Category: Action Reports

Mobile phones, the stealth ID card, bug and tracking device in your pocket.

Ear­li­er this month it emerged that the FBI had been remote­ly acti­vat­ing a mobile phone’s micro­phone and using it to eaves­drop on near­by con­ver­sa­tions. The sur­veil­lance tech­nique, which “func­tioned whether the phone was pow­ered on or off.” came to light as a result of a rul­ing by U.S. Dis­trict Judge Lewis Kaplan on the legal­i­ty of the “rov­ing bug”. It had been approved by U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice offi­cials for use against mem­bers of a New York orga­nized crime fam­i­ly who were wary of con­ven­tion­al sur­veil­lance tech­niques such as tail­ing a sus­pect or wire­tap­ping. Cell phones owned by two alleged mob­sters, John Ardi­to and his attor­ney Peter Pelu­so, were used by the FBI to lis­ten in on near­by con­ver­sa­tions.

Ear­li­er this month it emerged that the FBI had been remote­ly acti­vat­ing a mobile phone’s micro­phone and using it to eaves­drop on near­by con­ver­sa­tions. The sur­veil­lance tech­nique, which “func­tioned whether the phone was pow­ered on or off.” came to light as a result of a rul­ing by U.S. Dis­trict Judge Lewis Kaplan on the legal­i­ty of the “rov­ing bug”. It had been approved by U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice offi­cials for use against mem­bers of a New York orga­nized crime fam­i­ly who were wary of con­ven­tion­al sur­veil­lance tech­niques such as tail­ing a sus­pect or wire­tap­ping. Cell phones owned by two alleged mob­sters, John Ardi­to and his attor­ney Peter Pelu­so, were used by the FBI to lis­ten in on near­by con­ver­sa­tions.

The news that the FBI had been remote­ly acti­vat­ing mobile phones as eaves drop­ping devices con­firms what many activists have been say­ing for years.

“A cel­lu­lar tele­phone can be turned into a micro­phone and trans­mit­ter for the pur­pose of lis­ten­ing to con­ver­sa­tions in the vicin­i­ty of the phone. This is done by trans­mit­ting to the cell phone a main­te­nance com­mand on the con­trol chan­nel. This com­mand places the cel­lu­lar tele­phone in the ‘diag­nos­tic mode.’ When this is done, con­ver­sa­tions in the imme­di­ate area of the tele­phone can be mon­i­tored over the voice chan­nel.” — Nation­al Recon­nais­sance Orga­ni­za­tion newsletter,1997.

As long as I can remem­ber there has been a kind of unspo­ken rule among activists about tak­ing bat­ter­ies out of mobile phones dur­ing meet­ings to pre­vent bug­ging — along with occa­sion­al argu­ments about it being para­noid. While it has long been know to be a the­o­ret­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ty, the mafia court case con­firms it is actu­al­ly a prac­ti­cal tech­nique and is being used.

It is not clear exact­ly how the FBI achieve their remote acti­va­tion but it is known that it is pos­si­ble to update the soft­ware on a mobile phone by send­ing an unno­tice­able SMS mes­sage to a par­tic­u­lar cell phone. Changes to the phones soft­ware than make it pos­si­ble to spy on the user around the clock, as long as the phone has pow­er. All SMS mes­sages can be read and all calls and con­ver­sa­tions can be lis­tened to, includ­ing those tak­ing place in the vacin­i­ty of the phone. It would also be pos­si­ble to access and copy address books and oth­er infor­ma­tion stored on the phone.

It should be fair­ly obvi­ous to any­one that sim­ply ‘switch­ing off’ a mobile phone could not pre­vent the soft­ware from reac­ti­vat­ing the phone at will. Like most com­put­ers, the on/off switch on a mobile phone is sim­ply a but­ton that requests the soft­ware to do some­thing, ie.. turn the phone on or off — or more acturate­ly, switch the phone between stand­by and nor­mal oper­a­tions. Many have an alarm fea­ture which can oper­ate when the phone is appar­ent­ly ‘switched off’.

Some of the vuner­a­bil­i­ties of mobile phones may only be exploitable by the state or pri­vate inter­ests with finan­cial mus­cle to obtain access to the records of mobile phone net­works. Oth­ers how­ev­er are much eas­i­er to exploit and well with­in the capa­bil­i­ties of pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tors. One exam­ple is the abil­i­ty to read mobile phone num­bers from all phones in a room as those phone rou­tine­ly poll and com­mu­ni­cate with the near­est cell phone repeater.

And lets not for­get the abil­i­ty to track cell phones (again, poten­tial­ly even when they are turned off). With the data reten­tion laws requir­ing mobile phone net­works to keep this data for a year or so, it is easy for the author­i­ties (or pri­vate agen­cies with influ­ence) to not only mon­i­tor some­bod­ies move­ments but also cross ref­er­ence that with oth­er peo­ple and build up acturate pic­tures of net­works of asso­ci­a­tion.

As repres­sion on dis­sent increas­es, it is vital that we are all aware of the infor­ma­tion we pro­vide our ene­mies and what steps we can take to lim­it the dam­age.

What advice might you con­sid­er?

Don’t take any mobile phone to a meet­ing and if you must, remove the bat­tery.
Don’t take your per­son­al mobile phone with you on actions.
Remove the bat­tery if mak­ing jour­neys oth­ers should not know about.
Bet­ter yet, don’t take the phone or send it out on a walk in the park with a friend.
Don’t pow­er up you ‘clean’ action phone in any build­ing you don’t want asso­cait­ed with an action.
Nev­er use ‘clean’ action phones to call com­rades per­son­al phone num­bers.
Don’t call a ‘clean’ action phone from any ‘non clean’ phone.
Don’t con­tin­ue to use the same set of action phones on future actions.
Only pay cash for phone cred­it and don’t not from places with CCTV (dif­fi­cult).

Fur­ther read­ing…

FBI sto­ry:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100–1035_22-6140191.html http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=18443
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061203–8343.html

Back­ground:
http://www.wasc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/cellular.htm

Some exam­ples…

Clear­ly the police are using the loca­tion records of phones to link peo­ple to actions, some recent exam­ples:

“A GANG of trav­ellers are fac­ing jail for a series of vio­lent ram-raids, rob­beries and bur­glar­ies after they were linked to the crimes through mobile phone records.”

“Mr Farmer said mobile phone records had been cru­cial in secur­ing guilty pleas and con­vic­tions…”

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/ely/2006/12/13/80f9ff15-a536-4d01-9e77-743d900618d6.lpf

“At a press con­fer­ence this morn­ing Mr Gull said that offi­cers were look­ing at mobile phone calls made and received by the girls and were also analysing DNA, but refused to go into more detail.”

“When asked about Anneli and the oth­er wom­en’s mobile phone records, Mr Gull said: “I don’t want to go into details, it’s very sen­si­tive, but it’s some­thing we’re look­ing at.â€?

