COP26 Protest Rights and Police Surveillance

This is an important document on the criminalisation of protest in the UK and in particular advice for activists for the upcoming COP in Glasgow. It covers the use of surveillance tactics including: facial recognition technology; mobile phone extraction; IMSI catchers; cloud extraction; social media monitoring; use of police drones; the use of “law enforcement data service” (LEDS); fact sheet on your data rights at a protest and much more.

It offers important guidance on how to retain your anonymity (closely abiding to covid facemask regulations is a good idea) and tips on phone-use. There’s a strong argument for not taking your mobile to a protest but taking a dedicated phone on very specific settings.

Download it here:

FREE_TO_PROTEST-UK-EDITION (1)

See also Scottish Community and Activist legal Project (SCALP)’s brand new Guide to Activism Scottish Law and the Police.

Download it here:

Click to access SCALP-Legal-Guide-14.01.2021.pdf

 

Comments (6)

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  1. SleepingDog says:

    They’ll be handcuffing men and women for the wearing of the green.

    I see Police Scotland has come out badly in the recent Dispatches programme on sexual misconduct/crimes and exploitation of women in UK police forces, or maybe they were just more honest in their responses. I thought the integration of police and social/care services was supposed to improve police culture? Anyway, the police will be under global scrutiny, although I don’t expect them to be arresting any of the real climate criminals any time soon.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/15/green-royals-saving-the-planet-helicopter-queen-charles-william-climate

    1. Alistair Taylor says:

      Aye, Sleeping Dog, Marina Hyde does a good line in Royal cheek, though she probably wouldn’t refuse the OBE if offered.
      At least Saving the Planet gives those Royals a future role. How uplifting it will be for the Scottish peasant children when a Prince flies in by helicopter to visit a school, and utters words of encouraging nature.
      But seriously, I often wonder why we, the riff raff, don’t resist.
      Wait a moment, someone chaps the door.

      1. SleepingDog says:

        @Alistair Taylor, I have linked to this piece before, but it is useful to understand that far from conservators of nature, British royals have been its exterminators. Here, the Tudor War on Nature:
        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jan/07/conservationandendangeredspecies.theobserversuknewspages
        While Norman Baker brings the story up to date in And What Do You Do? What the Royal Family Don’t Want You to Know (2020), devoting more than one chapter to royal environmental misdeeds and animal slaughterage. You’d think the aristocracy were competing to make their heraldic charges extinct or something, along with much else on the planet.

        And as Chris Packham (serving a petition with youth climate activists, amongst others) has said:
        “The astonishing 1.4% of the country the royals own (that’s an area of land twice the size of Greater London) define some of the most nature-depleted landscapes in the world. In their more than 345,000 hectares (850,000 acres), huge areas of grouse moor and deer-stalking estates are, in the name of sport, kept artificially barren where exquisite temperate rainforest could and should grow.” (What can the royals offer Cop26? A pledge to rewild their vast estates; Guardian 2021-10-13)

        If the enemy of the nonhuman living world is human excess, and the British royals above all set the most extravagant example of excess on the planet, then…

        1. Alistair Taylor says:

          Yes, Sleeping Dog, people are the problem. I think we have to dig deep to find solutions, though Mother Nature will find her own way.

          In the shorter term, prince Chuck could do the decent thing and scrap the whole monarchy lark once his mum pops her clogs, but that’s unlikely to happen. So maybe we the people should just take over Balmoral, etc. Rewilding sounds like a fine idea, coupled with affordable housing and community gardens. Education too.
          I quite fancy a job in outdoor education. Helping the kids. We need to take care of the place.
          Anyway, youse know where to find me. And this is ma real name. No burner phones needed.

          1. SleepingDog says:

            @Alistair Taylor, indeed. Some humans are, in terms of excess and negative footprint on the planet, many thousands of times more problematic than others. I was watching Al Jazeera’s Democracy Maybe series and a phrase describing how the Lebanese political elite repeatedly carved up the countries pie of resources between themselves stayed with me. Elites and democracy are antagonistic, whether those are economic or cultural or ethnic or religious or caste elites. The solution is surely to eliminate elites and excess privilege, so there is as little personal advantage to be gained through political office as possible, and certainly no office should be above the law as the occupant of the throne (and to a large extent the heir) in the UK is. The UK amounts to the world’s royalist stronghold, supporting worldwide royalist forces as they fight off democratic movements around the globe. It can hardly come as a surprise if these corrupt and autocratic families are tutored in British educational institutions and regularly dine with the Queen.
            https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/12/eswatini-deploys-army-quell-pro-democracy-school-protests

            However, even though the royals and their subordinate aristocratic organised-crime families stole great areas of common lands in the UK, their vast criminal enterprise, the British Empire, also squirrelled much loot and slave-produced riches back to their British estates, and I would also favour #RoyalReparations including to fund community projects and land buyouts in places like Haiti, which the British (under Edinburgh icon and exemplar of evil Henry Dundas) invaded, not just the places colonised. As well as a comprehensive return of stolen cultural artefacts, accompanied by further fundings and apologies.

            In addition, the treason laws should change to allow republican legislation to begin, and ecocide legislation brought in. And just in case Charles feels like burning a few embarrassing royal archives, as British imperialists have done on grand scales like in Operation Legacy, such historical vandalism should also be made a crime with exponential punishments.

            The very idea of nature-destroying British royals trying to gain some credit by flapping around COP26 like some demented vampire clan is so hideous that it may well just hasten the day that, for very survival, like the long-suffering people of Lebanon, the majority of non-palace-owning humans around the planet will be forced into a cull of the rich in justifiable self-defence.

  2. Alistair Taylor says:

    “Wheel out the demented vampires”
    Ye couldna make this stuff up.
    Sort of like a Pathe news reel from the 50’s, or earlier.
    Everest conquered, crowning glory, and so on.
    Skip forward 70 years, and it’s a rubbish dump, but let’s go to Mars and trash that.

    I doubt if yer man Bezos will be sticking his bald heid in the Horseshoe Bar for a pint.
    And as fur yir man Dundas, well, how long will his column be (dis)gracing St. Andrews Square?
    (That last question aimed at the First Minister).
    Canada saw a toppling or two of Sir John A MacDonald lately, and rightly so, imo.
    Anyway, here’s to a peaceful and good natured CoP26
    And here’s also to some cooperative action
    The natives are getting restless
    Dot dot dot

    With a nod to sleeping dog and crazy horse

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