[Imc-uk-features] FIT feature.

Fri Jul 27 02:24:37 PDT 2007

Doug, do you have admin access? If not, i can publish it for you. I'd say
wait a couple of hours in case people have comments on the changes and
then i can stick it up, tonight maybe.

-- 
Shiar

On Thu, July 26, 2007 11:12 pm, jagmad at riseup.net wrote:
> Maybe now would be a good time to put up my FIT feature. I have made
> links relative in the text below. Please let me know if you want absolute
> instead.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Doug.
>
>
> ------------------------
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> <title>FIT for what purpose?</title>
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> <img src="/images/2007/07/374834.jpg" alt="banner">
> <h1>FIT for what purpose?</h1>
> <p><b>&quot;Teams of 12 specially trained officers will form a Forward
> Intelligence Team (FIT) who, operating in uniform, will seek to build a
> &quot;rapport&quot; with &quot;street activists&quot; so that people
> &quot;likely to provoke disorder can be identified early in an
> event&quot;</b></p> <p>So you decide to attend a public meeting at a
> University. When you
> arrive, there is a <a href="/en/2007/07/374831.html">group of police</a>
> near the entrance. One of them photographs and videos you while another
> takes notes. This is a Forward Intelligence Team and they now have your
> image on record. But you have done nothing wrong, have you? Maybe not but
> you are now unwittingly associated with the politics of the meeting and
> any <a href="/en/2007/07/376761.html">further meetings</a> you might
> attend where the FIT are present.</p> <p>The FIT first surfaced in the
> early 1990s, as part of the Public Order Intelligence Unit (CO11), a
> section of the Public Order Branch of the Metropolitan Police. They were
> initially targeted at football fans but were soon extended to cover a wide
> variety of political events, and their tactics have more recently been
> used in town centres as part of the &quot;community policing&quot;
> strategy. Sometimes they are deployed outside of the Metropolitan area, as
> at the <a href="/en/2005/07/317147.html">G8 in Scotland</a> for example,
> and most UK police forces now have officers trained in their methods.</p>
> <!--Continuation of full article--><i>
> <p>Why do the FIT target some events and not others? Their presence at
> large demos of dissent might not be surprising but why <a
> href="/en/2005/09/324157.html">pensioners</a> and <a
> href="/en/2007/04/368993.html">Critical Mass cyclists</a>? You never know
> when or where they will turn up. The FIT sometimes try to engage you in
> friendly conversation to extract intelligence and are claimed to use
> covert methods to obtain unpublished information.</p> <p>A typical FIT
> will consist of a photographer/videographer with two yellow-jacketed
> minders, a note taker and one or more 'controllers'. The controllers will
> point out certain individuals in a crowd to be photographed. At other
> times the photographer will snap off shots on his own initiative of people
> at random, which is thought to be an intimidation tactic aimed at
> discouraging political dissent. A police photographer will sometimes shove
> his long lens right in people's faces and at other times will shoot in
> semi-concealment from a distant balcony. </p> <p>OK, you now want to get
> your own back and photograph them instead. Why is the note taker trying to
> conceal his face and the police <a
> href="/images/2007/03/364032.jpg">photographer hiding</a> behind another
> cop? It is odd that some of the FIT really do not like being photographed
> and you wonder why. </p> <p>Under the Data Protection Act you are entitled
> to get hold of any pictures the police may have taken of you but this is
> not as <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200309150014">straightforward
> as it might seem</a>. No surprise there then!</p> <p><b>&quot;Some
> activists were assigned their own 'personal' escort who followed them at
> all times and one cameraman continuously took photographs of the same
> group of people (estimate that he must have taken over one hundred
> pictures of the same twenty-five people!).&quot;</b></p> <p><b>IMC Links:
> </b><a href="/en/2007/07/376761.html">FIT hunting
> NoBorders activists at rampART</a><b> |  </b><a
> href="/en/2007/07/376847.html">Protest at Heckler &amp; Koch weapons
> manufacturers HQ in Nottingham.</a><b>  |</b>  <a
> href="/en/2007/07/375927.html">Policing FIT for &quot;serious and
> sustained&quot; terror?</a> | <a href="/en/2007/07/374831.html">FIT watch
> at Disarm DSEi meeting.</a> | <a
> href="/en/2007/06/374536.html">Counter-FIT: some thoughts.</a> | <a
> href="/en/2007/06/374044.html">Resisting the FIT teams: a proposal for
> action.</a> | <a href="/en/2005/09/323107.html">FIT at Convergence
> Centre.</a> | <a href="/en/2005/09/324157.html">Fit Team vs the Grey
> Bloc.</a> | <a href="/en/2004/10/299306.html">Backwards Intelligence
> Team.</a> | <a href="/en/regions/london/2005/08/322116.html">Fatuous
> Intimidation Team strike again!</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/london/2005/06/315235.html">FIT intimidation at
> rampART</a>. | <a href="/en/2005/02/305210.html">The FIT team at work.</a>
> | <a href="/en/2003/03/58966.html">Police Harassment Bayswater
> Rd.</a> | <a href="/en/2007/02/361290.html">Indymedia and British
> Intelligence Services.</a> | <a href="/en/2005/07/317147.html">Where are
> the London cops?</a> | <a href="/en/2007/05/369556.html">Mayday march and
> protest at Canary Wharf.</a> | <a href="/en/2007/05/369381.html">Mayday in
> London 2007.</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/london/2005/07/317577.html?c=on">Unprecedented police
> harassment operation against Wombles.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/resistg8/reports/0310prope
> r_job.htm">G8 Employment Ministers Protest In London.</a> |</p>
> <p><b>Other links:  </b><a
> href="http://www.monbiot.com/archives/1996/08/29/defective-inspectors/">De
> fective Inspectors.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news54.htm">WANTED!</a> | <a
> href="http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no7/europol.html">Europol.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no6/paranoia.htm">The Empire Strikes
> Back.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldjudgmt/jd131206/
> lapor-1.htm">Fairford Coaches judgement.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.spacehijackers.co.uk/html/projects/mayday04/mayday.html">
> Anarchist
> Mayday Cricket.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.labofii.net/esf2004/">Laboratory of Insurrectionary
> Imagination.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.revolutionarycommunistgroup.com/frfi/179/179_fru.html">De
> fend the Intifada.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.resistance2003.gr/en/texts/text.php?id=99">What really
> happened in London.</a> | <a
> href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20031019/ai_n127487
> 79">The
> police paparazzi.</a> | <a
> href="http://tash.gn.apc.org/intelli2.htm">Public order training and
> tactics reviewed.</a> | <a
> href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/workingpapers/2004/
> wp13304.pdf">We are heartbroken and furious!</a> | <a
> href="http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/resistg8/reports/0310prope
> r_job.htm">G8 Employment Ministers Protest In London.</a> | <a
> href="http://www.wussu.com/squatting/s0409031.htm">Bank Robbed!</a> | <a
> href="http://pagebang.com/cgi/nph-proxy.cgi/111011A/http/tash.gn.apc.org/w
> atched1.htm#indexG">All about my 'BIG BROTHER' ...!</a> | <a
> href="http://www.vivisection.info/netcu_watch/index.htm">NETCU
> Watch</a>. | <a href="http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com">FIT Watch</a>.
> |</p>
> <p></p>
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