No Oversight Please! We Are the Met Police

According to the story in today's Sunday Telegraph, the UK's Metropolitan Police has had the operational capability to eavesdrop on mobile (or Cell) telephone conversations since 1997 using a number of fixed wing aircraft, the very existence of which may have been deliberately hidden from the public or their representatives.

A Cessna F04

The trouble appears to be that the people who paid for it and were subject to it did not have a clue that this was happening, until today that is.

Let me quote from the article directly:

"However members of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which scrutinises the force's spending said they had never been told of the existence of the aircraft.

According to Civil Aviation Authority records, the aircraft is registered to a firm called Nor Leasing.

There is no trace of the firm on any other official record and its business address registered with the CAA is actually a branch of Mail Boxes Etc, which offers a virtual office services and mail forwarding, in Surbiton, south-west London. "

Now this story breaks after recent allegations that an undercover Met Officer used his false name, under oath, during the trial of campaigning / activist groups who the Police (Politicians?) deem to be a potential threat to public order.


Now operationally, as in any totalitarian state, such an intelligence gathering capability when coupled with a flagrant disregard for the rule of law. is very, very useful.  But are such activities supervised or authorised outside of the cosy world of the Met Police?

I am begining to be very concerned that rather than actively policing the bad guys, the Met may have been policing any one who did not agree with  the last Labour Government.  E.G. Damian Green MP, the Policing of the Pro-Tibetan campaigners, any one that did not agree with the Iraq war etc etc.

So here are some questions I think that the MPA might light to ask, given that they appear to be some 14 years behind what the met Police have been upto:

• Who authorised the payment and running of these assets?
• When did they do this?
• What was the case for doing this?
• Why are they covert and not subject to scrutiny by the MPA or vetted sub-committee?
• Who ran these assets?
• What have they been doing?
• Who oversaw the operations and approved them?
• Did they breach the Data Protection Act?
• Have these operations been subject to Judicial oversight?
• Have they been subject to Political oversight?

Not good boys, not good at all.

Related articles

• Met chief says officers' use of fake identities in court was not illegal (guardian.co.uk)
• Undercover policing report delayed (mirror.co.uk)
• Undercover police inquiry delayed after new allegations (guardian.co.uk)
• Former police spy urges public inquiry into undercover operations (guardian.co.uk)
• You: Police spies unit 'crossed the line', says Lord MacDonald (guardian.co.uk)