Security Culture within our Community

Over the last year our wider community has been subjected to infiltrators from the private Investigation firm Thompson and Clark and wide spread Police surveillance. Among other things this has raised very serious security concerns. The efforts of Thompson and Clark and the Police this year should not surprise us, after all this is common practise overseas however for some I would suspect this has come as quite a shock. I do not think that these events are isolated and I would expect that they will become the norm from now on. It is for this reason that we, as a community and as individuals, need to properly adopt security culture.

This article will briefly address what security culture is, why we need it and what this means practically. Having a security culture is where the people know their rights and, more importantly, assert them. Those who belong to a security culture also know what behaviour compromises security and they are quick to educate those people who partake in insecure behaviour. This security consciousness as a whole makes security violations socially unacceptable.

Security culture is about more than just targeting specific behaviours in individuals such as bragging, gossiping or lying. It is also about checking that movement behaviours and practices don’t feed into intelligence operations being carried out against our community.

As the events this year highlight we are under increased surveillance and if we want to be successful, we need to seriously adopt security culture, stay smart, in control and out of jail.

From sitting in court and reading the paper many of the Police tactics have been revealed and it is not pretty. Hopefully it will serve as a wake up call for many of us who have become slack when it comes to security. Surveillance from Police included, but was not limited to, intercepting text messages, bugging cars, bugging one building (though as far as we know not anyone’s house), looking into people’s bank accounts, breaking into and searching (and photographing) someone’s car, eves dropping on conversations at a café, looking at people’s internet accounts (particularly Trade Me in this case), following people using multiple cars, filming peoples front doors and photographing people ‘in action’.

While some of this is beyond our control we can adopt practices and behaviour that would limit ‘their’ interest in us or at least their ability to gather evidence. One of our weakest links is communication; while we should all know text messages, emails
and talking in peoples cars and houses are not the place to organise for anything, even in codes (we might hate them but the Police are not stupid – well not that stupid), we want to keep a secret (whether it be for a fur lock on or a Camp in the Ureweras).

Many of us are very busy trying to make the world a better place and it is naturally easy to become lazy. With regard to emails and text messages it is little to no effort for the Police to intercept and store these; why are we making their job easier for them? Meeting up face to face in a public location may be a little, or even a lot, more effort but surely spending a little time in the beginning is better than spending a long (or any) time in jail. The same can be said for anything you do on your computer; if you need to do something you would rather the Police did not find out about spend the $2 and go to an internet café (with out cameras of course).

It is important to also watch what we say, even if we think we have nothing to hide. As my friend quite nicely out it in his post on Indymedia ‘this is not a game; and people talking to Police and the media are risking the liberty of themselves and those they claim to call friends’. During the raids people have been known to have invited Police on to their property when they did not have a warrant and talked with them and the corporate media; this is not ok and can put many people in compromising situations with out you even realising it. If the Police are unwarranted and want to enter your property don’t ever let them in and do not leave them alone, follow them until they have left. If they have a warrant you have to let them in but be sure to watch exactly what they are doing, silently of course. The Police are always gathering information on us and no conversation is ever innocent. They will always pretend to be your friend and start off with friendly chat as this makes you comfortable and makes it hard to know when to stop; the golden rule here is
to never start.

Infiltrators are harder to deal with because as we know we do not always know who they are and there is likely to be some still within our midst. These people are coming from a different place to the Police in that they are not trying to convict us but rather gather information to weaken our campaigns against their clients. Seemingly irrelevant information such as who is sleeping with who can beused to create in fighting and divert attention away from the real issue. In the case of Save Happy Valley information Ryan (the spy) obtained would have been useful for the many court cases between the group and Solid Energy and to also gauge how strong the campaign was. This is valuable information and big companies are willing to pay for it. Thompson and Clark, and their security firm ProVision, specialise in activists and their clients have been known to range from Tegel and the Vivisection Industry through to State Owned Enterprises (Government Owned Businesses) such as Solid Energy. They are a threat to our effective campaigning and we need to remember this.

We we are fighting for justice and liberation and our resistance to the current systems of operation is on the rise. With this comes increasingly more radical ideas and tactics; the more we organise and start to make change the more the Police and business will escalate their repression. Security is becoming more and more important and should be taken seriously. This is not a game and we would all do well to remember this!

For more information about your rights with Police please visit: http://www.a u c k l a n d a n i m a l a c t i o n . o r g . n z / r i g h t s