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Police spies: The Met wants my help - I want a properly public investigation |
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evel - spin.off
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 Eveline Lubbers, 23 January 2013
Last week, I received a letter from the Metropolitan Police. Presuming I have important information on the infiltration of London Greenpeace back in the 1980s, the Met wants me to get in touch to discuss the matter further. Indeed, my book Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark, corporate and police spying on activists (Pluto, 2012) includes a case study titled McSpy, detailing the infiltration of this group before they were brought to Court for leafleting McDonald’s. I have also been blogging about the case of the women against the Metropolitan Police on state-sponsored abuse at SecretManoeuvres.org
This open letter is my reply, with a proposal towards a properly public investigation.
Dear Chris Robson,
Thank you for inviting me to contact you about police infiltration of campaigning groups. I am open to discuss an exchange of information but not behind closed doors, hence this open letter.
To begin with, your letter is rather short on information. You write that the Metropolitan Police ‘is conducting a review of Policing methods used to gather information relating to people involved in campaign groups’, but it was unclear to me at first which of the many ongoing reviews it was.
The clue was the ref in your letterhead, which said ‘Op Herne’. Grilled on the issue of undercover officers having sexual relationships by Jenny Jones in the the London assembly, deputy commissioner Craig Mackey explained that Operation Herne is the internal review into the undercover unit of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a unit that existed for 30 years. The review into ‘covert deployments’ between 1968-2008 was announced by Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe in October 2011, and is led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons. You want to talk to me about ‘the organisation called ‘London Greenpeace’ and events that led up to the ‘McLibel’ case between 1990-1997.’
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Proudly presenting: a book and a blog |
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evel - spin.off
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Eveline Lubbers, 21 September 2012 My SpinWatch blog was originally set up to share bits & pieces and interesting stuff I came across while working on my PhD, hence the name: evel - spin.off! That project resulted in a new publication. Today, I am finally ready to announce my book and new blog: Secret Manoeuvres.org. Take your time to have a look around, there are previews of the book, the research I’m working on now, and there will be more. Of course, the book is available in the Spinwatch bookshop - at a special price for you! If you like what you see, please forward the announcement below to whoever you think might be interested, mail servers that I don’t know of - anything to help spread the word! Proudly presenting a book and a blog:
Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Corporate and Police Spying on Activists
Eveline Lubbers
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Mark Kennedy in Corporate Intelligence |
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evel - spin.off
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 Eveline Lubbers, 16 July 2012
Mark Kennedy is now selling his experience as an undercover agent within ‘extreme left political and animal right groups’ to the highest bidder. His apparent move into corporate spying is yet another sign of the increasingly blurred boundaries between public and private forces in undermining protest.
Kennedy’s LinkedIn profile - first spotted by Indymedia early June - is clarifying in many ways. On a personal front, it strips away any last doubt about his position. He is not a turned agent, as he suggested just after he was first exposed in the mainstream media. Nor is he a lonely soul longing for his true love and missing his activist friends, as he claimed in a documentary devoted to his double play.
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Sir Hugh Orde and ACPO's 'lack of transparency' |
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evel - spin.off
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 By Eveline Lubbers, 26 July 2011
Sir Hugh Orde has criticised the News of the World for ‘lack of transparency’ and for ‘withholding information from an important investigation’.
Last week the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) appeared on BBC Radio's Today programme again, promoting himself as the next commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Now he has accused Rupert Murdoch of a complete denial of responsibility for what went on at News Corp. (Watch Orde on the BBC).
What seems to have been forgotten in the current media frenzy, is that ACPO itself is under investigation as well … for very similar facts.
Under Hugh’s presidency, the organisation had Mark Kennedy (pictured) infiltrate the climate movement for seven years. The ACPO undercover agent secretly recorded meetings of environmentalists who had discussed occupying the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant. But in the case brought against them, the tapes were not among the evidence in court.
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Only A Public Inquiry Will Do Into Green Spy |
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evel - spin.off
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 Andy Rowell and Eveline Lubbers, 17 January 2011
The solicitor acting for the climate protestors, Mike Schwarz from Bindmans, is calling for a full public inquiry into the Mark Kennedy case. Schwarz believes the new IPCC investigation that was announced last Friday, will not go nearly far enough.
“We need a public inquiry into what has happened, similar to the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence,” argues Schwarz. “We must have a measured inquiry to get the whole picture, including the policing of protest generally. It needs to be independent, with clout, with full disclosure”.
One of the main areas of concern is Kennedy’s actions as an agent provocateur. “We need to look at the whole issue of whether Kennedy in this case, and police officers generally, act as agent provocateurs in protests”, says Schwartz. “What are their limits about encouraging, condoning, and facilitating offences?”
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