Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Call out for 'domestic extremists' to take action against ACPO

acpowatch | 06.08.2010 16:31 | Repression

The murky, unaccountable private body known as ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) runs NPOIU (the National Public Order Intelligence Unit) and this organisation holds a huge, secret, national database of 'domestic extremists'. Are you on it? Would you like to join a campaign to challenge ACPO, stop them collecting such information and make them remove what's already there? Read on...

ARE YOU A 'DOMESTIC EXTREMIST'?

'Domestic extremist' is a vague term with no definition in law, coined by the cops for people they want to keep tabs on. It has nothing to do with housework, but everything to do with people like you (and me), who are probably already labelled as such if you are involved in activism, campaigning, regularly attend protests etc.

The connections between local police forces, the police national computer database and NPOIU's domestic extremist database aren't entirely clear, but it is likely that once you've been identified as a 'domestic extremist', your details might well end up on the Police National Computer if they weren't there already, helpfully passed on by NPOIU. It also seems that information collected by local forces is fed into NPOIU's database, with no accountability whatsoever.

Anton Setchell, the National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism at ACPO said in 2009 that "If it is just a street type of protest, or sitting in a field or something, I will probably never ever speak to those forces about it whatsoever. I deal with the more serious stuff, that requires slightly more sophisticated analysis and co-ordination and investigation, which doesn't mean people sitting in roads or chaining themselves to a fence." This was either an outright lie, or Setchell's "more serious stuff" includes mere attendance at demos. See, for instance, the experiences of John and Linda Catt, as reported in the Guardian earlier this year:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/25/peace-campaigner-classified-domestic-extremist

and this article from 2009:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/25/police-surveillance-protest-domestic-extremism

CAN YOU SUE ACPO?

None of this will be of any surprise to people who are regularly being harassed by the cops, but you may be interested in a campaign which hopes to bring a group legal action to seek a judicial review of ACPO's practices which are believed to be unlawful, amounting to a breach of human rights and personal privacy. If you are interested in being part of this challenge, and hopefully getting your details removed from the database, then the first step is to obtain the personal data held on you by ACPO by making a Subject Access Request under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Forms can be requested from ACPO by phoning 0207 084 8950 or writing to ACPO, Seventh Floor, 10 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0NN. You'll need to send a cheque for a tenner with your application, made payable to the Association of Chief Police Officers. Alternatively, if you don't like forms, you can just write to ACPO, enclosing a cheque and copies of documents proving your identity and address, ask for your letter to be considered as a Subject Access Request under s7 of the DPA and ask for copies of all your personal data along with photographic images (stills and video footage) held by ACPO. Obviously, you may not wish to supply ACPO with more information in this respect than they are already likely to have in their possession.

Once they've received a valid request and the tenner, ACPO have 40 days to respond. It might be worth sending your request by recorded delivery, or phoning early on to check that it's been received and is being dealt with, although they are very cagey on the phone, and might try to fob you off. Make it absolutely clear that it's the domestic extremist database you're interested in when you call.

Once you have received your own personal record of domestic extremism, or rather the part of it that ACPO considers you're entitled to, please get in touch with us via the email address below. The more the merrier!

Background information about 'domestic extremism', ACPO and NPOIU can be found here:

 http://fitwatch.org.uk/domestic-extremism
 http://www.wombles.org.uk/article2009105704.php



acpowatch
- e-mail: auto477577[at]hushmail.com

Comments

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech