EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
6 February 1998:
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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
_________________________________________
SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIONS ASSESSMENT
STOA
AN APPRAISAL OF TECHNOLOGIES
OF POLITICAL CONTROL
Working document
(Consultation version)
Luxembourg, 6 January 1998
PE 166 499
Directorate General for Research
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Cataloguing data: Title: An appraisal of technologies for political
control Publisher: European Parliament
Directorate General for Research
Directorate B
The STOA ProgrammeAuthor: Mr. Steve Wright - Omega Foundation -
Manchester Editor: Mr. Dick Holdsworth
Head of STOA UnitDate:6 January 1998PE Number: PE 166 499This document is
a working document. The current version is being circulated for
consultation. It is not an official publication of STOA or of the
European Parliament. This document does not necessarily represent the views of the European Parliament.
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AN APPRAISAL OF THE TECHNOLOGY OF POLITICAL CONTROL
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this report are fourfold: (i) to provide Members of the European Parliament with a guide to recent advances in the technology of political control; (ii) to identify, analyse and describe the current state of the art of the most salient developments; (iii) to present members with an account of current trends, both in Europe and Worldwide; and (iv) to develop policy recommendations covering regulatory strategies for their management and future control.
The report contains seven substantive sections which cover respectively:
(i) The role and function of the technology of political control;
(ii) Recent trends and innovations (including the implications of
globalisation, militarisation of police equipment, convergence of control systems deployed worldwide and the implications of increasing technology and decision drift);
(iii) Developments in surveillance technology (including the emergence of new forms of local, national and international communications interceptions networks and the creation of human recognition and tracking devices);
(iv) Innovations in crowd control weapons (including the evolution of a 2nd. generation of so called 'less-lethal weapons' from nuclear labs in the USA).
(v) The emergence of prisoner control as a privatised industry, whilst state prisons face increasing pressure to substitute technology for staff in cost cutting exercises and the social and political implications of replacing policies of rehabilitation with strategies of human warehousing.
(v) The use of science and technology to devise new efficient mark-free interrogation and torture technologies and their proliferation from the US & Europe.
(vi) The implications of vertical and horizontal proliferation of this technology and the need for an adequate political response by the EU, to ensure it neither threatens civil liberties in Europe, nor reaches the hands of tyrants.
The report makes a series of policy recommendations including the need for appropriate codes of practice. It ends by proposing specific areas where further research is needed to make such regulatory controls effective. The report includes a comprehensive bibliographical survey of some of the most relevant literature.
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AN APPRAISAL OF THE TECHNOLOGY OF POLITICAL CONTROL
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objectives of this report are fourfold: (i) to provide Members of the European Parliament with a guide to recent advances in the technology of political control; (ii) to identify. analyze and describe the current state of the art of the most salient developments; (iii) to present members with an account of current trends, both in Europe and Worldwide; and (iv) to develop policy recommendations covering regulatory strategies for their management and future control. The report includes a large selection of illustrations to provide Members of Parliament with a good idea of the scope of current technology together with a representative flavour of what lies on the horizon. The report contains seven substantive sections, which can be summarised as follows:
THE ROLE & FUNCTION OF POLITICAL CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES
This section takes into account the multi-functionality of much of this technology and its role in yielding an extension of the scope, efficiency and growth of policing power. It identifies the continuum of control which stretches from modem law enforcement to advanced state suppression, the difference being the level of democratic accountability in the manner in which such technologies are applied.
RECENT TRENDS & INNOVATIONS
Taking into account the problems of regulation and control and the potential possessed by some of these technologies to undermine international human rights legislation, the section examines recent trends and innovations. This section covers the trend towards militarisation of the police technologies and the paramilitarisation of military technologies with an overall technological and decision drift towards worldwide convergence of nearly all the technologies of political control. Specific advances in area denial, identity recognition, surveillance systems based on neural networks, discreet order vehicles, new arrest and restraint methods and the emergence of so called 'less lethal weapons' are presented. The section also looks at a darker side of technological development including the rise of more powerful restraint, torture, killing and execution technologies and the role of privatised enterprises in promoting it.
The EU is recommended to: (i) develop appropriate structures of accountability to prevent undesirable innovations emerging via processes of technological creep or decision drift; (ii) ensure that the process of adopting new systems for use in internal social and political control is transparent, open to appropriate political scrutiny and subject to democratic change should unwanted or unanticipated consequences emerge;
(iii) prohibit, or subject to stringent and democratic controls, any class of technology which has been shown in the past to be excessively injurious, cruel, inhumane or indiscriminate in its effects.
DEVELOPMENTS IN SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY
This section addresses the rapid and virtually unchecked proliferation of surveillance devices and capacity amongst both the private and public sectors. It discusses recent innovations which allow bugging, telephone monitoring, visual surveillance during night or day over large distances and the emergence of new forms of local, national and international communications interceptions networks and the creation of human recognition and tracking devices.
