Taken from the new conference ECSTATEWATCH Topic 1 Purpose of this conference gn:ecstatewatch justice.europe 12:12 am Jan 20, 1993 "justice.europe" This conference is prepared by Statewatch, a group working on the state in the UK & Europe. It is comprised of news and information from the Statewatch bulletin, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism [CARF] magazine, and the BISS information exchange on the European state. The conference covers: policing, law, immigration and asylum, racism and fascism, Northern Ireland, Europol, the Trevi and Schengen groups, intelligence, and civil liberties. Items are, in general, quite long as each carries a collection of stories from one of the above sources. Each issue of Statewatch is titled: SW 2.6 [for volume 2 no 6]; CARF is titled by issue no. eg: CARF 10; BISS is titled by issue, eg: BISS no 2. Comments, contributions and new information very much welcome. For more information contact: Statewatch, PO Box 1516, London N16 0EW, UK. Tel: ++ 081 802 1882. Fax: ++ 081 880 1727. Greennet: ecstatewatch. ****************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************** Topic 9 Statewatch: vol 2 no 5:N Ireland gn:ecstatewatch justice.europe 12:56 pm Jan 19, 1993 SW 2.5: N Ireland & more This file contains the following stories: 1] Northern Ireland: The PTA and Channel Four 2] UK: No `tapping' of `subversives' 3] US: Subversion - the `paradigm shift' [Total length: 1,100 words] Northern Ireland: The PTA and Channel Four For the first time ever, the Prevention of Terrorism Act has been used in an attempt to force journalists to reveal their sources. In October 1991, Channel Four broadcast a Dispatches programme made by Box Productions which claimed the existence of a 60-strong committee of loyalist paramilitaries, members of the UDR, councillors, business people, solicitors and a group of RUC officers known as the `inner circle'. According to the programme, this committee was involved in organising the assassination of republicans and those thought to be republican sympathisers. After the broadcast, Channel Four sent the RUC a dossier of evidence including the names of 19 members of the committee. The RUC's response was to seek an order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act requiring Channel Four to hand over more material, including the names of any sources they had used - Box Productions had interviewed more than 100 people when researching the programme but the RUC was particularly interested in `Source A'. The order was obtained under a 1989 revision to the PTA which copied similar provisions under PACE. Section 17 of the PTA confers powers on the police to collect information for the purpose of investigating terrorism. Under Schedule 7, the police can apply to a circuit court judge for a warrant to obtain any information for which there are `reasonable grounds' for believing that the said information will be in the `public interest' for the police to have, or will be of `substantial value', in the investigation of terrorism. The hearing was in camera and the order granted. In January 1992, Channel Four informed the court that it had no more material to offer. Channel Four and Box Productions were then sued in the High Court for contempt. At the end of July,they were fined 75,000, Following the judgment, RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, took the unusual step of placing half-page advertisements in The Irish Times, the News Letter, The Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. The advertisement begins with a quote from Sean McPhileney of Box Productions saying, `If we had not given an unqualified undertaking to our sources, no one would ever have known that members of the RUC have been running death-squads'. Describing the allegations as without foundation, the advertisement goes on to say that `extensive investigation' now shows that the idea of an inner circle within the RUC and an overall organising committee was an invention of someone with a political grudge against the RUC. This person made a statement to his solicitor which said: `I considered that the RUC was being used to implement the Anglo/Irish Agreement and to suppress any loyalist opposition to it...I decided that l would attack any credibility that the RUC had been given by the minority community as a result of this exercise. I invented the story about there being an inner Circle in existence within the RUC and that members of this Inner Circle were prepared to take part in a coup in the event of a United Ireland..' Channel Four responded by saying they know of the RUC's witness when making the programme but that he had in no way been connected to the programme. Furthermore, the solicitor to whom the statement was given was one of the 19 named members of the committee which Channel Four had given to the RUC. The day before the advertisement appeared, it was revealed that the Chief Constable had refused to handover police interview notes for ESDA testing in relation to Seamus Mullen who claims he was convicted in the mid-1980s on the basis of uncorroborated and fabricated verbal statements. A letter to Mullen's solicitor states that: `the Chief Constable is obliged to bear in mind that if he grants your request he maybe faced with similar requests in respect of a large number of criminal trials'. Statewatch bulletin September/October 1992 UK: No `tapping' of `subversives' Lord Justice Lloyd, the Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act, says in his latest annual report that no warrants were issued in 1991 to tap the phones of subversives. The `threat of subversion has steadily declined', he says, `in 1985 there were a number of warrants issued against individual subversives who were regarded as being a major threat to Parliamentary democracy. Last year there were only two. Now there are none.' Lloyd says that during six years as Commissioner he has not come across `a single warrants which could not be justified' under the 1985 Act. He also says that there is no basis for the `speculation' of unauthorised tapping and widespread interception by GCHQ published in the Guardian and elsewhere (see Statewatch, vol 1 nos 3 & 4, vol 2 no 4). The number of telephone tapping and mail-opening warrants issued during 1991 was 732 a rise of 217 on 1990. This rise Lloyd says is due to the efficiency of police and customs officers efficiency in targeting criminals because the warrants are only needed for a short period of time before arrests are made. The Tribunal, set up to investigate complaints from the public, received 58 applications from people who suspected they were wrongly being tapped. None of the 43 completed complaints were upheld. Report of the Commissioner for 1991, Cm 1942, HMSO, 2.90, 1992. Statewatch bulletin September/October 1992 US: Subversion - the `paradigm shift' The targeting of legitimate political movements who are portrayed as `the enemies of democracy' and who affected by the `paradigm shift' is the subject of an excellent article by Chip Berlet in Covert Action. The term `paradigm shift' means a major negative change in the way the public perceives a political movement which is ultimately victimised, and then often subject to surveillance, break-ins and harassment. For many years the perceived threat to the American `way of life' was seen as communism, then leftist revolutionism and now domestic terrorism. It is based on the `subversion myth' where dissent is transformed from a movement for reform into a threat to national security justifying extreme counter-measures. The targeting of a particular group can often be traced to right-wing groups whose views are then transmitted uncritically in the media and used to legitimise surveillance. Examples in the US are the National Lawyers Guild, which fought for civil liberties in the McCarthy and Cold War eras; the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) which saw hundreds of offices, churches, homes and cars broken into; the environmental groups `Earth First' and `Greenpeace'; and gay groups. Covert Action, Summer 1992. Statewatch bulletin September/October 1992