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED16%20Dec%202006%2015%3A37%3A43%3A720

“THE EADT has now filed an offi­cial com­plaint against Suf­folk police after its most senior detec­tive obtained the pri­vate mobile phone records of a jour­nal­ist in a bid to dis­cov­er his sources.”

“Edi­tor Ter­ry Hunt has request­ed a full expla­na­tion for the action tak­en by Det Supt Roy Lam­bert in a let­ter sent yes­ter­day to Chief Con­sta­ble Alas­tair McWhirter.”

“As revealed in yes­ter­day’s EADT, con­fi­den­tial mobile phone records of reporter Mark Bul­strode were obtained by Mr Lam­bert so he could find out who he had been speak­ing to.”

“The move was tak­en after the jour­nal­ist approached the force with infor­ma­tion about the reopen­ing of an his­toric inves­ti­ga­tion.”

http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/news/story.aspx?brand=EADOnline&category=News&tBrand=EADOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=IPED01%20Dec%202006%2019%3A35%3A22%3A490

A the pieces are now in place for the elec­tron­ic police state.

Court rejects ASBOS for airport activists

On Fri­day, Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “highly organ­ised extrem­ist­sâ€? that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

On Fri­day, Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “highly organ­ised extrem­ist­sâ€? that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

In an appar­ent move aimed to avoid hav­ing the case heard by a jury, the charge of pub­lic nui­sance was dropped, as was the charge relat­ing to an alleged breach of the avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty act.

Plane Stu­pid lawyer, Mike Schwarz, described the action to the court as a “classic piece of civ­il dis­obe­di­enceâ€? and remind­ed the court that “Tony Blair him­self has described cli­mate change as the great­est threat fac­ing mankind.â€?

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Ellen Rick­ford, said, “The same day that we learn the gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its air­port expan­sion pro­pos­als, they try to use ASBOs to stamp out peace­ful protest. Well, it seems their plans for that were as doomed as the avi­a­tion industry.â€?

17 activists got one year con­di­tion­al dis­charges (the min­i­mum sen­tence avail­able) and each was charged £70 in costs. The 5 charged with crim­i­nal dam­age in addi­tion to aggra­vat­ed tres­pass were giv­en vary­ing lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

One per­son was referred to Crown Court due to unre­solved legal issues and anoth­er had his case adjourned until Jan­u­ary 31st. One oth­er activist was unable to attend court due to ill­ness.

Help us pay our fines! Donate via: www.planestupid.com

Santas Against Excessive Consumption hit London, 16.12.06

San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion (SAEC) went out to play for the sec­ond year run­ning on Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16th 2006, drop­ping in on the Shell-spon­sored Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um (NHM) on the way to the con­sumer hell that is Oxford Street.

San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion (SAEC) went out to play for the sec­ond year run­ning on Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16th 2006, drop­ping in on the Shell-spon­sored Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um (NHM) on the way to the con­sumer hell that is Oxford Street.

At the NHM we wan­dered through the crowds hold­ing our ‘Lap­p­land is melt­ing’ and ‘Rein­deer can’t swim’ plac­ards, explain­ing that exces­sive con­sump­tion was melt­ing our ho-ho-home, and as such it was going to be tough to ensure a good sup­ply of presents in the future. We had a bit of inter­ac­tion with peo­ple wait­ing to skate on the British Air­ways-spon­sored ice rink. Half the rink was closed because it was too wet and slushy — the ice had melt­ed. The employ­ee with the thank­less task of try­ing to herd us out dis­agreed with me when I sug­gest­ed that this was sym­bol­ic. His word? ‘Iron­ic.’

‘See you next year!’, promised the mouthi­est San­ta as we left, (since month­ly vis­its are planned by SAEC’s friends Lon­don Ris­ing Tide in 2007.) Then it was on to join rein­force­ments in Oxford Street, using the tube jour­ney as a chance to thank the pun­ters for tak­ing pub­lic trans­port a well as smil­ing at bewil­dered nip­pers won­der­ing if we could have any con­nec­tion to the real thing. Tak­ing up res­i­dence at Oxford Cir­cus, some anti-cor­po­rate car­ols were giv­en a good see­ing to, and leaflets dis­trib­uted. A fes­tive for­ay into Nike­town result­ed in a swift but friend­ly expul­sion, while a min­strel-like wan­der into the big Apple shop trig­gered a grumpi­er response. The plea to ‘Sing your own songs to eachother this Christ­mas!’ was inter­pret­ed as some sort of adver­tis­ing by a com­peti­tor, and this as well as some live and direct car­olling inside the shop led to the police being called. But we stood our ground when asked by the hum­bug­ging cop­pers to move away from the shop win­dow, and soon enough they evap­o­rat­ed.

By that time we were pret­ty much Santa‑d out, so decamped to a caff to fill up on caf­feine and divest our­selves of the mag­ic but by this time some­what bedrag­gled beards and suits that made peo­ple smile at us and take our sub­ver­sive leaflets. Take care until next year…

www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell
www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk
07708 794665
london@risingtide.org.uk
—————————
Text of the Oxford Street leaflet:

LAPPLAND IS MELTING!

Today is the busiest shop­ping day of the year. Oxford Street is crammed with con­sumers all scram­bling for the lat­est must-have item, the per­fect present that will buy Christ­mas joy. Most of us find this part of Christ­mas incred­i­bly stress­ful — there’s nev­er enough time, ten­sions run high, and the oblig­a­tion of gift exchange rules the sea­son.

So why do we buy in to Christ­mas shop­ping mad­ness? Maybe it’s time to start fig­ur­ing out why we so des­per­ate­ly need a 5‑speed elec­tric tooth­brush in the first place, or why our chil­dren will be dev­as­tat­ed if they don’t get the lat­est McNike­Soft Godzil­la Action Fig­ure that tops The List. It might well boil down to the fact that we are each exposed to 3,500 adverts per day. (No real­ly, try count­ing!)

Cor­po­rate adver­tis­ing can actu­al­ly be seen as the largest sin­gle psy­cho­log­i­cal project under­tak­en by the human race. We are told from the day we are born that increas­ing our mate­r­i­al wealth will make us hap­pi­er peo­ple, and if we want to show some­one that we love them, we must buy them some­thing – the more expen­sive, the more we love them.

Christ­mas con­sump­tion caus­es cli­mate chaos!

The prob­lem is, cor­po­rate con­sumer cul­ture doesn’t just breed stress – it cre­ates envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe. If every­one in the world were to con­sume at the lev­el we do in the West, we would need 5 extra plan­ets. But it’s not just about dis­ap­pear­ing rain­forests and moun­tains of rub­bish. Our exces­sive con­sump­tion is also caus­ing cli­mate chaos, with dis­as­trous effects like hur­ri­canes, flood­ing and oth­er freak weath­er pat­terns.

