Sound good sense - from the Tories!

It seems like the pressure on the government to do something about indiscriminate and expensive police spying is bearing fruit. While the Home Secretary is bullying police forces into reversing their decision not to fund the private spying corporation known as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Minister is telling Parliament that it's unacceptable to have a private and unaccountable company (staffed by policemen paid by us) engaging in policing.

Herbert told MPs the case demonstrated strongly that Acpo should no longer have the responsibility for national organisations such as the unit that runs covert operations gathering intelligence on domestic extremists in England and Wales.

"Units like this should not be operated by Acpo and they should be operated either by a lead police force or in future the National Crime Agency where there is proper governance in place." Acpo currently runs national units involved in running counter-terrorism work, domestic extremism, vehicle crime and criminal records.

He also refused to comment on claims by MPs that both the names of the business secretary, Vince Cable, and the Green party leader, Caroline Lucas, were listed on the domestic extremism database simply because they had been present at peaceful protests. 

I always knew Vince was trouble.

Rather scarily, the Metropolitan Police say they need to take over ACPO's activities

 "so that it would come within our command and control system, which would ensure a) compliance with the law, b) compliance with rules and c) compliance with ethics."

Er… were they breaking the law? Will there be an investigation? Anyway, this is all rather excellent. Now we just need to know why the counter-terrorism squad are asking universities to inform on students. Since when has legitimate protest against fees been 'terrorism'? Ask your university's management if they've had the letter, and whether they've complied - or fill in a Freedom of Information request. The Hegemon has 'educated' more than one Guantanamo guest, so I presume that MI5 is active on campus already.

Hello Officer

This demure young lady may or may not be Lynn Watson. She told her friends in the environmental movement that was her name, though the mainstream media calls her 'officer A' because she's back on active duty somewhere else now. She didn't tell them she was an undercover police officer on secondment to a private company operating under the aegis of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Yes that's right: the cops have a corporate arm which means they can charge the state for their activities and evade public scrutiny - all the police spying outfits are ACPO subsidiaries.

ACPO is a private company and the Office of the Information Commissioner has confirmed that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the Association, since Schedule 1 of the Act does not include a definition which covers ACPO.

So if you've got any concern about the way Britain is policed, you can sod off. And that's official. This really bothers me. In a democracy, at the very least the citizens' elected representatives should be able to conduct oversight. With ACPO, it looks very like the police forces have deliberately created a corporate structure to avoid accountability. What other justification could there be for public servants paid by taxpayers to carry out public duties, to hide behind company law as though they're a pizza delivery firm or a bunch of hedge fund traders?

Should the police be running spy operations? Yes, if they're investigating crime. No, if they're simply gathering information on protest groups. It's none of their business what people believe. In the case of the environmental movement, the undercover officers seem to have been involved in planning activities and inciting people to commit criminal acts, which is way over the line. I simply don't believe that the environmental movement should be the subject of counter-terrorist tactics. They don't behave in violent or aggressive ways.