The EU is recommended to subject all surveillance technologies,
operations and practices to: (i) procedures ensuring democratic
accountability; (ii) proper codes of practice consistent with Data
protection legislation to prevent malpractice or abuse; (iii) agreed criteria on what constitutes legitimate surveillance targets, and what does not, and how such surveillance data is stored, processed and shared. These controls should be more effectively targeted at malpractice or illegal tapping by private companies and regulation further tightened to include additional safeguards against abuse as well as appropriate financial redress.
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The report discusses a massive telecommunications interceptions network operating within Europe and targeting the telephone, fax and email messages of private citizens, politicians, trade unionists and companies alike. This global surveillance machinery (which is partially controlled by foreign intelligence agencies from outside of Europe) has never been subject to proper parliamentary discussion on its role and function, or the need for limits to be put on the scope and extent of its activities. This section suggests that that time has now arrived and proposes a series of measures to initiate this process of reclaiming democratic accountability over such systems. It is suggested that all telephone interceptions by Member States should be subject to consistent criteria and procedures of public accountability and codes of practice. These should equally apply to devices which automatically create profiles of telephone calls and pattern analysis and require similar legal requirements to those applied for telephone or fax interception.
It is suggested that the rapid proliferation of CCTV systems in many Member States should be subject to a common and consistent set of codes of practice to ensure that such systems are used for the purpose for which they were authorised, that there is an effective assessment and audit of their use annually and an adequate complaints system is in place to deal with any grievances by ordinary people. The report recommends that such codes of practice anticipate technical change including the digital revolution which is currently in process, and ensure that each and every such advance is subject to a formal assessment of both the expected as well as the possible unforeseen implications.
INNOVATIONS IN CROWD CONTROL WEAPONS
This section addresses the evolution of new crowd control weapons, their legitimation, biomedical and political effects. It examines the specific introduction of new chemical, kinetic and electrical weapons, the level of accountability in the decision making and the political use of such technologies to disguise the level of violence being deployed by state security forces. The research used to justify the introduction of such technologies as safe is reanalysed and found to be wanting. Areas covered in more depth include CS and OC gas sprays, rubber and plastic bullets, multi-purpose riot tanks, and the facility of such technologies to exact punishment, with the possibility that they may also bring about anti-state retaliatory aggression which can further destabilise political conflict.
This section briefly analyses recent innovations in crowd control weapons (including the evolution of a 2nd. generation of so called 'less-lethal weapons' from nuclear labs in the USA) and concludes that they are dubious weapons based on dubious and secret research. The Commission should be requested to report to Parliament on the existence of formal liaison arrangements between the EU and the USA to introduce such weapons for use in streets and prisons here. The EU is also recommended to (i) establish objective common criteria for assessing the biomedical effects of all so called less lethal weapons and ensure any future authorization is based on independent research; (ii) ensure that all research used to justify the deployment of any new crowd control weapon in the EU is published in the open scientific press and subject to independent scientific scrutiny, before any authorization is given to deploy. In the meantime the Parliament is asked to reaffirm its current ban on plastic bullets and that all deployment of devices using peppergas (OC) be halted until such a time as independent European research on its risks has been undertaken and published.
NEW PRISON CONTROL SYSTEMS
This section reports on the emergence of prisoner control as a privatised industry, whilst state prisons face increasing pressure to substitute technology for staff in cost cutting exercises. It expresses concern about the social and political implications of replacing policies of rehabilitation with strategies of human warehousing and recommends common criteria for licensing all public and private prisons within the EU. At minimum this should cover operators responsibilities and prisoners rights in regard to rehabilitation requirements; UN Minimum Treatment of Prisoners rules banning the use of leg irons; the regulation and use of psychotropic drugs to control prisoners; the use of riot control, prisoner transport, restraint and extraction technologies. The report recommends a ban on (i) all automatic, mass. indiscriminate prisoner punishment technologies using less lethal istruments such as chemical
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irritant or baton rounds; (ii) kill fencing and lethal area denial systems; and (iii) all use of electro-shock, stun and electric restraint technology until and unless independent medical evidence can prove that it safe and will not contribute to either deaths in custody or inhumane treatment, torture or other cruel and unusual punishments.
INTERROGATION, TORTURE TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES
This section discusses the use of science and technology to devise new efficient mark-free interrogation and torture technologies and their proliferation from the US & Europe. Of particular concern is the use and abuse of electroshock devices and their proliferation. It is recommended that the commercial sale of both training in counter terror operations and any equipment which might be used in torture and execution, should be controlled by the criteria and measures outlined in the next section.
