Neither are these guys!
Leaked briefing provides a snapshot of a new police unit that’s spying on protesters
Quote; "An internal police briefing leaked online provides a snapshot into the workings of a new intelligence unit. The role of this unit is to spy on protesters across the UK. It’s a division of the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC). And its work appears to be very similar to that of an earlier unit, the officers of which were subsequently dubbed ‘spycops’.
Confidential
The briefing document states that the author is “NPoCC Strategic Intelligence & Briefing (SIB)”. But the document’s metadata shows that it was actually authored by Alex Fedorcio of the National Counter Terrorism Policing HQ (NCTPHQ). The NCTPHQ devises “policy and strategy, and provides corporate and support services to the CT [Counter Terrorism] network”.
The document prefaces that: “This report is solely for the use of approved named individuals on NPoCC’s audited distribution list”.
Monitoring protests
The bulk of the document refers to the policing of protests over the weekend of 13/14 June 2020. These were Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.
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For example, the briefing for the London protests of 13 June listed the following:
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned at Katie’s Statue HA1 1LF from 1100hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned at Shooters Hill from 1200hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned in Croydon from 1200hrs.
• CANCELLED 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square from
1300 to 1800hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned in Alexander Park from 1300 to 1500hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned in Kennington Park from 1300hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned at Newington Green Roundabout from 1400 to 1800hrs.
• 13/06/2020: MPS A protest is planned in Enfield Town.
The document similarly listed more protests that were expected over that weekend.
Related articles
In the aftermath, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) posted images of persons wanted in connection with alleged violence – many of these were of Black and Brown men. However, The Canary reported at the time on how the source of the violence was not BLM protesters but the far-right.
Spycops unit
But there’s another dimension that requires attention.
According to Netpol, which seeks to “monitor public order, protest and street policing,” NPoCC-SIB should be seen as a new ‘spycops‘ unit. Netpol’s comments came after the publication of a March 2021 report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) that stated:
Since the late 1990s, the police have made various arrangements for managing protest-related intelligence nationally. In recent years, this has fallen under the remit of Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP).
In January 2020, the NPCC decided to reallocate responsibilities. Low-level aggravated activism intelligence was transferred to the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC).
The HMICFRS report added:
The NPoCC’s strategic intelligence and briefing team (NPoCC SIB) was created in April 2020. Its remit is to manage intelligence related to low-level aggravated activists and protests that have the potential to cause disorder or significant disruption on a national or cross-regional scale. It is also responsible for giving intelligence and assessments to police forces.
Netpol argues that the NPoCC-SIB is essentially:
the return of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which employed the undercover officer Mark Kennedy whose unlawful activities helped to trigger the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Kennedy worked for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit over many years as an undercover operative. As The Canary previously reported, HMICFRS revealed:
that 3,466 undercover operations took place in England and Wales between October 2009 and September 2013 alone. These operations were carried out by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) – the successor to the SDS [Special Demonstration Squad]. It also found that by 2014 a reported 1,229 officers in England and Wales were trained as UCOs [undercover officers].
Further, the Guardian described the NPOIU as “essentially a giant database of protest groups and protesters in the country”. Its purpose is to:
gather, assess, analyse and disseminate intelligence and information relating to criminal activities in the United Kingdom where there is a threat of crime or to public order which arises from domestic extremism or protest activity
Careers at SIB
It appears that job ads for the NPoCC-SIB back up Netpol’s claim. One such ad by the Met, with an application deadline of 27 October 2020, stated:
NPoCC SIB provides intelligence assessment for both police and law enforcement stakeholders. …
Our core responsibilities are within public order policing – to develop assessments, event planning and the review of security in line with policing’s core duties to prevent and detect crime, keep the peace and to protect life and property.
It described the role as involving:
collating, summarising and interpreting a range of overt and covert information sources to deliver valuable, insightful research to inform the threat, risk and harm picture across the UK.
“Covert information sources” is more commonly referred to as “covert human intelligence sources” (CHIS). In other words, persons – including undercover officers – who spy upon or infiltrate police targets. Given the deadline for applications, it’s assumed the ad was published in the same or previous month that the bill legalising CHIS was going through the second reading stage in parliament (it’s now passed the third reading).
