Confidential Intelligence Unit

How can an organisation that is not subject to public scrutiny set up a sinister unit to monitor political and environmental groups?

A secret police intelligence unit has been set up to spy on leftwing and rightwing political groups, said the story in the Mail on Sunday. Who has decided that political and environmental groups consisting of individuals, who are guaranteed the rights of demonstration, association, free speech and privacy under the Human Rights Act, should be spied upon by this new sinister police unit?

The answer is the Association of Chief Police Officers – and that is the problem.

ACPO is a private company, which happens to be funded by a Home Office grant and money from 44 police authorities. But despite its important role in drafting and implementing policies that affect the fundamental freedoms of this country, ACPO is protected from freedom of information requests and its proceedings remain largely hidden from public view. In reality ACPO is no more troubled by public scrutiny than the freemasons.

That is wrong. Senior police officers are acting with increasing autonomy in drafting these authoritarian new policies. If you wonder how it came to be that police officers are being equipped with 10,000 stun guns, despite the reports of hundreds of deaths in the United States, or how the automatic number plate recognition camera network was set up to record and store data from most road journeys, look no further than ACPO.

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A secret police intelligence unit has been set up to spy on Left-wing and Right-wing political groups.

The Confidential Intelligence Unit (CIU) has the power to operate across the UK and will mount surveillance and run informers on domestic extremists.

Its job is to build up a detailed picture of radical campaigners. Targets will include environmental groups involved in direct action such as Plane Stupid, whose supporters invaded the runway at Stansted Airport in December.

The unit also aims to identify the ring-leaders behind violent demonstrations such as the recent anti-Israel protests in London, and to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups, animal liberation groups and organisations behind unlawful industrial action such as secondary picketing.

The CIU's role will be similar to the counter subversion functions formerly carried out by MI5. The so-called reds under the bed operations focused on trade unionists and peace campaigners but were abandoned by MI5 to concentrate on Islamic terrorism.

The unit is being set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and will be based at Scotland Yard in Central London. An internal police job advertisement for the Head of Confidential Intelligence Unit, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, reveals key details of its wide-ranging powers.

The advert says the unit will work closely with Government departments, university authorities and private sector companies to remove the threat of criminality and public disorder that arises from domestic extremism. The CIU will also use legal proceedings to prevent details of its operations being made public.