Confidential Intelligence Unit

The Confidential Intelligence Unit (CIU) is a unit set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers to carry out covert monitoring of 'domestic extremism'.

Role

The job description for the head of the Confidential Intelligence Unit states that this individual would "manage the covert intelligence function for domestic extremism" and "make a significant contribution to the overall performance of the police service of England and Wales and the national Domestic Extremism units in reducing or removing the threat, criminality and public disorder that arises from domestic extremism in England and Wales specifically, and the UK generally."

Domestic extremism is not defined in the document but is divided into a number of categories:

• Animal Rights Extremism
• Environmental Extremism
• Extreme Right Wing
• Extreme Left Wing
• Emerging Threats

Press reports highlighted the breadth of interpretation to which these categories were open:

Targets will include environmental groups involved in direct action such as Plane Stupid, whose supporters invaded the runway at Stansted Airport in December.

The unit also aims to identify the ring-leaders behind violent demonstrations such as the recent anti-Israel protests in London, and to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups, animal liberation groups and organisations behind unlawful industrial action such as secondary picketing.

Running informers

Several points in the job description, highlight the covert role that the head of the Confidential Intelligence Unit is expected to play.

• Manage and direct the covert operational response to NCDE taskings’ and associated DE investigation strategies
• Where appropriate, set strategic direction to national intelligence collection plans, and covert intelligence development operations that may involve CHIS and technical assets.
• Represent NPOIU at Public Interest Immunity hearings, and legal meetings regarding sensitive source material

CHIS is an acronym for covert human intelligence sources, i.e. informers.

Databases

An article in the Guardian states that sensitive information from undercover officers, other informants in protest groups and covert intercepts are handled by the CIU, a section of the NPOIU. The database contains descriptions of people, their nicknames or pseudonyms, reports of their activities and photographs of them.

Controversy surrounding databases

As demonstrated by an article in The Guardian doubts surround the justification of these databases.

The only activists so far confirmed to be on the database are 85-year-old John Catt and his daughter Linda, two peaceful campaigners from Brighton. John Catt often goes to demonstrations, where he likes to take out his sketch pad and draw the scene.

Police files revealed how the NPOIU had logged their presence at more than 80 lawful demonstrations over four years, recording details such as their appearance and slogans on their T-shirts.

"The files recorded, for instance, how on the morning of 25 September 2005 John Catt was "clean shaven" when he attended a demonstration by Sussex Action for Peace. Another read: "John Catt sat on a folding chair [at the demonstration] and appeared to be sketching."

Catt and his daughter deny any involvement in criminal activity and neither of them have criminal records. Anton Setchell, the police chief who was previously in charge of "domestic extremism", told the Guardian in 2009 that it was possible that protesters with no criminal record were on the database but police would have to justify their inclusion.

"Just because you have no criminal record does not mean that you are not of interest to the police," he said. "Everyone who has got a criminal record did not have one once."

Structure

The CIU is a unit of the Association of Chief Police Officers. The job description for the unit's head states that they carry out their duties on behalf of the National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism. The head of the CIU is expected to be a Detective Chief Inspector who reports the Detective Superintendent heading the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPIOU). The head of the CIU is a member of the senior management team of the NPIOU and may be expected to function as its deputy head.

The CIU's status as a unit of ACPO, a private body, was highlighted by critics when the unit's existence became public. Henry Porter of the Guardian wrote:

It is evident that the CIU will not be troubled by any public accountability and that the individual who becomes its head will be able to make decisions unilaterally about the nation's politics. If all environmental groups are to be branded extreme, if those who demonstrate against the invasion of Gaza are, as a matter of course, to be regarded as a criminal threat, we will enter a period of enormous tension between the authorities and those people who wish to exercise their legitimate right to demonstrate.

Surveillance researcher Dr David Murakami Wood described the CIU as "effectively a kind of privatisation of MI5 functions."

it seems the only reasons for this new public-private initiative is to keep the CIU free from examination (and Freedom of Information requests) from the public and ‘off balance-sheet’ so not subject to National Audit Office or Parliamentary budgetary scrutiny. Yet in that case, how can its position within police headquarters be justified?

History

Details of the senior vacancies at the new unit were circulated to police forces in 2008, with a closing date for applications of 14 November 2008. The unit's existence was first reported in February 2008, when the Mail on Sunday published details of the job descriptions for the vacancies.

A number of critics followed the Mail in seeing the CIU as a revival of the kind of political policing carried out by MI5 and police Special Branches in the 1970s.

Future of the CIU

According to the NETCU website

following reviews within ACPO TAM and a HMIC Value for Money Review, it was agreed by the ACPO TAM board to merge the three Domestic Extremism units into single national function under a lead force.

The three "domestic-extremism' units in question are NPOIU, NETCU and NDET. They currently answer to ACPO.

The National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism, Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway, is currently managing the merger said "The three domestic extremism units were set up at different times during a six year period, with the current economic climate and the need to maximise resources it makes sense to merge."

An article in The Guardian on the three "domestic extremism" units working under the direction of Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway states that

concerns have been growing about the accountability and subject to agreement they will be taken over by the Met under a "lead force" agreement – the same way the Met has overall command of national counter-terrorism operations.

Affiliations

• Association of Chief Police Officers
• National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism
• National Public Order Intelligence Unit