LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 15.06.08. A police photographer, in full riot gear films and photographs protesters, during a demonstration against George W Bush during the U.S President’s visit to London on Sunday 15 June 2008, London, England. Protesters had been “banned” by the police from demonstrating outside 10 Downing Street to protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2008.
“Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters” – The Guardian.
“Caught on film and stored on database: how police keep tabs on activists” – The Guardian.
“Under surveillance: police target environmental protesters and journalists” – The Guardian.
“Police surveillance: ‘They’re focusing on the press more than the protesters’” – The Guardian.
For the last 3 months I have been working on an investigation about police surveillance of journalists and protesters for The Guardian with Paul Lewis. Click on the links above to see what we found out.
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Keep up the good work; it’s good to see that there are still journalists with integrity out there…
It appears to be on the increase, but police photographing of protesters is nothing new – I was in a protest outside Parliament when the 1994 Criminal Justice Bill was passed. A fairly large group of us were surrounded by riot police on all sides and crushed against the fence around Parliament, and were held there for a few hours while a police photographer high up on a building opposite continuously took photos of us. The police would not allow anyone to leave, but on the tv news that evening it was claimed that a hardcore group of protesters refused to leave and were trying to climb over the fence & storm Parliament!
Nice work.
Good job Marc!
Great job on getting this out to the media, I watched the film on here with the police following you & it’s really shocking to me as an amateur photographer. People should be up in arms about this, how long before we all start appearing on databases with wider criteria regardless if we are doing anything wrong.
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Thank you for the positive comments and feedback folks!
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