We know that cli­mate change is direct­ly caused by the burn­ing of fos­sil fuels (oil, coal and nat­ur­al gas) to pow­er our offices, heat our homes, and fuel our cars & planes. But tack­ling cli­mate change is not only about tak­ing the bus and switch­ing off lights. Every prod­uct that is pro­duced, trans­port­ed, bought, used and thrown away eats up ener­gy that we don’t have, and cre­ates pol­lu­tion that our cli­mate can’t han­dle. And if that prod­uct is made of plas­tic (and think how many are), then it’s lit­er­al­ly made of oil.

Us San­tas aren’t sug­gest­ing you don’t give your loved ones presents this year. But why not make one or two of them, trade with friends, or buy local­ly. Think about the prod­ucts you’re buy­ing – what they’re made of, where they came from, how they got from there to here…and whether they’re actu­al­ly going to make some­one any hap­pi­er.

—————–
Text of NHM leaflet:

WHAT LIES BENEATH SHELL’S WILD LIE?

Hel­lo and Mer­ry Christ­mas. We are San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion, and we’ve dropped into the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um on our way to Oxford Street, to sing a few car­ols and to remind muse­um-goers that exces­sive con­sump­tion of oil is caus­ing Lap­p­land – our home! — to melt.

Why is this rel­e­vant to the NHM? Because Shell, the world’s third largest oil com­pa­ny, is also the new spon­sor of the its Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion.

Could you join the cam­paign oppos­ing this spon­sor­ship, write to the Muse­um or lend images to our ‘Shell’s Wild Lie’ counter-exhi­bi­tion?

Despite attempts to ‘greenwash’ its rep­u­ta­tion via blan­ket adver­tis­ing and cul­tur­al spon­sor­ship, Shell is still heav­i­ly impli­cat­ed in pro­duc­ing ever-greater quan­ti­ties of the oil and gas that are desta­bil­is­ing our cli­mate to such an alarm­ing degree. Cli­mate change is set to wipe out mil­lions of plant and ani­mal species and to dev­as­tate the poor­est regions of the plan­et. Shell’s activ­i­ties also result in oil spills which are major caus­es of death and destruc­tion for many vari­eties of life. Its planned refin­ery and pipeline project in Coun­try Mayo, Ire­land, threat­ens a pris­tine ecosysys­tem, not to men­tion the homes and liveli­hoods of the inhab­i­tants. Last­ly, Shell is cur­rent­ly con­struct­ing a mas­sive devel­op­ment at Sakhalin Island in Rus­sia which is threat­en­ing the sur­vival of the West­ern Pacif­ic Grey Whale. For all these rea­sons, Shell should not be spon­sor­ing the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion. We call on the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um to end its spon­sor­ship deal with Shell.

Tell NHM boss Michael Dixon direct­ly what you think of Shell (not to men­tion BP, which is a Muse­um part­ner):
(020) 7942 5000; m.dixon@nhm.ac.uk, cc’ing to feedback@nhm.ac.uk & us.

…and get more involved in the Art Not Oil campaign/exhibition via Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, tak­ing cre­ative direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate chaos

london@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk

Cambridge March for Consumerism

On Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16 a group of peo­ple in Cam­bridge held a March for Con­sumerism. They set off out­side the Grafton Cen­tre shop­ping mall car­ry­ing plac­ards with slo­gans such as “Spend”, “Buy more stuff”, and “Cli­mate change is some­one else’s prob­lem”.

On Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16 a group of peo­ple in Cam­bridge held a March for Con­sumerism. They set off out­side the Grafton Cen­tre shop­ping mall car­ry­ing plac­ards with slo­gans such as “Spend”, “Buy more stuff”, and “Cli­mate change is some­one else’s prob­lem”.

The pro­test­ers received many quizzi­cal glances and even struck up a few con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple walk­ing down Burleigh Street and Fitzroy Street. A police offi­cer stopped to talk to the pro­test­ers but seemed to be hap­py for them to con­tin­ue their march as long as they did­n’t go in the mall. The pro­test­ers also gave out a leaflet which point­ed out the links between unnec­es­sary con­sumerism, the exploita­tion of work­ers, and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems such as cli­mate change.

Web­sites list­ed on the leaflet were:
Exploita­tion of work­ers: www.nosweat.org.uk
Cli­mate change: www.stopclimatechaos.org
Con­sumerism: www.enough.org.uk

http://www.cambridgeaction.net

Shell education in Barnsley

On Sat­ur­day 16th Decem­ber poten­tial cus­tomers at a Shell petrol sta­tion in Barns­ley were giv­en infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of Shell in Mayo and encour­aged to boy­cott the com­pa­ny.

Barnsley Shell protest 1Barnsley Shell protest 2On Sat­ur­day 16th Decem­ber poten­tial cus­tomers at a Shell petrol sta­tion in Barns­ley were giv­en infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of Shell in Mayo and encour­aged to boy­cott the com­pa­ny.

A group from Rhythms of Resis­tance North moved in on the petrol sta­tion mid-after­noon. The entrance and exit were blocked, ban­ners hung and leaflets giv­en to motorists and pedes­tri­ans with infor­ma­tion about the Mayo pipeline. Many peo­ple received the infor­ma­tion sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly. One motorist returned from the near­est alter­na­tive source of petrol, two miles away, so peo­ple could be divert­ed to it.

Sev­er­al car dri­vers how­ev­er were very con­fronta­tion­al, dri­ving into sam­bis­tas and in one case forc­ing a play­er on to their car bon­net before brak­ing to cause her to fall off.
The first police to arrive read out var­i­ous threats, which couldn’t be heard above the drum beats. Even­tu­al­ly rein­force­ments arrived, adding to the chaos with a num­ber of vehi­cles of their own. For a while they held up the traf­fic so their pho­tog­ra­phers could get a bet­ter view.

When it came to the point of inevitable arrest for con­tin­u­ing the block­ade the sam­bis­tas decid­ed it would be more pro­duc­tive to move to the pave­ment and con­tin­ue draw­ing people’s atten­tion so they could be giv­en more infor­ma­tion. A fair pro­por­tion of car dri­vers chose not to enter the sta­tion even when the entrance was unblocked.

http://www.corribsos.com/

FARMER PULLS OUT OF GM CROP TRIAL (updated)

15 Decem­ber 2006
A Farmer who had agreed to genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes being grown on his land has pulled out of the scheme after receiv­ing threats.

The crops were to be plant­ed in Bor­rowash by BASF Plant Sci­ence, which was grant­ed per­mis­sion for the project by the Gov­ern­ment ear­li­er this year.

15 Decem­ber 2006
A Farmer who had agreed to genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes being grown on his land has pulled out of the scheme after receiv­ing threats.

The crops were to be plant­ed in Bor­rowash by BASF Plant Sci­ence, which was grant­ed per­mis­sion for the project by the Gov­ern­ment ear­li­er this year.

But yes­ter­day, it was revealed the farmer with whom the com­pa­ny had agreed a deal was not will­ing to go ahead.