REGULATION OF HORIZONTAL PROLIFERATION
The implications for civil liberties and human rights of both the vertical and horizontal proliferation of this technology are literally awesome. There is a pressing need for an adequate political response by the EU, to ensure it neither threatens civil liberties in Europe, nor reaches the hands of tyrants. The European Council agreed in Luxembourg in 1991 and in Lisbon in 1992 a set of eight Common Criteria for Arms Exports which set out conditions which should govern all decisions relating to the issue of licences for the export of arms and ammunition, one condition of which was "the respect of human rights in the country of final destination." Other conditions also relate to the overall protection of human rights. However these eight criteria are not binding on member states and there is no common interpretation on how they should be most effectively implemented. However, a code of conduct to achieve such an agreement was drawn up and endorsed by over 1000 Non-Governmental Organizations based in the European Union.
Whilst it is recognised that it is not the role of existing EU institutions to implement such measures as vetting and issuing of export licences, which are undertaken by national agencies of the EU Member States, it has been suggested by Amnesty International that the joint action procedure which was used to establish EU regulations on Export of Dual use equipment could be used to take such a code of practice further.
Amnesty suggest that the EU Member States should use the Joint Action procedures to draw up common lists of (i) proscribed military, security and police equipment and technology, the sole or primary use of which is to contribute to human rights violations; (ii) sensitive types of military, security or police equipment and technology which has been shown in practice to be used for human rights violations; and (iii)
military, security and police units and forces which have been
sufficiently responsible for human rights violations and to whom
sensitive goods and services should not be provided. The report makes recommendations to help facilitate this objective of denying repressive regimes access to advanced repression technologies made or supplied from Europe.
FURTHER RESEARCH
The report concludes by proposing a series of areas where new research is required including: (i) advanced area denial and less-lethal weapon systems; (ii) human identity recognition and tracking technologies;
(iii) the deployment of 'dum-dum' ammunition within the EU; (iv) the constitutional issues raised by the U.S. National Security Agency's access and facility to intercept all European telecommunications; (v) the social and political implications of further privatisation of the technologies of political control and (vi) the extent to which European based companies have been complicit in supplying equipment used for torture or other human rights violations and what new independent measures might be instituted to track such transfers.
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CONTENTS
AbstractExecutive SummaryAcknowledgements Table of Charts and Figures1
Introduction12Role and Function of Political Control Technologies 33
Recent Trends and Innovations64Developments in Surveillance Technology
155Innovations in Crowd Control Weapons 226New Prison Control Systems 40
7Interrogation, Torture Techniques and Technologies 448
Regulation of Horizontal Proliferation539Conclusions5910Notes and
References6011Bibliography [Separate file (85K); Zip-compressed version
32K]73Appendix 1. Military, Security & Police Fairs. [Not provided with
report]
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Whilst sole responsibility for the accuracy and contents of this study rest with the authors, the Omega Foundation would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for providing information and assistance to compile this report:
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the London School of Economics, London, U.K; Simon Davies and David Banisar of the London and Washington branche and David Banisar of the London and Washington branches of Privacy International; Tony Bunyan & Trevor Hemmings of Statewatch, London; John Stevenson, House of Commons, London; Julian Perry Robinson of Sussex University; Detlef Nogala of the University of Hamburg; Heiner Busch Of CILIP, Berlin; Hilary Kitchin of the Local Government Information Unit, London; The Committee For The Administration of Justice, Belfast; David Eisenberg, Center For Defense Information, Washington; Terry Allen of Covert Action Quarterly, Washington; Brian Wood of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, London; Kate O'Malley of Amnesty International U.K. Section London; Human Rights Watch, Washington; Lora Lumpe and Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, Washington; Brian Martin of the University of Wollongong, Australia;
Cathy Rodgers of RDF Films, London; Martyn Gregory Films, London and Dr.
Ray Downs, Program Manager of Technology Developm
Thanks are due to the Press officers serving the Northern Ireland Office, the British Army and RUC Information Offices between 1976 - 1982, who provided the comprehensive statistical data required to perform the quantitative analysis outlined in section 5.
We would also like to thank David Hoffman for permission to use many of the black and white images used to illustrate the text.