According to the College of Policing, CHIS can include: ‘victims, witnesses, suspects, colleagues such as local and field intelligence officers, community sources including community and race advisers, local councillors, religious leaders and members of the community’.
Return of ‘spycops’
The Guardian, Undercover Research, and The Canary have been pivotal over the last few years in exposing the work of ‘spycops’. In particular, the fake and in some cases real identities of the undercover officers (UCOs) involved. Some UCOs formed long-term sexual relationships with women activists. At least thirty women were exploited in this way.
Kennedy was one of the UCOs who exploited women: with ‘Lisa Jones’ over six years; with Kate (‘Lily’) over two years; with ‘Naomi’; and with Sarah Hampton.
This video shows ‘Lisa’ and Kate explaining what happened:
Class warfare
Recently the UK has seen protests on the streets against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that’s going through parliament. On 27 March, The Canary published an article on a report by the HM Inspectorate of Police and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS). Controversially, that report recommended the banning of public assemblies under certain circumstances.
The report added that intelligence gathering was already being used to target protests. And it specifically named BLM and Extinction Rebellion:
intelligence managers from the forces we inspected gave some positive feedback on the NPoCC SIB’s work so far. We heard from several officers that it had provided good-quality and useful intelligence in relation to protest activity, including from Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. One intelligence manager told us that, during the Black Lives Matter protests that took place throughout the country in summer 2020, the NPoCC SIB held national telephone conferences with forces to report on events and share information.
Clearly that last sentence refers to the NPoCC-SIB’s briefing document." https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2021/04/03/leaked-briefing-provides-a-snapshot-of-a-new-police-unit-thats-spying-on-protesters/
Barrett confirms that it’s him in the pictures…
Quote; A short treatise on my involvement in the protest against UK’s censorship-by-violence bill, as well as the odd rumors about me secretly being a cop.
I attended the #KillTheBill demo yesterday in central London, where I’ve been living since late last year, and upon arriving was asked by some other activists to help hold up a modular banner with the words “Cops Kill”, as may be seen in some of the footage that’s been floating around. As may be seen in other photos, we went on to switch the banners around so that it then read “Kill Cops”, which I considered to be sound advice even before the present UK government began its current attempt to give such cops the right to arrest peaceful protesters on the vague grounds that they can potentially upset people. Perhaps I’m still bitter about the time in 2018 when the Dallas police responded to my articles and advocacy vis a vis their Botham Jean murder by trying to cover-up a bomb threat made to the magazine I wrote for in retaliation and then repeatedly got caught lying about it to Dallas City Council and my editor. I also seem to recall doing a number of years in federal prison in a case that was widely denounced by groups like Reporters Without Borders and a range of media outlets as retaliation for my work exposing firms like Palantir and Endgame Systems in tandem with the same DOJ that later prosecuted me over these very same issues. So, you know, I’m not keen on cops.
Like pretty much everyone else including cops and their supporters, I advocate violence.*" Go to: https://barrettbrown.medium.com/andy-ngo-and-the-metropolitan-police-are-being-mean-to-me-again-and-im-sad-bb01d2f357d0 for full post.
*Italics mine. So were my reservations about “Anonymous” correct? It would appear so #nonviolence #povertyistheworstformofviolence #isolationistheworstformoftorture
My take is this, the Deep State doesn’t show its face because it is afraid…we must not be so afraid #feelthefearanddoitanyway, however, I would add a caveat, when it comes to the vulnerable being discriminated against because they have chosen to exercise the right to protest I believe anonymity is necessary, for when the disabled are forced to protest outside the institutions of public representation society has failed, in such a failed state it is beholden upon the able-bodied to protect the rights of those for whom the full-expression of democratic freedoms is no longer viable.
If the disabled are present at a protest surely the desire must, at the very least, be one for non-violence, how arrogant, by creating unrest, to enforce one’s insecurities on those less able to cope than yourself. Some “get-off” by creating a climate of fear but funnily enough they are in denial too.
When one is engaged in trying to identify 5th Columnists and agent provocateurs people with agendas like Brown’s are simply loose cannons…very, very dangerous.
