: Proposed Intelligence and Security Committee appointments - do *not* let Hazel Blears anywhere near the ISC !

We would also like to know

  • Are there other secret mass surveillance projects using overt and covert CCTV and ANPR technology in other British cities ?

  • Are there there Mobile Phone based "security cordons" using the same sort of combination of Cellular transmitter ID and / or antenna triangulation and web based geographical mapping and tracking used for Electronic Tags worn by criminals or by people subjected to Control Orders , to snoop on the locations and movements and meeting patterns of thousands or millions of innocent people in the Alum Rock and Washwood Heath areas of Birmingham or in London or Manchester or Leeds / Bradford etc. ?

  • Are there any other non-Mobile Phone call technologies e.g. BlueTooth and / or WiFi or contactless Passport or Oyster travel card etc. unlicensed Industrial Scientific Medical band radio snooping and surveillance schemes in these areas, which have supposedly been installed for anti-terrorism purposes, but which have mutated , through lack of transparent public scrutiny, into secret mass surveillance schemes, which are open to abuse by authorised insiders or by external agencies ?

  • Have any of these technologies been used to target and stigmatise or harass members of ethnic or religious minorities or otherwise peaceful political opponents of the Labour government, as has already happened with the national ANPR database and the Police National Computer ?

  • Will the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government actually investigate what the creepy Labour control freaks specifically authorised, or turned a blind eye to, in terms of such mass surveillance schemes and will they undo the damage which has been done to our freedoms and liberties ?

If you know about any other such current or future mass surveillance schemes, please contact us pseudo-anonymously via the blog comments or email, PGP encrypted if possible, taking the usual precautions - see our http://ht4w.co.uk - Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - Technical Hints and Tips for protecting the anonymity of sources for Whistleblowers, Investigative Journalists, Campaign Activists and Political Bloggers etc.

Police surveillance of Muslims set up with 'no regard for law'

Police covered up counter-terrorism unit's £3m camera operation which spied on Muslims in Birmingham

* Paul Lewis
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 September 2010 21.54 BST

A secret police operation to place thousands of Muslims living in Birmingham under permanent surveillance was implemented with virtually no consultation, oversight or regard for the law, a report found today.

Project Champion was abandoned in June after an investigation by the Guardian revealed police had misled residents into believing that hundreds of counter-terrorism cameras installed in streets around Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath were to be used to combat vehicle crime and antisocial behaviour.

In fact, the £3m project was being run from the West Midlands police counter-terrorism unit with the consent of security officials at the Home Office and MI5.

The network of CCTV and automatic number plate reading (ANPR) cameras, which were weeks away from being switched on, were intended to monitor people entering and leaving the predominantly Muslim suburbs.

According to the Review:


• ANPR Cameras. 106 traffic lanes covered by multiple ANPR cameras
(some with overview CCTV to record vehicle details) all feeding into the open system.

• CCTV Cameras. 38 CCTV cameras feedings into the CTU only.

• Covert Cameras. 47 ANPR cameras (some with overview CCTV to record vehicle details) and two CCTV cameras with a wide street view.

These mass surveillance cameras would have been snooping on non-Muslims as well.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims and non-Muslims who would have been snooped on by these cameras would have had nothing to do with terrorism or any other less serious crimes..

Revealing the findings of her damning report into the project, Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames Valley police, revealed how:

• Police devised a "storyline" that concealed the true purpose of the cameras. Counter-terrorism insignia was removed from paperwork as part of a deliberate strategy to "market" the surveillance operation as a local policing scheme to improve community safety.

• Top police officers failed to ask questions about the operation's "proportionality, legitimacy, authority, necessity, and the ethical values inherent in the proposed course of action". The report documented 11 instances when "oversight" mechanisms offered limited or no scrutiny.

• Police assurances that security cameras would be used for local policing were highly misleading. Although ANPR data was to be shared on regional and national databases, the network was controlled by the counter-terrorism unit. There was "no local facility to view the cameras" and "nobody in place to monitor them".

• Attempts by police to conceal the true purpose of the project caused "significant damage to community relations" in the West Midlands. One community leader was quoted as saying the project had "set relations back a decade".

• Officers failed to comply with national CCTV regulations or conduct proper consultation. They did not obtain statutory clearance for the use of covert cameras and, Thornton said, there was "very little evidence" that police had even considered their legal obligations.

Sir Christopher Rose, the chief surveillance commissioner, confirmed in a statement that 29 covert cameras had been removed. Police had planned a total of 218 cameras in the area, 72 of which would be covert.

[...]


The Review hints at an utter disregard for the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 requirements for authorisations for covert surveillance:

Pages 37 - 38

[...]

Part of the project created a closed system, for use in proactive police operations only, and the Review Team therefore took the view that its use should have been governed by the procedures set down by the Regulation of Investigatory Procedures Act 2000 (RIPA). Some of the cameras may have been able to operate outside of the RIPA authorisation process insofar as they did not gather personal information.

There was, however, nothing available to the Review Team that demonstrated that the authorisation process for the use could of the cameras had been considered, and there was no policy, plan, or procedures in place for their management in compliance with RIPA or other applicable legislation, codes, or guidance37.

