Element Descriptor

Know that police liaison officers are not, despite their chumminess, your friends, knowing how FITs work etc, means you are less likely to get yourself and colleagues in legal trouble. This is a good thing.

Level descriptors

NovicePractitionerExpertNinja
You are able to play a straight bat (variations on no-comment) and make most basic police attempts to extract useful information via liaison officers and FITs look ham-fisted. You’re able to do this without seeming tin-foil hat…You are able to deal with low-key and also determined and ‘in your face’ efforts at extracting information which could be useful in both court cases but also the more general “building a picture of an organisation” that is conducted…You’re able to explain and train folks in overcoming attempts by specialist police and security services outfits to crack operational security around nonviolent direct action for progressive social change.You are able to compare evidence gathering in historical context but also with regards to what is done in other comparable countries, and the new technological options for undermining democratic groups.

Element Overview Essay

This is a draft. If something doesn’t make sense, or you see typos, or if you have further ideas, please email us on contact@activecitizenshiptoolkit.net

The reason this is done badly, is that most people have watched too many episodes of CSI and don’t understand how evidence gathering is actually done at the forensic level, and a questioning of suspects level.

The consequences are that you’re either too paranoid and too worried about the wrong things, and too complacent at the same time, perhaps about other things.

The fixes are to do some research into how police gather information when they’re trying to build a case against citizens for civil disobedience and to act in ways that make it harder rather than easier for the police to build a case against you, unless, of course, you’re doing something deliberately arrestable and chargeable, because you are trying to make a point in court, and you’re perfectly happy to be convicted, in which case, you still want to know about the evidence gathering because you don’t want to incriminate people who are not down for fines or jail time, or criminal records, or whatever. And who would be extremely displeased to be caught up in your particular brand of activism.

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