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Table of Charts
ChartTitlePage
No.1Declining Legitimacy and Repressive State Violence52The Pattern of Revolution73The Main Chemical Riot Control Agents124Comparative Impact Effects of Various 'Less Lethal' Kinetic Impact Weapons135US Human Engineering Laboratory Technology Assessment of Various 'Less Lethal' Kinetic Weapons266Trends in Riot Weapon Use in Northern Ireland from 1969-1986277Impact of Introduction of New Riot Weapons on the Level of Political Killings in Northern Ireland288Structure of Riot Weapon Use299Multi Variant Time Series Analysis of Northern Irish Conflict 1976-19813010Biderman's Chart of Coercion4811Pre-Interrogation Treatment Used on Detainees4912Techniques used by the British Army in Northern Ireland to Mimic Sensory Deprivation5013Police Torture Exports Licensed by the US Commerce Department 1991-199356
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Table of Figures
[JYA Note: Figures were not provided
Table of Figures
[JYA Note: Figures were not provided with the report]
Section 3. Recent Trends and Innovations
1 Public Order - Tactical Options
2 Convergence of Police and Military Systems
3 Interception - Punishment
4 Cochrane Area Denial
5 Fingerprint Recognition Systems
6 Night Vision. From Vietnam to Belfast
7 Discreet Order Vehicles
8 New Arrest & Restraint Methods
9 Convergence and Riot Technology
10 Insect Like Images of Riot Police
11 US Peppergas Adverts
12 'Dum Dum' ammunition and effects
13 Wound effects of expanding ammunition
14 Frag 12. Pre-fragmented exploding ammunition
15 Typical forms of execution technology
16 Targetted Execution Technology
17 Special Force Killing
Section 4. Developments in Surveillance Technology
18 Parabolic Microphone
19 JAI Stroboscopic Cameras
20 Automated Vehicle Recognition Systems
21 US Made cameras in Tiananmen Square
22 CCTV in Tibet
23 Video Capture/Video Fit
24 Taps and Bugs
25 US/UK NSA European Communication Interception Network
Section 5. Innovations in Crowd Control Weapons
26 The Philosophy of Crowd Control Weapons
27 Israeli and Chinese Riot Weapons
28 Chemical Spray Backpack & Effects
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Table of Figures (contd.)
Section 5. Contd.
29 Crowd Dispersion and Capture
30 French patients suffering severe burns from CS sprays
31 Capstun OC & Manufacture
32 British and German riot guns used in Northern Ireland
33 Injector Weapons
34 2nd Generation Less Lethal Weapons
35 Sticky Foam
36 Laser weapon systems
Section 6. New Prison Control Systems
37 Prison Control Technology
Section 7. Interrogation, Torture Techniques and Technology
38 Redress Trust Map of Torture States
39 Restraining Technology. Hiatt Leg Irons. Chinese Thumb Cuffs
40 British and Chinese Thumb Cuffs & Leg Irons
41 House of Fun
42 Hand Held Electro-shock Weapon
43 Electronic Shield
44 Taser Gun and Dart H
45 Tibetan Monk Palden Gyatso
46 Torture Techniques use in Uruguay
47 Chilean Torture Technique 1
48 Chilean Torture Technique 2
49 US Counter Insurgency Training at the School of the Americas
50 Chinese Electro-shock manufacture and quality control
51 Electro-shock weapons on display at Chinese Security Fairs
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Table of Figures (contd.)
Section 8. Regulation of Horizontal Proliferation
52 Arwen Riot Control Weapon on display at COPEX
53 Electro-shock weapons offered at European Security Fairs
54 Supplying the security needs of authoritarian regimes in Latin
America
55 Ispra Gas Riot Packs
56 SAE Alsetex Back Pack + on display at IDEF Military Exhibition in
Turkey, 1995
57 Foreign Internal Security Equipment on display at IDEF 1995 (Turkey)
AN APPRAISAL OF THE TECHNOLOGY OF POLITICAL CONTROL
PROJECT No I/STOA/RSCH/LP/POLITCON.1
1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this report is to explore the most recent developments in the technology of political control and the major consequences associated with their integration into processes and strategies of policing and internal control. A brief look at the historical development of this concept is instructive.
Twenty five years ago, the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science warned that a new technology of repression was being spawned in an effort to contain the conflict in Northern Ireland. (B.S.S.R.S., 1972). In 1977, members of BSSRS took this concept further in a seminal work, the Technology of Political Control (Ackroyd et. al., 1977). BSSRS analysed the role and function of this technology in terms of a new apparatus largely created as a result of research and development undertaken as part of Britain's colonial wars, (most recently in the ongoing Northern Ireland conflict), and whose main purpose was quelling internal dissent. According to critical U.S. NGO research organisations of that period such as NARMIC & NACLA, work on this technology of political control was further enhanced by technical developments achieved by the United States' military industrial complex, largely as a result of the extended global military interests of the U.S., and its deployment of highly technocratic counter-insurgency doctrines, particularly during the.Vietnam War.1
Up until that period, shrewd commentators on technology and society such as Haabermas Ellul (1964) recognised the potential risk of a specific loss of traditional freedoms and civil liberties associated with broad technological advances in the future, such as surveillance. However, BSSRS was the first group of scientists and technologists to identify and characterise a whole class of technology whose principal designated function was to achieve social and political control.
In Ackroyd et. al (1977), BSSRS. defined the technology of political control as "a new type of weaponry." "It is the product of the application of science and technology to the problem of neutralising the state's internal enemies. It is mainly directed at civilian populations, and is not intended to kill (and only rarely does). It is aimed as much at hearts and minds as at bodies." For BSSRS, "This new weaponry ranges from means of monitoring internal dissent to devices for controlling demonstrations; from new techniques of interrogation to methods of prisoner control. The intended and actual effects of these new technological aids are both broader and more complex than the more lethal weaponry they complement."
