Clippings Digest: August – November 1984

Policing

(a) and the miners

• 3 page overview in Labour Research (September)
• Officers being sent straight from training school (Guardian 20 November)
• Police installing alarms in homes of (some) working miners. (Guardian 27 November)
• Police officers being charged a ‘fee’ of a bottle of whisky to get on lucrative picket duty. (Daily Telegraph 25 October)
• Detection rates falling because of picket deployment (Times 7 September), but reported crime apparently not rising. (Guardian 3 September)
• Police wrecking miners’ cars. (Guardian 15 August)
• Police using council flats as observation posts without permission. (Daily Telegraph September 12)
• Soldiers on picket duty? Paddy Ashdown thinks so (Guardian 12 September)
• Police roadblocks given limited approval (Times 23 November). During first 27 weeks of strike police stopped 164,000 pickets entering Notts. (Guardian 10 October)
• McClachlan, Notts. Chief Constable says use of roadblocks as a tactic emerged ‘when several of us went to the Home Office weeks before the strike began’ (Sunday Times November 25)
• Met. police on picket duty used Tory Party clubs as temporary police stations. (letter in Leveller Supplement No 2, December 1984)

(b) and public order

• Met. Police ‘exceeded their powers’ in arresting people outside South African embassy. (Times August 2)
• Met. Commissioner Newman said ‘prevention of public disorder was at the top of their list of priorities’, and 500 men in Police Support Units were available at 15 minutes notice. (Guardian 17 October)
• Moves afoot to change laws on public demonstrations. ‘Consultations’ taking place following 1983 Law Commission recommendations of new offences of riot, violent disorder, affray and conduct intended or likely to cause fear of violence or provoke violence. Police Federation wants new Riot Act. (Guardian 13 November)
• Peace protesters arrested outside army base in Hampshire held under armed guard in a pit. (Guardian 19 November)
• After arrest at Faslane base women held for 30 hours, 4 to a cell, continuous lighting, no bedding. (Guardian 1 September – letter)
• Peace protesters charged with conspiracy – first such charge for 20 years. (Times 1 September)

(c) and computers

• Home Office doubts about value of computers. There is no evidence that they reduce crime or save manpower. (Guardian 21 November)
• Association of Chief Police Officers request to store ‘special register of criminal incidents in mining areas’ on Police National Computer. This, if it happens, will be a major change in the kind of data officially stored on the PNC.
• NCCL asks for withdrawal of the request. (Times 26 October)
• Another step towards national police computer network in introduction of Home Office (large) Major Enquiry System (aka Holmes). It is expected all forces will have it from next year. Although being introduced in the wake of ‘Ripper’ case for use in large-scale enquiries, the system will store ‘any form of information whether opinion or not (emphasis added), that is received from any source’.
• It will also have a ‘free text retrieval’ capacity – ie the ability to produce all data including any designated word or words.
• The data should only be released to people ‘legitimately concerned’ with the main enquiry, ‘or to officers who have good reason to believe that information relevant to another enquiry is held by the system’ – a licence to go fishing. (Guardian 10 October)
• This, when installed will be a national intelligence-gathering computer system, and, like other police systems, will be exempt from the Data Protection Bill.
• Home Office to control the purchase and use of police computers more closely, expand PNC, and encourage police forces to buy only mini and micro computers. Computing 29 November).

(c) and ‘community’ policing

• Greater Manchester Police Authority call for end of police involvement in youth work (Times Educational Supplement 14 October) Report claims police involvement in youth work may lead to ‘a dangerous extension of police functions’. (This, it should be said, has already happened all over the country as any quick perusal of the annual reports of the country’s Chief Constables makes obvious.)
• Account of Neighbourhood Watch schemes in New Statesman 21 September. See also letter in 12 October. (Met. now has 806 such schemes in operation)

(d) and accountability

• Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, asks for a ‘clear definition’ of the powers and responsibilities of the CC from the Home Office following GM Police C’ttee decision to disband police band. (Daily Telegraph 11 October)
• This is just one of a series of challenges to Chief Constable authority mounted by Police Authorities since the miners’ strike began. (Survey of them in Observer 14 October).
• Police Federation Chief Curtis said ‘the excuse is financial but the motive is political’. (Daily Telegraph 19 September).
• CC McClachlan of Notts. (and new head of Association of Chief Police Officers) expressed fear that “there is going to be a very strong attempt to bring the police under more political control.” (Daily Telegraph 11 October)
• West Yorks County Council setting up working party to investigate Police Authority/Chief Constable/ Home Office relationship. (Guardian 31 October)
• Manchester City Council setting up a unit to monitor Greater Manchester Police. (Daily Telegraph 20 October)
• General discussion of the fuzzy nature of the 1964 Police Act as it bears on Chief Constable/Police Authority relationship. (Guardian 11 October)
• Anderton of Manchester and Ian Oliver of Central Scotland call for an ‘apolitical police committee’. (Anderton in Times 16 October). Oliver suggests Northern Ireland system should be copied: Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appoints members of police authority and they have to sign Official Secrets Act, and they meet in secret. (Guardian 9 November)

(e) and National Reporting Centre

• CC Knight of West Midlands admits NRC is ordering local police forces to send police to pits. (Guardian 20 August – letters)
• ex-CC Alderson says NRC has this power under 1964 Act. (this isn’t strictly true), and argues for a genuine national force to deal with riots. (Guardian 17 October)

(f) and Association of Chief Police Officers

• An example of ACPO policy forming. Report in Sunday Telegraph (25 November) on police response to Animal Liberation Front says the ‘crime committee’ of ACPO meeting to ‘discuss what to do about ALF.’