BASF is also plan­ning a GM tri­al in Cam­bridgeshire.

A spokesman for the Depart­ment for Envi­ron­ment, Food and Rur­al Affairs, con­demned the peo­ple who had tar­get­ed the farmer.

He said: “This gen­tle­man has had some threats made against him and his fam­i­ly and so decid­ed he did­n’t want to par­tic­i­pate.

“It is up to the com­pa­ny to decide whether it will look for an alter­na­tive site.

“We think it is out­ra­geous this man has been threat­ened in this way.”

The pota­toes would have been chem­i­cal­ly altered to con­tain a gene from a vari­ety of wild pota­to that would have made them resis­tant to the late blight dis­ease.

Late blight, which sparked the Irish pota­to famine, affects between five and 10 per cent of UK pota­to crops each year.

BASF Plant Sci­ence had planned to start the tri­al in Der­byshire next March or April. It would have last­ed sev­er­al years.

The com­pa­ny did not reveal the loca­tion of the tri­al to try to pro­tect the farmer from oppo­nents of the scheme, who claim GM crops pose a threat to the envi­ron­ment when seeds spread in the wild.

Some res­i­dents of Bor­rowash were con­cerned about the crops tri­al. Jack­ie Flint, of Cole Lane, said: “There were many peo­ple who were wor­ried about it going ahead around here, so I think it will be seen as good news that it’s been stopped.”

No-one from BASF Plant Sci­ence, a plant biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny based in Lon­don, was avail­able for com­ment last night.
————-
BASF is expect to con­firm anoth­er tri­al site with­in two weeks, but could not say if it would be in Der­byshire.

Dine’ Establish Blockade Near Proposed Power Plant Site

Decem­ber 14th 2006

Lucy A. Willie, right, stands at the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant site out­side of Burn­ham on Wednes­day where she and sev­er­al friends and fam­i­ly stayed overnight to stop a con­trac­tor for Desert Rock Ener­gy Com­pa­ny from doing pre­lim­i­nary work.

Dine blockadeDecem­ber 14th 2006

Lucy A. Willie, right, stands at the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant site out­side of Burn­ham on Wednes­day where she and sev­er­al friends and fam­i­ly stayed overnight to stop a con­trac­tor for Desert Rock Ener­gy Com­pa­ny from doing pre­lim­i­nary work.

Please send far and wide!!!!

URGENT Sup­port is request­ed from Dine Elders and Youth!

Sithe Glob­al & DPA are propos­ing to build the Desert Rock pow­er plant, a 1,500 MW Coal Fired plant in the Four Cor­ners area on the Nava­jo Reser­va­tion. This is an area already pol­lut­ed by 2 oth­er major coal pow­er plants. Local Nava­jo res­i­dence and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers oppose this project for many harm­ful rea­sons!! This Desert Rock pow­er plant is still in the envi­ron­men­tal review process and has NOT yet been per­mit­ted.

How­ev­er, Desert Rock com­pa­ny trucks have began mov­ing onto the back­yard of Alice Gilmore, an elder­ly nava­jo woman, and her fam­i­ly on wednes­day to begin drilling efforts. Desert Rock offi­cials and police have not shown any doc­u­ments or per­mits to the local res­i­dents stat­ing their pur­pose or per­mis­sion to be there. Dine sup­port­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have joined Alice and her fam­i­ly to block­ade the road. They are elder­ly women and youth, and they have been camped out on the road over night since Tues­day! Desert Rock trucks have repeat­ed­ly rushed them and have almost run-over peo­ple a num­ber of times as they attempt to get by. Desert Rock pow­er com­pa­ny is vio­lat­ing the lease rights of the local Nava­jo res­i­dences and is harass­ing elder­ly Nava­jo women and youth! This is an urgent time and sup­port is need­ed!!!

Please read on to find out how you can help! and Please pass this onto oth­ers! (press release and addi­tion­al arti­cle)

What they need:
— More Peo­ple Sup­port
— Fire wood
— $$
— Atten­tion!

how You can Help!

- More Peo­ple! More peo­ple are need­ed to sit in sup­port! All are wel­come!
direc­tions to the area are below:
The site is between Gallup, NM and Shiprock, NM (north­east­ern, NM). Take the road between Gallup and Shiprock, the 491. at the Mus­tang Ser­vice Sta­tion (one of the only ser­vice sta­tions between the two), turn East on road #5 towards Burn­ham Chap­ter. From Burn­ham Chap­ter turn North onto grav­el road #5082. About 10–12 miles up the road turn West until you see the encamp­ment. There will be mark­ers (bal­loons) out on the roads. (if you begin to see a dragline, you’ve gone too far)

- Fire wood! it is cold out­side and many of the resisters are elder­ly women. if you can get fire­wood to the site it is very very much need­ed! the direc­tions to the site are above.

- $ Mon­ey! Resisters are in need of mon­ey for gas and food, and also for bail mon­ey if nec­es­sary. Please send dona­tions to local res­i­dent and sup­port­er:
Elouise Brown
1015 Glade Lane 34
Farm­ing­ton, NM 87401
Elouise can also be reached at: thebrownmachine@hotmail.com

- ATTENTION! the more media and observers are present the least like­ly Desert Rock is like­ly to run peo­ple over or harass them. con­tact the media, tell them what is going on. Con­tact Nava­jo Author­i­ties, tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned. Be a legal observ­er. Spread this Alert!

###

Con­tact the Fol­low­ing Author­i­ties! Tell them you have heard about Desert Rock­’s harass­ment of Nava­jo elders and youth. Tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned! If enough peo­ple con­tact these offices they will know that the world is watch­ing.

Shiprock Police Depart­ment
phone: (505) 368‑1350
fax: (505) 368‑1293

Nava­jo Nation Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley’s Office
P.O. Box 9000 Win­dow Rock, Ari­zona, 86515
phone #: (928) 871- 6352

also: George Hard­een, Nava­jo Nation Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Office of the Pres­i­dent
Office #: 928–871-7000
Cell #: 928–380-7688
e‑mail: georgehardeen@opvp.org

Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (Gallup Office) they are con­duct­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment.
Har­ri­lene Yazzi, NEPA Coor­di­na­tor Bureau of Indi­an Affairs, Nava­jo Region­al Office
P.0. Box 1060 Gallup, New Mex­i­co 87305
Phone: 505–863-8314
Fax: 505–863-8324

Be a Legal Observ­er — get to the site and help record/witness what is hap­pen­ing

Send this Action Alert Far and Wide!

Thank you for your sup­port!!!