The concept of technology has many and varied interpretations. As emphasised in the interim report (Omega 1996), the definition adopted for the purposes of this work encompasses not just the 'hardware' - the tools, instruments, machines, appliances, weapons and gadgets (i.e. the apparatus of technical performance); but also the associated standard operating procedures, routines, skills, techniques (the software); and the related forms of rationalised human social organisations, arrangements, systems and networks (the liveware) of any programme of political control.2 In other words, it is insufficient to describe developments in a purely technical sense, it is also necessary to consider these technologies as social and political factors.3
1
When first published in 1977, 'The Technology of Political Control' anticipated that the deployment of these technologies in Northern Ireland, which acted as a laboratory for their future development, would spread to mainland Britain. For BSSRS, governments would no longer reach for the machine gun when threatened at home. It will have plastic bullets which kill only occasionally, depth interrogation which tortures without leaving physical scars. It uses electronics for telephone tapping and night surveillance; computers to build files on actual or potential dissidents. NARMIC also warned that this technology was not just reserved for low intensity conflicts overseas but would return to be used to quell dissent on the homefront.(NARMlC, 1971) Little by little this has happened. There have been quite awesome changes in the technologies available to states for internal control since the first BSSRS publication, a quarter of a century ago. So many new technologies have been created that specialist publications have emerged to service the burgeoning market.4In the limited space available here, it is not possible to describe all the many new technologies which have been developed. However, a broad selection of illustrations have been incorporated (at the end of the report), to give MEPs a good idea of the scope of the current technology and a representative flavour of what lies on the horizon. An extensive bibliography has been provided for those Members of the European Parliament wishing to explore specific areas and implications in more depth.5
For the purposes of this report and its focus on appraising subsequent developments in the technology of political control, it is worth focussing on the same areas of Technology covered by BSSRS, which have not already been the subject of recent STOA reports. Whilst the need to examine the critical role of Northern Ireland in the evolution of some of these technologies makes the overall assessment somewhat anglo-centric, every effort has been made to show evidence of the proliferation and impact of this technology in other European countries and worldwide by naming the actual companies and corporations involved in both manufacture and supply.
Taking into account the multi-functionality of much of this technology, Section 2. of this report explores its role and function and the continuum of control which stretches from modern law enforcement to advanced state suppression. With specific reference to problems of regulation and control and the potential some of these technologies present for undermining international human rights legislation, Section 3. provides a analysis of recent trends and innovations. Section 4. explores current developments In surveillance technology, from bugs and wiretapping to new global systems of mass supervision and telecommunications surveillance already approved by the European Union. Section 5. discusses the political and biomedical implications of innovations in crowd control weapons including the prospect of a 2nd. generation of paralysing and disabling technologies currently being developed by former US nuclear weapons laboratories, together with the secret arrangements to incorporate such technologies into EU policing practices and export markets. Section 6. is devoted to the emergence of new prison control systems and the prospects of privatised multinational prison corporations transforming crime control into industry. Section 7. presents evidence of Research & Development devoted to the creation of new interrogation, torture techniques & technologies which leave few marks and the growing role of EU member states and their allies in creating export markets for supplying this equipment to tyrannical states.
The report ends with an examination of the whole question of future regulation of the vertical & horizontal proliferation of this dual use technology, in the face of relatively weak democratic controls on its manufacture, deployment and export. Some of these technologies are highly sensitive politically and without proper regulation can threaten or undermine many of the human rights enshrined in international law, such as the rights of assembly, privacy, due process, freedom of political and cultural expression and protection from torture, arbitrary arrest, cruel and inhumane punishments and extra-judicial execution. Proper oversight of developments in political control technologies is further complicated by the phenomena of 'bureaucratic capture' where senior officials control their ministers rather than the other way round Politicians both at European and sovereign state level, whom citizens of the community have presumed will be monitoring any excesses or abuse of this technology on their behalf, are sometimes systematically denied the information they require to do that job. Therefore possible areas of policy change are presented at the end of each section, which could bring much of this technology back within the reach of democratic control and accountability, as well as suggesting some further areas of future research.
2. THE ROLE & FUNCTION OF POLITICAL CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES
Throughout the Nineties, many governments have spent huge sums on the research, development, procurement and deployment of new technology for their police, para-military and internal security forces.6 The objective of this development work has been to increase and enhance each agency's policing capacities. A dominant assumption behind this technocratisation of the policing process, is the belief that it has created both a faster policing response time and a greater cost-effectiveness. The main aim of all this effort has been to save policing resources by either automating certain control, amplifying the rate of particular activities, or decreasing the number of officers required to perform them.7
The resultant innovations in the technology of political control have been functionally designed to yield an extension of the scope, efficiency and growth of policing power. The extent to which this process can be judged to be a legitimate one depends both on one's point of view and the level of secrecy and accountability built into the overall procurement and deployment procedures. There are essentially two opposing schools of thought.
