We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Against the Cyborg Gaze: On Forward Intelligence Teams

Click here to access article by Theo Kindynis from Ceasefire (UK).

From the British section of the Empire we have this report that illustrates the advanced nature of the police state in Britain. The old seat of the British Empire is apparently a testing ground for the latest techniques for controlling a population. Methods that are found to be effective will no doubt be applied throughout the US Empire to crush dissent. In this report he describes the use of "Forward Intelligence Teams".
FITs are units comprising both uniformed police officers and (also uniformed) civilian photographers, tasked with conducting overt surveillance of the public during “public order events”. First introduced in the mid-90s in order to gather evidence against football hooligans, FITs’ scope has since been broadened to include political demonstrations and meetings, with their primary role now being to identify and obtain information about protesters.
Notice, however, that the British writer at this liberal website frames this ominous development as merely due to "today’s security-obsessed culture".