Enei Begaye
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Black Mesa Water Coali­tion
408 E. Route 66, Suite #1
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Office #: (928) 213‑9760
PRESS RELEASE
Wednes­day, Decem­ber 13, 2006

Con­tacts:
Sarah Jane White, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 860‑6166
Dailan J. Long , Diné CARE, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 801‑0713
Elouise Brown, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 974‑6159
Lori Good­man, Diné CARE (970) 759‑1908

BURNHAM, SANOSTEE & NENANEZAH RESIDENTS BLOCKADE DESERT ROCK PROJECT

Burn­ham, NM –Burn­ham, Sanos­tee & Nenanezah Elders and cit­i­zens are brav­ing the cold to pro­tect the land from the encroach­ing Diné Pow­er Author­i­ty (DPA) and Sithe Glob­al LLC at the pro­posed Desert Rock site. Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Tues­day after­noon after learn­ing of water drilling that had been occur­ring with­out the knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local res­i­dents.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore exclaimed to Sithe/DPA employ­ees at the con­fronta­tion. For Gilmore, the issue is despi­ca­ble and uncalled for since she gave no con­sent to allow DPA/Sithe into her graz­ing area. Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port her oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close Drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur, to no avail. The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and have remained in place since the Tues­day inci­dent occurred.

Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met this morn­ing at the Shiprock Cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits yet the Lieu­tenant Dempsey denied access to Gilmore and oth­er con­cerned res­i­dents to view the per­mits. Res­i­dents are ask­ing for: 1.) A copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion that is allow­ing the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence. 2.) Copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met. There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activ­i­ty.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad. The bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad has been moved south for ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe as recent­ly as two years ago.

“The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€? Stat­ed, Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee.

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments. “We’re fed up with them,â€? states Sarah J. White, Pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee, “the grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€? This inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.
###

Lori Good­man
Dine’ CARE
10 A Town Plaza, PMB 138
Duran­go, CO 81301
PH: (970) 259‑0199
FAX: (970) 259‑2300
Cell: (970) 759‑1908
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

=====================================================================

Nava­jo tra­di­tion­al elders block­ade pow­er plant site

By Bren­da Nor­rell
U.N. OBSERVER & Inter­na­tion­al Report

BURNHAM, NEW MEXICO, USA – Elder­ly Nava­jo women and their chil­dren formed a block­ade, built a fire and camped at the site of a pro­posed pow­er plant on trib­al land in north­west New Mex­i­co. The block­ade of tra­di­tion­al Nava­jos halt­ed site work in a region that is already tox­ic with air and water pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants, oil and gas wells and
scat­tered radioac­tive tail­ings from the Cold War.

Fac­ing the threat of arrest by trib­al police at the block­ade, Nava­jo elder­ly, includ­ing one med­i­cine man, said they are will­ing to go to jail to pro­tect their land and way of life.

Most of the elder­ly are already ill from liv­ing in an area where pow­er plants have released 100 tons of coal com­bus­tion waste that is blow­ing in the wind. One of the Nava­jo elder­ly resisters is in a wheel­chair and anoth­er has severe asth­ma.

For the sec­ond night on Wednes­day night, Dec. 13, Nava­jo resisters camped in the cold at the site.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? said Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore, who holds the graz­ing per­mit for the area of the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant. The Nava­jo Nation and Sithe Glob­al LLC plan to build the pow­er plant, which would be the third pow­er plant in the Farmington/Bloomfield area.

Con­fronting Sithe and Nava­jo DPA employ­ees, Gilmore was adamant that she has not giv­en per­mis­sion for the pow­er plant on her land. Nava­jo elders from Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah chap­ter, all tak­ing a bold action to fight the trib­al gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate aggres­sion, joined Gilmore at the block­ade.

“We’re fed up with them,â€? said Sarah J. White, pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee. “The grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€?

White said Nava­jos at the bar­ri­cade need every­thing in the way of food, fire­wood and sup­plies.

“We need every­thing from A to Z,â€? White said.

The block­ade was formed just 10 days after Nava­jo Nation elect­ed lead­ers gath­ered with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 14 coun­tries and for­mu­lat­ed a glob­al ban on ura­ni­um min­ing on Native lands. The pow­er plant block­ade also comes as Nava­jo Nation lead­ers are fight­ing in the
fed­er­al Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals to pro­tect San Fran­cis­co Peaks near Flagstaff, Ariz., from the des­e­cra­tion of snow­mak­ing from recy­cled waste­water for tourism. The moun­tain is sacred to 13 area Indi­an tribes.

How­ev­er, both Nava­jo Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley, Jr., and the Nava­jo Nation Coun­cil sup­port the con­struc­tion of the Desert Rock Pow­er Plant and accom­pa­ny­ing coalmine, which Nava­jos say would add more pol­lu­tion to the air, land and water, already sat­u­rat­ed with dis­ease-caus­ing tox­ins.

The Nava­jo Nation trib­al gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to cen­sor the voic­es of Nava­jos speak­ing out against the Desert Rock pow­er plant in New Mex­i­co and the use of aquifer water for coal min­ing by Peabody Coal on the west­ern side of the Nava­jo Nation in Ari­zona.

The pro­posed site of the new Desert Rock pow­er plant is in the Four Cor­ners Region, tar­get­ed since the 1970s as a nation­al sac­ri­fice area for ener­gy pro­duc­tion.

It is also the sacred region of Dine­tah, the place of ori­gin of Nava­jos. How­ev­er, the air is so pol­lut­ed in the region of Dine­tah near Bloom­field that per­sons with asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases find it dif­fi­cult to breathe.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say while they strug­gle with res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, can­cer and the death of their loved ones in this region, many Nava­jos must also haul water and live with­out elec­tric­i­ty, since the pow­er plants on Nava­jo land pri­mar­i­ly pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty for non-Indi­ans.

The Nava­jo block­ade comes as O’odham in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, chal­lenge a secret plan by the gov­ern­ment of Mex­i­co, with the knowl­edge of the US EPA, to cre­ate a haz­ardous waste dump near the sacred site of Quito­vac where O’odham hold cer­e­monies. The Nava­jo block­ade coin­cides with an action by Pima on Gila Riv­er trib­al land in Ari­zona to halt expan­sion
of a haz­ardous dump­site.

At the same time, Yaqui in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, gath­ered to pro­hib­it the use of banned pes­ti­cides in agri­cul­tur­al fields, now result­ing in can­cer and deaths.

At the pro­posed new Desert Rock pow­er plant site in New Mex­i­co, Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Dec. 12, after dis­cov­er­ing that water drilling was car­ried out with­out the knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local Nava­jo res­i­dents.

Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port Gilmore’s oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur. How­ev­er, no per­mits were pro­vid­ed.

The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and Nava­jos remained at the block­ade.

Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met Dec. 13, at the Shiprock trib­al cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits. Nava­jo res­i­dents said a trib­al police lieu­tenant denied Gilmore and oth­er res­i­dents access to view the per­mits.

Nava­jo res­i­dents are ask­ing for a copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion, which would allow the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence, and copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met.

“There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activity,â€? Nava­jo res­i­dents said in a pub­lic state­ment.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say trib­al bound­ary lines were redrawn to accom­mo­date the pow­er plant cor­po­ra­tion.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad.