The first school of thought identifies developments in policing technology with efficiency, cost-effectiveness and modernisation. This school believes that the police and internal security agencies require the most up to date forms of equipment to fight crime, mob-rule and terrorism. Sophisticated law enforcement is viewed as value free and state security agencies are considered to be in the best position to determine their operational requirements. (See Applegate 1969), New technologies aid the police by ensuring that messages are rapidly received and dealt with, personnel are freed for other duties and overall efficiency is enhanced. Only those with something to hide need fear the enlarged data gathering capacities of police computers. Modern riot technology is presented as a much preferred non-lethal alternative to the use of guns and the police should always be allowed to use 'minimum force when dealing with actual or potential law breakers. Existing controls and regulations governing the use of this technology are considered by adherents of this school to have been adequately designed to ensure that no misuse takes place. Advanced police technology is therefore understood in this context as an invaluable aid to upholding the freedoms cherished as inalienable rights by citizens living in Western Liberal democracies. Its export to other countries sharing the same economic and ideological views, is viewed as an opportunity to help modernise law enforcement and buttress mutual stability, law and order.
3
The opposing school of thought on the other hand views police technology and the associated 'policing revolution' quite differently (See Manwaring-White, 1983). They believe that innovations in political control technology has put powerful new tools at the disposal of states in need of technical fixes for their most pressing and intractable social and political problems. It is at the point where authority fails that repression begins (Hoefnagels, 1977) and at that point an illegitimate government will use more force just to keep the lid on.(See Chart.1a.) As the crisis deepens, further force is required and the role of technology in such a situation is to act as a force amplifier. Once the shaded area is reached (Chart.1b), terror becomes the only government service.
New police technologies are perceived to be one of the most important factors in attempting sub-state conflict control. Such 'control' is viewed as more apparent than real, but serves the purpose of disguising the level of coercive repression being applied. This school of thought argues that once operationally deployed, these technologies exert a profound effect on the character of policing. Whether these changes are symptom or cause of the ensuing change in policing organisations, a major premise of this school of thought is that a range of unforeseen impacts are associated with the process ofsub-state conflict control.
Such 'control' is viewed as more apparent than real, but serves the p
The full implications of such developments may take time to assess but they are often more important and far reaching than the first order intended effects. It is argued that one impact of this process is the militarisation of the police and the para-militarisation of the army as their roles, equipment and procedures begin to overlap. This phenomena is seen as having far reaching consequences on the way that future episodes of sub-state violence is handled, and influencing whether those involved are reconciled, managed, repressed, 'lost' or efficiently destroyed. Police telematics and their use of databanks (the subject of an earlier STOA report in this area) for example, facilitate prophylactic or pre-emptive policing as 'data-veillance' is harnessed to target certain strata or classes of people rather than resolve individual crimes. (E.g. the proposed introduction of the Eurodac system which will utilise biometric information to control and restrict the entry of all Asylum seekers into Europe, building in the process a new technopolitics of exclusion).8 New surveillance technology can exert a powerful 'chill effect' on those who might wish to take a dissenting view and few will risk exercising their right to democratic protest if the cost is punitive riot policing with equipment which may lead to permanent injury or loss of life. As highlighted in the interim report, the human response to the deployment of such technologies may be counter-intuitive and render progressive, deployments of newer more powerful systems either obsolete or dysfunctional. This possibility is discussed in greater detail below.
Any evaluation of these opposing schools of thought needs to identify common ground since few would doubt that there are fundamental changes taking place in the types of tactics techniques and technologies available to internal security agencies for policing purposes. Yet many questions remain unanswered, unconsidered or under-researched. Why for example did such a transformation in the technology used for socio-political control dramatically change over the last twenty five years? Is there any significance in the fact that former communist regimes in the Warsaw Treaty Organisation and continuing centralised economic systems such as China, are beginning to adopt such technologies? What are the reasons behind a global convergence of the technology of political control deployed in the North and South, the East and West? What are the factors responsible for generating the adoption of such new policing technology - was it technology push or demand pull? What new tools for policing lie on the horizon and what are the dynamics behind the process of innovation and the need for a vast arsenal of different kinds of technology rather than just a few? Are the many ways this technology affects the policing process fully understood? Who controls the patterns of police technology procurement and what are the corporate influences?
In deciding between these schools of thought, we need to determine the extent to which future innovation is about the maintenance of existing power relationships, rather than citizen protection In other words, the extent to which their deployment ensures that only certain permitted ways of behaving are allowed to continue without interference. Since this technology provides a continuum of flexible responses or options, perhaps the overriding factor is the extent to which its development and deployment is subject to democratic control. Is the process of regulation democratically accountable or are there more hidden processes at work? Do these technologies proliferate, if so why and how and what are the most important mechanisms or processes involved?
