Thread by @copscampaign

The #SpyCopsInquiry resumes at 2.10 with Dave Morris, long-time community & political activist for #McLibel & far beyond. Here he is talking about his work and the #spycops that spied on it

Morris: McDonald's security dept was 100% ex cops, able to get info on protesters from contacts. @helensteel12 & I sued McDonald's for sharing out info & received compensation

Morris: In 2005 the European Court of Human rights found we'd had an unfair trial. No police were held to account.

Morris: McDonald's proven track record of criminality in animal welfare and workers rights yet those of us who expose them are the ones targeted by of the #spycops

Though the #McLibel trial of the 1990s was the longest in English history, & revealed the different spies McDonald’s sent into London Greenpeace, the court was never told about #spycops

In 2011, London Greenpeace learned that 1 of the people who co-wroite the #McLibel leafelt ‘Bob Robinson’ was in fact #spycops officer Bob Lambert
theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21…

Bob Robinson was actually a boy who’d died of a congenital heart condition aged 7, and Lambert had stolen his identity
theguardian.com/uk/2013/feb/21…

Lambert had sexual relationships with at least 4 women that he spied on. With one, Jacqui, he had a child, even though he knew he’d abandon his son as a toddler when the deployment was over.
metro.co.uk/2020/10/08/man…

In 1987, Lambert was part of a group of 3 animal rights activists who simultaneously planted small incendiary devices in Debenham’s shops intending to set off the sprinklers. 2 of them were convicted
bbc.com/news/uk-politi…

Lambert insists he didn’t plant the 3rd device, which caused £340,000 of damage at the Harrow store. For this to be true, there would have to be a 4th person that none of the other 3 have ever mentioned, & who Lambert has allowed to escape. It’s that, or he’s lying. Again.

Bob Lambert was promoted to running the Special Demonstration Squad #spycops & was awarded an MBE for services to policing. Here’s the @undercovernet profile of him
powerbase.info/index.php/Bob_…

Morris is now reading a statement on undercover policing signed by 90 of the #SpyCopsInquiry’s core participants, around a third of all those in the non-police/state groups. The full text is on the COPS website: campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2020/10/30/und…

Morris: victims of #spycops are dismayed by the #SpyCopsInquiry’s prioritising of the protection of perpetrators’ privacy above the right of victims & the public to know the truth

Morris: Since 1968, over 1,000 groups campaigning in the UK for a better society & world have been spied upon & infiltrated, by secret unaccountable political #spycops
theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-int…

Morris: #spycops targeted huge range of groups – environmentalists, trade unions, women’s rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, campaigning against war, corporate power, repression & police brutality

Morris: many of the #spycops targeted groups have been vindicated by history, their ideas mainstream orthodoxy, & some resulted in legal and other formal recognition by society

Morris: any group that challenged the established order has a target of the UK’s secret political policing #spycops units. The police plainly have political bias.

Morris: #spycops weren’t merely observing, they infiltrated personal lives. Fake friendships were developed & exploited. Many people, especially women, were deceived into intimate & abusive relationships.
policespiesoutoflives.org.uk

Morris: Children have been fathered then abandoned, identities of dead children stolen to provide ‘cover’ names. #spycops actively influenced groups. Many arrests with miscarriages of justice as a result
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2017/02/16/law…

Morris: Family campaigns, people seeking justice for loved ones killed by police, were deliberately undermined by #spycops
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/02/14/whi…

Morris: bugging a phone is recognised as a breach of human rights & police have to apply for a warrant. However, #spycops hacking people’s LIVES is infinitely worse and should be totally unacceptable to everyone.

Morris: #spycops weren’t aberrations or ‘rogue officers . This spying was established and conducted with the full sanction of the State and supported by its apparatus and taxpayer funding.

Morris: groups represented in the #SpyCopsInquiry were not terrorists but were pushing for positive social change in an overwhelmingly public & open way.

Morris: By targeting such groups, #spycops show institutional discrimination, racism, sexism and anti-democratic action, including industrial-scale breaches of laws and charters that protect basic human rights & the right to protest

Morris: why did the state see social justice as a threat to society instead of putting #spycops in financial corporations, hedge funds, military elites, & power-mad establishment political parties?

Morris: such institutions promote institutional violence – war, poverty, exploitation of workers, colonialism & environmental destruction, reinforced by PR & manipulation of society for their own profit. There’s your actual threat to social cohesion wellbeing

Morris: If #spycops are worried about political violence, why were fascists largely left to their own devices while we were spied on?

Morris: what is extremism? The #ClimateEmergency is the most extreme threat we face. The oil industry has obstructed efforts to tackle it. Has the oil industry ever been targeted by #spycops? If not, why not?

Morris: Morris: It took 5 years of #spycops revelations - largely from victims - to get the #SpyCopsInquiry & 5 more for it to begin. Police & Inquiry have refused to release names of officers, or groups targeted, or relevant documents
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/03/22/spy…

Morris: we’ve worked hard to get the justice we & the public are entitled to. We remain determined to bring the whole murky #spycops political policing operation into the public spotlight where it belongs

Morris: the #SpyCopsInquiry is supposed to be a public inquiry, but its's more like a police damage-limitation exercise or cover-up. The hearings are not yet publicly-accessible and nor will they be live-streamed, which is the only way to ensure the public & victims can follow it

Morris: despite #spycops, movements for positive change are still here & have had many successes. Such movements are needed now more than ever. A better world is possible to support – not undermine – them.

Morris: I support endorse the 13 Recommendations discussed and agreed at the People’s Public Inquiry into Secret Political Policing, Conway Hall, London in July 2018
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/08/30/vid…

Morris:
1. Full disclosure of all names – both cover & real – of officers from the political police units, accompanied by contemporaneous photographs
2. Release of the names of all groups suspected to have been spied upon
3. Release of all police personal files on activists

4. Extension of the inquiry to all countries where the British spycops are known to have operated
5. The appointment of a diverse panel with experience relevant to victims to assist the chair in making decisions & judgements

6. Inclusion of children and young people who had contact with spycops as Core Participants in the Inquiry
7. Urgent and immediate review of convictions where spycops had involvement in the cases and who misled courts

8. The Inquiry must extend its scope to understand political policing and its impact on democracy. This must include a thorough investigation into racist, sexist, anti-working class, anti-democratic behaviour on behalf of the spycops & those that instructed them

Such political policing and political policing units must be abolished
9. An urgent review into all undercover police activities to investigate whether the bad practice exposed by this Inquiry has been extended to other areas of undercover operations

10. Make available the necessary resources of the judge to be able to do their job in the available time
11. Equalising of resources, the police are spending millions on stonewalling the inquiry, victims have almost nothing

12. Increase the severity of penalties for [police] non-compliance with the Inquiry
13. Investigation into collusion between police and corporate spies

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