Nava­jo res­i­dents said the bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad was moved to the south for the ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe with­in the past two years.

Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee said, “The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€?

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments.

Nava­jos said this inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Nava­jo block­ade:
Lori Good­man
Dine’ CARE
PH: (970) 259‑0199
FAX: (970) 259‑2300
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

Your mission, should you choose to accept it… (report from activist security gathering)

ID cards, injunc­tions, CCTV with voice acti­vat­ed alerts, nation­al license plate mon­i­tor­ing, face recog­ni­tion, direc­tion­al micro­phones, net­work pro­fil­ing, DNA data­bas­es, key­log­ging, phone tap­ing, bug­ging and track­ing, these are just some of the tools of repres­sion being used against those bat­tling to save the world from total dom­i­na­tion and destruc­tion.

ID cards, injunc­tions, CCTV with voice acti­vat­ed alerts, nation­al license plate mon­i­tor­ing, face recog­ni­tion, direc­tion­al micro­phones, net­work pro­fil­ing, DNA data­bas­es, key­log­ging, phone tap­ing, bug­ging and track­ing, these are just some of the tools of repres­sion being used against those bat­tling to save the world from total dom­i­na­tion and destruc­tion.

This mes­sage will self destruct in 10 sec­onds.… 9.. 8.. 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

One might think that this is some cloak and dag­ger spy thriller, or orwellian distopia — but todays world is one of overt and covert sur­veil­lance and repres­sion. The likes of you and me are the tar­get and this is no para­noid delus­sion — they real­ly are out to get us.

This was the stark real­i­ty pre­sent­ed at a top secret con­fer­ence on activist secu­ri­ty that took place this month. Meet­ing in a quite loca­tion some­where near the coast, dozens of cam­paign­ers from around the coun­try came togeth­er to learn about the tech­nol­o­gy and tech­niques being used by the author­i­ties and pri­vate agen­cies as they attempt to gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion and dis­rupt and destroy cam­paigns.

The aim of the gath­er­ing how­ev­er was not to make every­one para­noid and feel help­less in the face of the tech­no­log­i­cal assaults on our pri­va­cy, but rather to equipe peo­ple with the aware­ness and knowl­edge to enable them to take steps to reduce the risk to them­selves and those they asso­ciate with.

The two day con­fer­ence involved a wide vari­ety of work­shops, some dis­cus­sion-based, some prac­ti­cal or com­put­er-based. Lessons learned by those attend­ing includ­ed the impor­tance of ‘need to know’, the now proven fact that switch­ing off a mobile phone is not enough to pre­vent it being remote­ly acti­vat­ed as a bug or track­ing device. Also dis­cussed was how to spot and loss a tail, how to trap and expose infil­tra­tors, issues of secu­ri­ty for cam­paign groups and their offices such as main­tain­ing a secure con­tacts data­base. Com­put­er based skills cov­ered includ­ed encryp­tion of stored data and elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and ways to use the inter­net for research etc with­out leav­ing a trace.

Mush of the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed dur­ing the work­shops came from the doc­u­ment ‘Prac­ti­cal Secu­ri­ty Advice for Cam­paigns and Activists’ and this, along with the expe­ri­ences and ideas con­tributed by the par­tic­i­pants of the gath­er­ing are appar­ent­ly going to be put togeth­er as a print­ed book­let for dis­tru­bu­tion next year. Addi­tion­al­ly there are plans for a ‘walls have ears’ style poster out­lin­ing basic pre­cau­tions which can be dis­place in meet­ing spaces and social cen­tres etc to remind peo­ple of the need to con­sid­er secu­ri­ty.

info@activistsecurity.org
http://www.activistsecurity.org/

21 Arrests as British Nuclear Weapon Sites Disrupted

11.12.2006

1st report: This morn­ing the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine base at Faslane and the atom­ic weapons fac­to­ry at Alder­mas­ton have both been the focus of dis­rup­tion as activists block­ad­ed entrance gates.

11.12.2006

1st report: This morn­ing the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine base at Faslane and the atom­ic weapons fac­to­ry at Alder­mas­ton have both been the focus of dis­rup­tion as activists block­ad­ed entrance gates.

At Faslane the North gate was block­ad­ed by activists from the Tri­dent Ploughshares cam­paign. The gate­way was blocked around 7 a.m. by a group of cyclists who formed a cor­don and then locked on to each oth­er using chains and pad­locks. Short­ly after­wards anoth­er group on foot block­ad­ed the gate­way by lying in the road, joined to each oth­er through tub­ing of plas­tic and oth­er mate­ri­als. Police, using spe­cialised cut­ting teams, removed these block­ages and made 14 arrests.

At the same time a group from Faslane Peace Camp blocked the road at the entrance to the South gate of the base, using lock-on tubes and bar­rels filled with con­crete. It took two hours to clear the road­way. There were 7 arrests.

The Faslane protests are part of the Faslane 365 cam­paign which so far has led to over 350 arrests.

2nd report: Faslane Nuclear base suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed for over 2 hours

Gar­ry | 13.12.2006 19:01 | Faslane | Anti-mil­i­tarism | Scot­land
Mon­day the 11th of Decem­ber saw one of the most suc­cess­ful block­ades of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base since the start of the Faslane 365 cam­paign. The block­ade was a joint effort between a group of Tri­dent Ploughshares and the crew from Faslane Peace camp.

Mon­day the 11th of Decem­ber saw one of the most suc­cess­ful block­ades of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base since the start of the Faslane 365 cam­paign. The block­ade was a joint effort between a group of Tri­dent Ploughshares and the crew from Faslane Peace camp. One of the roads to the base was com­plete­ly block­ad­ed for 2 hours and 10 min­utes. In a day that saw 20 peo­ple being arrest­ed and the run­ning total ris­ing above 365 peo­ple, 3 of the block­aders have actu­al­ly been sum­moned to court on charges of breach of the peace.

At approx­i­mate­ly 6:30 am a group of peo­ple from the peace camp assem­bled by the road lead­ing to the base just by the south gate. After wait­ing for one of the patrolling police vans to dri­ve past, they pulled part of the fence of the peace camp out into the mid­dle of the road cre­at­ing a tem­po­rary bound­ary between them­selves and the police who were not much more than 100 metres away. Behind this fence they had hid­den 2 large oil bar­rel lock-ons which were rolled out onto the road, 3 peo­ple locked onto them in a line then 3 oth­ers joined them with 2 tough steel lock-on tubes, and anoth­er “babyâ€? oil-drum lock on cre­at­ing a daisy chain of six peo­ple with 5 pret­ty hard­core lock-ons.

It took the police about 20 sec­onds to arrive on the scene by which point they had suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the main road between Helens­burgh and the base. The police called for back up and for the cut­ting teams and with­in min­utes there were between 30 and 40 police on the scene. They imme­di­ate­ly got to work cut­ting into the lock-ons and were as usu­al very con­cerned not to let any­body see what sort of cut­ting equip­ment they were using to the extent that they erect­ed large visu­al bar­ri­ers to con­ceal their work. Peace campers did how­ev­er man­age to get footage of their equip­ment from our birds eye observers in the trees. They had 3 sep­a­rate cut­ting units at work on us yet it still took them 130 min­utes to clear the road. 7 peo­ple were arrest­ed at this inci­dent 6 for blockad­ing and one for pos­sess­ing a rope and har­ness.

As this block­ade was hap­pen­ing a sec­ond group block­ad­ed the entrance to the base at the north gate. The group of Tri­dent Ploughshares block­ad­ed the round-about by chain­ing their bicy­cles togeth­er and lock­ing them­selves to them with D‑locks around their necks. Oth­ers were arrest­ed for sim­ply cycling around the round­about slow­ly. This block­ade was suc­cess­ful in shut­ting down the road for half an hour. Both block­ades togeth­er ensured that the work of the base was severe­ly dis­rupt­ed for the whole morn­ing.

Of the 20 peo­ple arrest­ed all have been released but 3 of the releas­es were under con­di­tion that they will appear in court on the 20th of Decem­ber. These are the first of the 360 odd peo­ple that have been arrest­ed to be for­mal­ly charged with breach of the peace and gives an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the first time since the launch of Faslane 365 to actu­al­ly bring the legal­i­ty of the Tri­dent sys­tem into ques­tion in court. Par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant since the announce­ment by Blair that Tri­dent is to be replaced despite being ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law.

We are now wit­ness­ing an esca­la­tion of the cam­paign against the spec­tre of nuclear war. Expect to see much more civ­il soci­ety resis­tance through­out next year as the Faslane 365 cam­paign comes to a cli­max.

www.faslane365.org
www.tridentploughshares.org
www.cnduk.org
www.peacenews.info/
www.faslane.co.nr/

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Aldermaston arrestSev­en peo­ple have been arrest­ed dur­ing an action which blocked two gates at the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment at Alder­mas­ton this morn­ing.

The Alder­mas­ton bomb fac­to­ry, where prepa­ra­tions are being made for a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons for the UK, has also been block­ad­ed this morn­ing by the Block the Builders cam­paign. The “Home Office” gate of the site was closed, caus­ing a tail­back of work­er traf­fic as far as the A4.

The protest at Alder­mas­ton was part of an ongo­ing cam­paign against the £5.3 bil­lion devel­op­ment at Alder­mas­ton which will not only pro­vide infor­ma­tion for the British nuclear pro­gramme but also for the US pro­gramme under the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion under the Mutu­al Defence Agree­ment. The facil­i­ties include a new laser sys­tem which will help sci­en­tists cre­ate con­di­tions sim­i­lar to that inside a nuclear bomb to allow more accu­rate mod­el­ling. This allows Britain and the US to cir­cum­vent the Com­pre­hen­sive Test Ban Treaty which bans the actu­al test­ing of nuclear weapons.

http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/
http://www.cnduk.org/pages/altwhitepaper.pdf

A Tri­dent Ploughshares spokesper­son said: “Our gov­ern­ment, far from hon­est­ly mov­ing towards dis­ar­ma­ment, is plan­ning to tie us to weapons of mass destruc­tion for the next 50 years. We must do what we can to put a spoke in the wheel of this ongo­ing crime. Tri­dent, present or future, is an instru­ment for bul­ly­ing and mind­less, unre­strained vio­lence. It belongs to a mind­set of threat, hatred and fear and is the very oppo­site of what we need at this crit­i­cal stage in the his­to­ry of the human race.”

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Invitation:building support for action against climate change: 14th December, Manchester

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

We met at the North­ern Eco-Action gath­er­ing in Brad­ford on Novem­ber 11. At a pro­duc­tive and ener­gis­ing meet­ing, we came up with a list of con­crete sug­ges­tions, and a whole load more ques­tions to be answered. A report of
the meet­ing is attached.

We’ll be tak­ing these ques­tions for­ward at a fur­ther meet­ing, which will look at what we can best do to sup­port local actions and groups tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change, con­sid­er how best to stay in touch and share skills and resources. Pro­pos­als from this meet­ing will be brought to the next gath­er­ing in Leeds in Jan­u­ary.

We’ll be meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 14, 11am-5pm. Bring food to share for lunch.
The venue is at Bridge‑5 Mill (oth­er­wise known as MER­Ci) — ful­ly acces­si­ble & close to Man­ches­ter Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion, details at http://www.merci.org.uk/visiting-b5m.php

We will be putting peo­ple’s thoughts and respons­es online in the lead-up to the meet­ing. Two of these are below: one a report from a work­shop at the Earth­First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, one the reflec­tions of one of the par­tic­i­pants at the meet­ing in Brad­ford. If you have some­thing to con­tribute to the debate that you would like peo­ple to read before we
meet, please email it to actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk and we’ll cir­cu­late it to those who are com­ing.

If you want to read any oth­er thoughts sent out before the meet­ing, or if you’re like­ly to arrive late or need some­where to stay, please email actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk to let us know you’re com­ing.

“Sup­port­ing rad­i­cal action against cli­mate change across the coun­try

Report from meet­ing Sat­ur­day 11 Novem­ber, Brad­ford Resource Cen­tre
(Meet­ing to devel­op ways of sup­port­ing local cli­mate action groups and actions, how to stay in touch and how to share skills and resources. Plus co-ordi­nat­ed days of actions.)

We start­ed by look­ing at what we need in order for lots of actions to be tak­ing place.

Broad­ly speak­ing, they fell into two cat­e­gories. The more abstract:

- inspi­ra­tion
— buzz
— ener­gy
— (feel­ing of) a crit­i­cal mass tak­ing part in actions
— sense of urgency
— hope

and the more con­crete:

- peo­ple find­ing out about actions so they can get involved
— feel­ing of suc­cess (and pub­li­cis­ing our suc­cess­es)
— skills
— mon­ey
— infor­ma­tion resources
— feel­ing of dif­fer­ence from approach­es and tac­tics that haven’t worked in the past
— lessening/avoiding/ability to resist state oppres­sion
— strate­gic reflec­tion

We felt that the more con­crete needs would fol­low rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­ly if the first were met: peo­ple’s ener­gy and inspi­ra­tion would mean that mon­ey is raised, infor­ma­tion resources get researched and dis­trib­uted, etc..

We iden­ti­fied as the main cat­a­lyst to inspi­ra­tion and ener­gy was pos­i­tive reports of suc­cess from lots of actions tak­ing place. So, the ques­tion became: where is the best place to con­cen­trate our ener­gy and resources to influ­ence and estab­lish the pos­i­tive feed­back loop that would lead to an esca­la­tion of direct action tak­ing place?