Since all this technology represents an unequal distribution of coercive power, it is important for Members of the European Parliament to be satisfied that sufficient democratic control is exercised to ensure that such powers are not abused and that unwanted technological and decision drift is adequately checked. Whilst the Interim Report (Omega, 1996) provided a brief analysis of the role and function of specific classes of political control technology, what follows is an analysis of the state of the art in certain key areas of this technology which the authors believe warrant further scrutiny.
3. RECENT TRENDS & INNOVATIONS
Since the 'Technology of Political Control' was first written (Ackroyd et al.,1977) there has been a profusion of technological innovations for police, paramilitary, intelligence and internal security forces. Many of these are simple advances on the technologies available in the 1970's. Others such as automatic telephone tapping, voice recognition and electronic tagging were not envisaged by the original BSSRS authors since they did not think that the computing power needed for a national monitoring system was feasible. The overall drift of this technology is to increase the power and reliability of the policing process, either enhancing the individual power of police operatives, replacing personnel with less expensive machines to monitor activity or to automate certain police monitoring, detection and communication facilities completely. A massive Police Industrial Complex has been spawned to service the needs of police, paramilitary and security forces, evidenced by the number of companies now active in the market.9 An overall trend is towards globalisation of these technologies and a drift to increasing proliferation, without much regard to local conditions.
One core trend has been towards a militarisation of the police and a paramilitarisation of military forces in Europe. Often this begins via special units involved in crisis policing, such as the Special Weapons and Tactics Squads such as the Grenz Schutz Gruppe in Germany; the Gendarmeries National in France; the Carabinieri in Italy; and the Special Patrol Group in the UK or the federal police paramilitary teams in the United States (FBI, DEA & BATF) that adopt the same weaponry as their military counterparts. Then a growing percentage of ordinary police are trained in public order duties and tactics which incorporate some element of firearms training. The tactical training is often a mirror image of the low intensity counter-revolutionary warfare tactics adopted by the military (See Chart 2). In Britain, where 10% of police on a revolving basis train according to a military style manual,
6
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Insurgent Phases
Sequence of Insurgent Action
Counter Action
Communist Concept
(Based on Sino-
Japanese War 1937)British
Interpretation
With Aim of Achieving Revolution
By security force
'Passive'
[Organizational]|PreparatoryActivity by anti-government organisations, including
political agitation and manoevering propaganda activities. Formation of
cells & cadres, (political, intelligence and military), and civil and
industrial unrest. Infiltration into positions of authority. In general
covert preparations by those whose aim is to achieve a revolution. Any
overt military preparations take place in the remotest areas.1.Civil &
LawEnforcement ActivityActive Resistance
[Terrorism]
Civil disobedience, disturbances, riots, strikes, lawlessness. Sabotage, particularly against communications. Assassinations, coercion and terrorism on a limited scale. Use of propaganda & psychological means to discredit the government.
Ambushes and minor insurgent activity on a limited scale. Increased terrorism, a climate of dissidence, civil and industrial disobedience is engendered.
2.Internal Security Operations'Active'[Direct Action] Insurgency
[Guerilla Warfare]
Operations involving the use of guerrilla tactics by local formed units have resulted in the guerillas gaining control over parts of the country. Insurgent bases are established in relatively safe areas.
Increased activity in daylight. More ambitious operations by formed units with some perhaps from a neighbouring country.
A whole series of operations ranging up to actions between formed units with a simultaneous situation of widespread guerrilla activity. Areas dominated by guerrillas may be enlarged and declared liberated.
3.Counter Insurgency Operations|
Open OffensiveAs above but having escalated to include regular land and perhaps sea and air forces of the opposing sides. The revolutionary movement now assumes the form of a peoples war against the government. Large areas dominated by the guerrillas.4.Almost using the techniques of Limited WarCounter
OffensiveDecisionNegotiations leading to a cessation of hostilities with the revolutionaries either in a position to achieve their aim without further fighting or with the legal government back in control.
7
'Public Order - Tactical Options' using batons, shields and colonial style military wedges (See Fig.1[No figures provided with report]) (Northam, 1988). In the US, one study uncovered a pattern of former and reserve soldiers being intimately involved in police operations with almost 46% of trainees drawing expertise from "police officers with special operations in the military." (Krasker & Kapella, 1997).
