Unmasking the environmental infiltrators PDF Print E-mail

Tilly Gifford, 19 January 2011

The Mark Kennedy, aka Mark Stone case is shocking, but police attempts at infiltrating the environmental movement are not uncommon.
I met ‘Mark Stone’ only once, ironically during a workshop on resisting police infiltration. At an Earth First gathering in August 2010 activists shared experiences of police infiltration, so as to compile tactics on how to best resist it.

Mark was by far the most vocal and enthusiastic contributor. He put himself down as a main point of contact for continuing to collaborate on this resource for activists. The email address he used correlates with the name of the private security firm, Tokra, which he set up when he was leaving the police.

Exposing the police infiltrators’ agenda
At Plane Stupid Scotland we had our own experience of attempted police infiltration in 2009, when two men offered me cash for information on our activities. One claimed to be a detective constable, the other an assistant.

Plane Stupid is a loose network that takes action against the aviation industry’s climate impact. A few months before, we’d safely and effectively closed down Aberdeen Airport, cutting Co2 emissions and drawing attention to the social and environmental impacts of their expansion plans.
We decided to expose the police’s spy recruiting tactics in the media, using a spy-cam and recording conversations on a mobile phone. Strathclyde Police confirmed on the phone and in writing that the names of the two police officers did not feature on their databases. To get answers on who the two police spies were, we’ve been locked in a bureaucratic ping-pong ever since. We still don’t know who they are.
On a whole other level of police intrusion, Stone was embedded within the environmental movement for seven years. In a BBC interview last week, without blushing or skipping a beat, former undercover police officer Peter Bleksley confirmed not only are there more officers embedded, but told us that “people there are also undercover from the private security sector working against climate campaigners”.

This makes my blood run cold. The language itself is telling. Not ‘protestors’, but ‘campaigners’. Targeted not for taking illegal direct action, but simply for holding a view. And not simply monitoring: the ‘against’ testifies to an agenda in policing.
Private intelligence gathering
As for the unnamed companies of the ‘private security sector’, who might they be?
Meet C2i, the ‘Specialists in Security Crisis Risk Management’ who also attempted to infiltrate Plane Stupid in 2005. Their slogans include “Providing Peace of Mind in a Changing World” and “We take care of your security so that you can focus your energies on your personal and business affairs, free from distraction and anxiety”.
Sounds as inoffensive as an advert for odour-removing, floral-fragrance deodorant doesn’t it? But private security companies like C2i can sell on information (names, databases, minutes of meetings...) to large companies to whom grassroots campaigns pose a threat. They sometimes work with the police. They are not accountable. 
We now know Mark Kennedy's company Tokra was registered to the address of Heather Millgate, a director of the private security firm Global Open at the time. He claims also to have worked ‘as a consultant’ for Global after leaving the police in March 2010, though ‘did not operate undercover’.

Rod Leeming, head of Global, however told the Guardian his company 'had never employed' Kennedy, leaving one to ponder where the truth lies and Leeming's interpretation of the word 'employ'. According to its website Global ‘maintains a discreet watch on groups that may present a risk to a corporation’s reputation or safety’ and can assist in ‘intelligence gathering’. Its clients include BAE and E.On, which runs the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant. 
Unmasking the environmental spies
Several unpleasant options exist as to who was harassing and monitoring Plane Stupid in 2009. It could’ve been the National Public Unit Intelligence Order or the Confidential Intelligence Unit - both reporting back to the private company, Association of Chief Police Officers. Or perhaps it was corporate espionage a la C2i?
We have tried so far unsuccessfully to simply confirm that the officer who wanted to set-up a 'long-term business arrangement' with me was indeed a Strathclyde Police employee as they had initially claimed when we exposed the infiltration attempt in the media.
Strathclyde were uncooperative, so it went all the way to the Scottish Information Commissioner. Our request for the officer’s date of commission within the Strathclyde force was refused.
I was told I could take it to the Court of Session (the Scottish version of the Supreme Court), or drop it. I would be liable for up to £20,000 in court costs. I’m an apprentice farmer, a researcher and a ceramicist: the epic financial risk makes pursuing this case entirely unfeasible for me. The collapse of the prosecution case against six of the Ratcliffe activists coincides with information on Kennedy’s involvement being required. It seems strings are being pulled from high-up to avoid shedding any light on covert policing.
If the Freedom of Information process and the legal justice system are covering up for the spooks, infiltrators and police intrusion, could it be that the very mechanisms designed to deliver transparency and accountability to protect the public, are being manipulated?
Where do we go from here?
The police need to start talking. We need answers. Silence is not acceptable.
We want to know what information Mark Kennedy was gathering and for whom, to know who appoints such considerable police resources to monitor environmental campaigners, to know who decides to pull the plug on an entire prosecution case, and who the men slinking around with brown envelopes and dark glasses claiming to be Strathclyde Police actually are.
And if we find all the processes available to us prohibitively expensive or opaque, where should we turn?
We should demand a full inquiry in front of a judge - not one led by politicians or the police. We also need to build greater awareness of the links between big financial interests and policing: the businesses we target have social and environmental consequences as massive only as the money behind them.

We need to self-organise better to monitor the police’s activities and capitalise on the proliferation of techno-gadgets like camera phones and YouTube. These can serve to bear witness, as in the killing of Ian Tomlinson, or to share budding tactics of resistance and protest.
Finally, we can turn to the knowledge that, in the environmental justice movement, we’re onto something – the reason we’re being so heavily targeted is that our impact is real and effective.
Tilly Gifford is an environmental campaigner with Plane Stupid
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