(g) and CS Gas

• South Yorks Police now has stocks of CS gas (Daily Telegraph 23 October)

(h) and plastic bullets

• Conflicting evidence on number of British forces with plastic bullets: Home Office says 15 (Guardian 30 October): Police Federation says 13 (Guardian 24 October)

(i) miscellaneous

• After TV prog. showing two Met. detectives setting-up an armed robbery, TV company’s switchboard ‘flooded with calls alleging similar set-ups’ (Guardian 21 November)
• More indications of a national police force being organised piece-meal. Labour Research (October) notes that in 1983 report of Chief Inspector of Constabulary there is reference to establishment of Regional Criminal Intelligence officers in the police regions of England and Wales; and in April (1984) they all went ‘live’ on the Police National Computer.

Phone-tapping

• In a piece on the aftermath of European Court of Human Rights decision on phone-tapping, the author states ‘British Telecom follows the established Post Office procedure of handing meter records on request.’ (Guardian 4 August). Did we know this?
• Greater Manchester Police tapping their own calls via computerised switchboard. (Observer 28 October)
• S.W. CND telephone network (telephone tree) disrupted: dozens of people found phones dead on same evening. Joan Ruddock and Bruce Kent also believe their phones tapped. (Tribune 3 August)

Mail opening

• Letter from miner to NGA official opened and two paragraphs cut out of letter, then resealed and sent on. (The Miner 2 November) Is this the first such recorded incident?
• Lawyers working for Clive Ponting have their mail opened. (Guardian 5 September)

GCHQ

• De-unionisation of GCHQ apparently resisted by Sir Douglas Wass (at the Treasury) and Sir Frank Cooper (at MOD) when it was first suggested in late 1982. (Times 28 August)
• GCHQ staff being asked to allow security staff to see their medical records. (Daily Telegraph 1 November)

Censorship/Secrecy/F.O.I.

• Detailed account of Swedish FOI legislation in action (Guardian 19 September)
• Lord Croham (Sir Douglas Allen) one of the group of ex-mandarins taken on board by FOI Campaign (see Lobster 6) condemns Sarah Tisdall (Times 23 November)
• In an earlier piece (Guardian 13 September) statement from Croham in 1977 giving warning to Ministers that unless they agreed to a voluntary code ensuring more openness they would face strong pressure for wider freedom of information legislation. So now we understand these mandarins’ interest in the FOI campaign.
• Government about to change positive vetting rules to include membership of pressure groups, notably CND. (Guardian 22/10)
• Chairman of Granada TV, Sir Dennis Forman, on threats to independence of broadcasting:
• ‘the protection of government information has become undiscriminating and obsessional with the resulting suspicion that frequently the motive is not so much to protect the security of the state as the political comfort of ministers.’ (Times 27 August)
• Story, already printed, due for Times (of 23 August) claiming Mrs Thatcher present at Naval HQ when Belgrano was sunk, was withdrawn at last minute by editor, apparently after conversation with Rupert Murdoch. (Guardian 4 October)
• Book about Falklands war by head of MOD’s naval history department refused publication by junior defence minister John Stanley (Observer 30 September)

Special Branch

• SB attending Friends of the Earth and NCCL meetings in Manchester. (Guardian 29 November)

MI6

• Interesting piece on Tony Jones, London solicitor accused of being MI6/MI5 informant, including the information that Michael Bettaney was the source of the information, in Black Flag 27 November.
• Political intelligence service of Hamburg police prepare weekly report on political activity which is sent to, among others, MI6. (Parapolitics (Paris) September 1984)

Articles

• Extensive excerpts from the CIA’s manual Psychological Operations and Guerilla War published in Tribune November 16 1984
• Bizarre white-washing piece on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war published by Atlantic (September 1984) The authors are two senior Israeli journalists and the piece entirely fails to counter the other versions of the incident, e.g. Anthony Pearson’s Conspiracy of Silence (London 1978) God knows why Atlantic published it. Has the Israeli lobby got to them, too?
• If anyone has the patience to wade ankle-deep through the half-truths, Paul Johnson is at it again in Encounter (November 1984), this time, inter alia, blaming the New York Times for Nixon’s ‘plumbers unit’: ‘Nixonian plumbing was a defensive response to aggression’. Ignorance masquerading as sophistication.
• Interesting piece about Soldier of Fortune magazine, the World Anti Communist League and General John K.Singlaub in New Statesman 2 November 1984. (The War Against ‘Communism’) The author is Chris Horrie who is, if memory serves me, also editor of CND’s magazine Sanity. It should be said that one’s inclination to believe Horrie isn’t assisted by his statement that William Colby is the Director of the CIA. Was, Mr Horrie, was.Anyone interested in Soldier of Fortune should read the far bigger and better piece in Covert Action Information Bulletin No 22. CAIB is available through Housman’s in London.
• A reasonable (ie reasonable for a British journal) piece on Reagan’s backer and friend Paul Laxalt (Senator for Nevada and Chair of the Republican National Committee) and his links with organised crime (Nevada contains Las Vegas) in Tribune August 31 1984
• A much longer and better account of the Laxalt/organised crime link (and, who knows? maybe the source of the British piece) is in Counterspy (July-August 1984). Counterspy is broadening its focus these days. It is available from Housman’s bookshop. Piece on Laxalt and his links to the Hughes organisation in Playboy October.

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No room for book reviews and publications in this issue. They are being held over to No 8.

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