I was on the demonstration in Hackney and can bear witness to the Police Surveillance. I arrived at mid day 12:00 outside the Town Hall. Almost on arrival I noticed two Police officers behind me. They preceded to follow my every step, including a trip to the bank and a corner shop! They then requested a photographer to take pictures of me before eventually arresting me for placing a sticker on a bollard. ('Intentional Criminal Damage').

I was held in a cell for a few hours before being released with a formal 'Caution' on my record!

I have never before had trouble with the Police and can find no reason for this extraordinary behaviour apart from pure crowd intimidation.

Wow - that sure was a bad hand you got dealt.

I've been noticing that the police are increasingly visible as surveillance officers on more and more actions. It's seems to be a strategy to make people scared about the idea of attending demos and giving people the impression that Big Brother is on their case - that's my attitude anyway.

I am starting to wander what happens to this information and on what grounds it is being collected (ie following people around closely, taking pictures/film). I am sure that there is a civil rights implication to it all and that the EU human rights conventions are being breached in some way.

Does anyone have any useful links about this? I think it's time we began to think about how to counter this intimidation which is scaring activists and also preventing other citizens from getting involved in acts of civil disobedience.

Combined with the dangers of the Big Brother programme legitimising CCTV (the UK has the highest rate of CCTVs in the world: 1 camera for every 57 people according to CCTV industry figures) I think the UK could easily become a heavily-policed/monitored state with a majority of people imagining that is for their own good.

Can we think through a strategy to combat this bullshit?

Undercurrents exposed the secretive police surveillance squad (FIT) and their dodgy tactics. Our video feature was released on Undercurrents alternative news video 8. Also free to watch online.
We also joined Mark Thomas to expose how to obtain police surveillance video tapes under the data protection act.
 http://www.undercurrents.org/surveill.htm