It is theoretically possible that the appropriate authorising body under RIPA could have considered that the system being created by Project Champion held too much collateral information and its use could have been rejected for that or any other objective reason (e.g. ts proportionality)

[...].


As with other CCTV / ANPR mass surveillance schemes, it is worth noting, yet again, that the West Midlands Police did not actually consider CCTV to be of such vital utility to helping them prevent crime, that they were willing to allocate any substantial sums of money from their own Policing budget to pay for this scheme. They let the Home Office pay for the Counter Terrorism Unit focussed scheme and would have let Birmingham Council fund any "general policing" CCTV scheme.


Sara Thornton says she tested three hypotheses:

In reviewing events I have tested several hypotheses which might explain what happened. Was the threat so severe and was the activity in the West Midlands so intense that the normal considerations of policing were ignored?

Or was the consultation with the community and the marketing of crime reduction benefits just a cynical ploy to cover up counter terrorist activity?

Or was there a more mundane explanation - that the project was poorly conceived and managed and while there was an intention to use the technology to reduce crime nobody ever ensured that this happened?

Unsurprisingly, Chief Constable Sara Thornton, who is a member of the the secretive ACPO Terrorism and Allied Matters committee which was involved in the approval of the £3 million of public money wasted on this scheme, favours the last of these three: the well intentioned but poorly planned and managed cockup hypothesis.

However, the Review hints at evidence which more strongly suggests the second "cynical ploy to cover up counter terrorist activity" hypothesis e.g.


Pages 16 - 17:

[...]

On 3 February 2009 ACC Stuart Hyde and ACC Patani met with local police commanders to discuss Project Champion.

The minute of this meeting recorded that:

"ACCs Patani and Hyde stated that they wanted a storyline on which to hang the project"

"A discussion was then had around how to use the data to specifically support the need for cameras in Alum Rock along the Stratford Road Corridor"

An Action in these minutes recorded that:

"WM CTU badge NOT to be included on any Project Champion documentation"

As such the involvement of the CTU took a back seat and the Project moved forwards as a Safer Birmingham Partnership crime reduction / community safety initiative. CTU insignia were replaced by the Safer Birmingham Partnership (SBP) logos and an 'open document' was produced as a brief on Project Champion - titled "Project Champion
Considerations".

This can only be read as a pre-meditated attempt at deception to help gull the "Safer Birmingham partnership, Birmingham Council, the West Midlands Police Authority and the general public about this scheme.

Pages 21 - 22

[...]

Olive Group Project Initiation Document (latest version 1.4) from Project
Champion stated:

"The clients requirements for output from the system at a high level is:

CCTV coverage to aid surveillance

ANPR movement information

Imaging of vehicles both still and moving

Deliver ANPR data to the WMP Police BOFII system

Deliver ANPR data and CCTV imaging to the CTU TVM environment"

"It is understood that the CCTV images captured by the Champion CCTV system are not going to be accessible to partners such as Birmingham City Council as such access could result in an operation becoming compromised."

Olive Group's remit was to connect the CCTV into the CTU only. Any further dissemination of the images was a matter for West Midlands Police to resolve. Although there were signs that senior managers intended for this to occur, it never happened.

What was being built remained an entirely Counter Terrorism Unit scheme to which the local Police would have had little or no access at all, for general policy activities especially during any actual Counter Terrorism operations i.e. virtually all the time.

There appears to have been a media spin strategy, in response to a local blog:

Page 17

[...]


A story appeared on the 'About Brum' weblog with concerns about the
rollout of ANPR and CCTV in Birmingham.

The Project Champion team realised that these concerns were not about their system but that the issue of public disclosure "will have to be fronted and a strategy put in place to cover as we are not going to install 150 plus cameras without questions being asked, may need a secure person in the press office being briefed."

Who was that "secure person at the press office" ?

Investigative journalist and freedom of information expert Heather Brooke is rightly scathing of the West Midlands Police Press Office over this Operation Champion public relations disaster - even now, when they are supposedly apologising to the public, they tried to ignore or snub Paul Lewis, the Guardian journalist whose original story brought this Project Champion disaster to national media attention

Police press offices are a public insult

West Midlands Police had failed to tell him about the press conference and then refused to respond to any of his enquiries once another reporter told him about the event. He ended up tweeting:

At 1.07pm: 'West Midlands police press office ignoring my queries about inquiry into Project Champion Muslim spy plan.'

Then at 2.21pm when there was still no response he named the head of the press office directly: 'could @mattmarkham1 or his colleagues in west midlands police office answer questions about this story? http://bit.ly/bRy5zb'

'I phoned seven times and they still never responded,' Paul said.

Matt Markham is Chief Inspector at West Midlands Police and the Head of Press and PR.

The common excuse given by public bodies for excessive spending on press offices is to say it's needed to help the media. As I document in The Silent State, nothing could be further from the truth. PR exists for control purposes, to hinder, rather than to inform, and this is a fine example.

Public officials also often complain about the irresponsibility of the press. Yet here we see a responsible reporter who writes stories based on facts and in the public interest being frozen out of a press conference precisely because of the strength of his journalism, by a police force already accused of misleading the public with false information.

It is entirely too common for public officials like Matt Markham to believe they don't have to account for themselves and their organisation to the public. Mr Markham's refusal to answer Paul's questions isn't just an insult to a good reporter, it's an insult to all the people who pay Mr Markham's wage and in whose name he is supposedly working. By keeping silent and refusing to answer important questions that people have a right to know he has shown the absolute contempt with which West Midlands Police views its citizens.

Sadly, this is not unusual. Too many public servants refuse to account to the public directly. And too often journalists collude in protecting this corrupt system of secrecy. Journalists need to blow the lid on this lack of accountability. If press officers want to insist they are the only conduit for official information but can't be bothered to respond to serious questions then they need to be named and shamed.

2 Comments

Good observations on media enquiry dodging - been there and done that for a police force myself. They should have applied the humbler fingerprint.

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About this blog

This United Kingdom based blog attempts to draw public attention to, and comments on, some of the current trends in ever cheaper and more widespread surveillance technology being deployed to satisfy the rapacious demand by state and corporate bureaucracies and criminals for your private details, and the technological ignorance of our politicians and civil servants who frame our legal systems.

The hope is that you the readers, will help to insist that strong safeguards for the privacy of the individual are implemented, especially in these times of increased alert over possible terrorist or criminal activity. If the systems which should help to protect us can be easily abused to supress our freedoms, then the terrorists will have won.

We know that there are decent, honest, trustworthy individual politicians, civil servants, law enforcement, intelligence agency personnel and broadcast, print and internet journalists etc., who often feel powerless or trapped in the system. They need the assistance of external, detailed, informed, public scrutiny to help them to resist deliberate or unthinking policies, which erode our freedoms and liberties.

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Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide (.pdf - 31 pages), by the Citizenlab at the University of Toronto.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - March 2008 version - (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) by Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics by Human Rights Watch.

A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns (v 2.6) (.doc - 62 pages), by experienced UK direct action political activists

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor - useful step by step guide with software configuration screenshots by Ethan Zuckerman at Global Voices Advocacy. (updated March 10th 2009 with the latest Tor / Vidalia bundle details)

House of Lords Constitution Committee - Surveillance: Citizens and the State

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The Landed Underclass - Voice of the Banana Republic of Great Britain

Henrik Alexandersson - Swedish blogger threatened with censorship by the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishement, their equivalent of the UK GCHQ or the US NSA.

World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."

Blogoir - Charles Crawford - former UK Ambassodor to Poland etc.

No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV

Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.

Lords of the Blog - group blog by half a dozen or so Peers sitting in the House of Lords.

notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society

Justin Wylie's political blog

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Armed and Dangerous - Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures… - by Open Source Software advocate Eric S. Raymond.

Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.

Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.

Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.

FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.

Other Links

Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

Fuel Crisis Blog - Petrol over £1 per litre ! Protest !
Mayor of London Blog
London Olympics 2012 - NO !!!!

Cool Britannia

NuLabour

Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

Brian Burnell's British / US nuclear weapons history at http://nuclear-weapons.info

RIPA Consultations

RIPA Part III consultation blog - Government access to Encrypted Information and Encryption Keys.

RIPA Part I Chapter II consultation blog - Government access and disclosure of Communications Traffic Data

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UK Legislation

The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

Many MPs do not seem to bother to even to actually read the details of the legislation which they vote to inflict on us.

UK Legislation Links

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

UK Commissioners

UK Commissioners some of whom are meant to protect your privacy and investigate abuses by the bureaucrats.

UK Intelligence Agencies

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Intelligence.gov.uk - Cabinet Office hosted portal website to various UK Intelligence Agencies and UK Government intelligence committees and Commissioners etc.

Anti-terrorism hotline - links removed in protestClimate of Fear propaganda posters

MI5 Security Service
MI5 Security Service - links to encrypted reporting form removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

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Secure Your Fertiliser - advice on ammonium nitrate and urea fertiliser security

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Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure - "CPNI provides expert advice to the critical national infrastructure on physical, personnel and information security, to protect against terrorism and other threats."

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Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

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Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

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Serious Organised Crime Agency - have cut themselves off from direct contact with the public and businesses - no phone - no email

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Defence Advisory (DA) Notice system - voluntary self censorship by the established UK press and broadcast media regarding defence and intelligence topics via the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee.

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National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit - keeps a watch on animal extremists, genetically modified crop protesters, peace protesters etc.
(some people think that the word salad of acronyms means that NETCU is a spoof website)

Campaign Button Links

Watching Them, Watching Us - UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.
Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

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FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond
Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans
Data Retention is No Solution - Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

Save Parliament: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)
Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

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Open Rights Group

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network
Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Tor - the onion routing network
Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

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Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

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Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

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Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

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Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

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Icelanders are NOT terrorists ! - despite Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's use of anti-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks.

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No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

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I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !

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Power 2010 cross party, political reform campaign

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Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."

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Open Rights Group - Petition against the renewal of the Interception Modernisation Programme