As a pre­cur­sor to eval­u­at­ing this, we tried to list some of the more and less con­crete things that would be like­ly to have this input, some steps that could be tak­en. This list is not com­pre­hen­sive, but reflects the direc­tions our think­ing and dis­cus­sion took on the day.

Resource packs
— brief­in­gs
— tem­plate actions
— press releas­es
— poten­tial tar­gets
— legal brief­in­gs
— reports of suc­cess sto­ries
— leaflets
— stick­ers
— oth­er mer­chan­dise: beer mats, brand­ed con­doms, lol­lipops etc.
— dif­fer­ent modes of how local groups might organ­ise
— poten­tial­ly use­ful action tat (e.g. dinghies)

Skill­shar­ing

Secure means of com­mu­ni­cat­ing and net­work­ing

Con­ver­gence
— face-to-face meet­ings
— par­ties
— big actions
— treeplant­i­ng

Pub­li­cis­ing actions
— print media: ours
— EF! update
— schnews
— local newssheets
— print media: oth­ers’ (we pro­vide the sto­ries, they pub­lish)
— lib­er­al press (often keen for sto­ries, some­times sym­pa­thet­ic)
— more main­stream press
— cas­cad­ing, decen­tralised meth­ods, e.g.:
— word-of-mouth
— stick­ers
— graf­fi­ti
— email
— film show­ings
— web-based
— EF! action reports
— indy­media
— indy­media cli­mate
— ris­ing tide
— cli­mate camp
(also use of email and web for dis­tri­b­u­tion of paper-based media)

Ways in
— dis­tri­b­u­tion of newssheets
— dis­tri­b­u­tion lists
— peo­ple to help!
— friend­ship net­works
— local groups con­tacts — pub­li­cised (not nec­es­sar­i­ly a group: can be person(s) up for stiff if more want to get involved)
— pub­lic meet­ings and gath­er­ings
— pres­ence on demos, at con­fer­ences, fes­ti­vals
— big, adver­tised pub­lic actions
— stalls
— gate­way actions/groups
— road­show

Kick­start actions
— local
— big­ger

Iden­ti­ty
— net­work iden­ti­ty rather than move­ment iden­ti­ty
— het­ero­ge­neous mem­ber­ship
— exist­ing net­works
— indi­vid­u­als
— groups
— friend­ship groups

Note on local organ­is­ing (par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant for con­tacts and for resource packs)
All local groups are dif­fer­ent, and what works some­where might not be the best way of organ­is­ing in a dif­fer­ent area. There are lots of suc­cess­ful ways of organ­is­ing, includ­ing
— one ‘action group’ with a broad­ly con­sis­tent mem­ber­ship but chang­ing focus, per­haps doing actions under dif­fer­ent ban­ners
— dif­fer­ent groups with peo­ple who attend more than one as infor­mal links
— dif­fer­ent groups with a forum in which they come togeth­er
— there is no local group, but peo­ple occa­sion­al­ly come togeth­er to do stuff
We should­n’t be pre­scrip­tive: there are as many sorts of local organ­is­ing as there are local groups.

The way for­ward from here:
The main task ahead is to work out how we can best use our resources for the great­est effect. This goes both for which areas we pri­ori­tise, and how we can best tack­le each area. In look­ing at, say, web-based pub­lic­i­ty, we need to look at what it is we need to ful­fill our aims, eval­u­ate whether any of the exist­ing fora meet these aims, and if not, if it would be pos­si­ble to trans­form them into some­thing more use­ful for our pur­pos­es, and the like­ly effort involved in this (worth com­par­ing with, say, resources to set some­thing up from scratch.)”

“NOTES FROM EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Work­shop:
Build­ing a move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice beyond the Camp for Cli­mate Action

Most inter­est­ing is sec­tion 3 — HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?

1 WHAT SHOULD IT ACHIEVE?
* Dis­man­tle the fos­sil fuel indus­try (and there­fore Cap­i­tal­ism)
* Place CC at the cen­ter of social thinking/culture in wider soci­ety, not just us
* Pro­vide sup­port for each oth­er – know­ing that oth­ers are work­ing on the same issues
* Devel­op renew­able ener­gy, decen­tralised around the coun­try, local­ly run
* Devel­op and set up work­able alter­na­tives
* Aware­ness rais­ing and edu­ca­tion
* Work to reduce consumption/demand – also means reshap­ing how we think about eco­nom­ic growth/progress
* Focus on aviation/aviation as a new anti-roads move­ment?
* Focus on Nuclear be ready for nuclear new build with strong argu­ments and analy­sis

2 WHAT WOULD THE NETWORK DO/ HOW WOULD IT BE DIFFERENT?
* Direct action!
* Build­ing hous­ing co-op move­ment, urban/rural links to re-local­i­sa­tion
* Rad­i­cal analy­sis not piss­ing about
* Think long term re-local­i­sa­tiom (with­in the mov­ment also)
* Work­ing in com­mu­ni­ties allot­ments, res­i­dents groups.
* Works with NIMBY groups re aviation/nuclear.
* Links with major­i­ty world.
* Find weak points in sys­tem now increas­ing­ly info/communications rather than phys­i­cal spaces.

3 HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?
* Need a group/named net­work to feel part of, to feel belong­ing and sense of sup­port
* Set­ting up new net­work seems inef­fi­cient why not use whats already there Ris­ing Tide Net­work? has basic struc­ture in place, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deci­sion mak­ing struc­tures, news-sheet, web-host­ing, etc., inter­na­tion­al ele­ment RT North Amer­i­ca, Aus­tralia, etc
* No time for lob­by­ing gov­ern­ment
* Use social cen­tres
* Gath­er­ings for deci­sions mak­ing
* Region­al­ly based sup­port for local indi­vid­u­als

4 WHAT NEXT?
* Recog­nise that peo­ple are moti­vat­ed to come togeth­er to work on a spe­cif­ic action or project, rather than form a group for the sake of a group
* So har­ness the ener­gy com­ing out of the camp by call­ing for every­one to take part in spe­cif­ic upcom­ing actions it is this that will kick-start local groups
* Oct 3–4 Day of Action coin­cid­ing with G8 Ener­gy and Envi­ro min­is­ters meet­ing in Mex­i­co (called by Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca) soon but maybe good because there will still be a buzz on after the camp
* Oct 21st Shell spon­sored Wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the year award RT is doing a tour of the coun­try with peo­ple from Shell affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties (eg. Ross­port, Nige­ria), along with an alter­na­tive exhi­bi­tion, in the run up to the award win­ner being announced on Oct 21st. RT will only be able to get to a few cities peo­ple who come to the the camp could be part of/expand this?
* Feb­ru­ary 2007 pos­si­ble Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Shell (called by Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty)

* Anoth­er camp? Maybe local camps are more sus­tain­able, so no big camp next year but lots of small region­al camps.

* Also recog­nised that some new local groups will need sup­port Ris­ing Tide might be able to help, or at least help link up peo­ple who need skills/training with peo­ple who could pro­vide this”