In some European countries, that trend is reversed, e.g. Last year, the Swiss government (Federal Council and the Military Department) made plans to re-equip the Swiss Army Ordungsdienst with 118 million Swiss Francs of less-lethal weapons for action within the country in times of crisis. (These include 12 tanks, armoured vehicles, tear gas, rubber shot and handcuffs). The decision was made by decree preventing any discussion or intervention. Their role will be to help police large scale demonstrations or riots and to police frontiers to 'prevent streams of refugees coming into Switzerland'.10 A disturbing case of police deploying riot weapons against a peaceful festival occurred last year in Zurich on 1 May, using water cannon laced with CN irritant and rubber bullets below the advised 20 metres threshold, shows the process of convergence well.11
Convergence is the process whereby the technology used by police and the military for internal security operations converges towards being more or less indistinguishable. The term also describes the trend towards a universal adoption of similar types of technologies by most states for internal security and policing. Security companies now produce weapons and communications systems for both military and the police.(Fig.2). Such systems increasingly represent the muscle and the nervous system of public order squads. For example, according to BSSRS(1985), GCHQ's telephone interception network was used to track UK miners during the 1984-5 strike, so that when miner's cars were stopped, police knew who they were and punishment or dissuasion could be targeted appropriately.(See Fig.3)
3.1 Area Denial replaces personnel guarding either areas or perimeters. It has involved deploying technology which can either create punishment when its limits are infringed or systems with built in intelligence which can both locate the point of infringement and activate a corrective response.12 Sophisticated varieties incorporate punishment mechanisms which vary from pain induced by electroshock to kill fences and fragmentation mines. Many European companies make electrified razor coil stun fences e.g. Bollore, Cogny & Santerne in France; Birmingham Barbed Tape, Gallagher and Armbell, in UK; Reinaet Electronics in the Netherlands. Many South African companies remain in the market from the 'snake of fire' days, e.g., Edair; Grinaker; Microfence.13 Nowadays, the South African Government has introduced new regulations on the maximum voltage for stun fences and new criteria for not mixing barbed wire and stun capacities - if snagged a victim can't be repelled and continues receiving current. Europe needs to adopt best practice in this regard. It would also be useful if existing research justifying company claims for sub-lethality of stun fences should be made public. These systems are not cattle fences and the same criteria cannot be used. Neural networks with semi-intelligence are being introduced to protect sensitive control zones. Systems produced by companies, such as Productivity Systems in France and Cambridge Neurodynamics in the UK, can allow pattern recognition and an ability to learn. Neural systems will play an increasing role in sentinel duties as robot technology improves Already prototypes known as insectoids are being evolved to cheaply replace personnel on routine guard duties that require 24 hours cover and can be programmed to track the fence and carry either lethal or sub-lethal weapons (Knoth, 1994).
8
The Non-lethal Warfare programmes discussed in 5.6 below are also exploring area denial technology. For example, Defense Week reported (19/11/96) that Alliant Tech Systems (USA) is working on alternatives to anti-personnel land mines. One of these is a wire barrier system dispersed by the Volcano Mine System. The company received a 10 month contract in early August [1996] from the Army Armament, Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. The company is still to decide what kind of wire to use for the canister-launched area-denial weapon system, but the general idea is that the Volcano system will shoot out thin wire with something like fish hooks along it in enough mass to cover a soccer-field sized area.
"It's intended to snag. It's not going to kill you" said marketing
manager Tom Bierman.
3.2 Surveillance Technologies are one of the fastest growing areas of the technology of political control and a key problem is how to deal with the torrent of information it yields The term covers a vast range of products and devices but the overall trend is towards miniaturization, more precise resolution through the adoption of digital technology and increasing automation so that the technology can be more effectively targeted. The technology also parallels political shifts in targeting so that instead of investigating crime, a reactive activity, the fastest growing trend is towards tracking certain strata, social classes and races of people living in red-lined areas before any crime is committed. Such a form of proactive policing is based on military models of gathering huge amounts of low grade intelligence. With new systems such as Memex, it is possible to quickly build up a comprehensive picture of virtually anyone by gaining electronic access to all their records, cash transactions, cars held, etc. Such pre-emptive policing means the majority are ignored and policing resources are more tightly focused on certain groups. Such powerful forms of artificial intelligence need continuous assessment. They have an important role to play in tracking criminals. The danger is that their infrastructure is essentially a massive machinery of supervision that can be retargeted fairly quickly should the political context change.
Automatic fingerprint readers are now common place, and many European companies make them14 (see Fig 5). But any unique attribute of anatomy or personal style can be used to create a human identity recognition system. For example Cellmark Diagnostics(UK) can recognise genes;
Mastiff Security Systems(UK) can recognise odour, Hagen Cy-Com(UK) and Eyedentify Inc.(USA) can recognise the pattern of capillaries at the back of the retina; whilst AEA Technology (UK) are capable of signature verification. Over 109 companies in Europe are known to be supplying such biometric systems. DNA fingerprinting is now a reality and Britain has set up the first DNA databank, and is already carrying out mass dawn raids of over 1000 people at targeted suspects.15 Plans are being drawn up by at least one political party to DNA profile the nation from birth. 16 The leading edge companies are racing towards developing face recognition systems which they see as being able to revolutionise crime customs and intruder detection as well as service access control. Whilst fully reliable systems are perhaps five years off, prototype systems have been developed in France17, Germany18 the UK19 and the USA20.
Night vision technology developed as a result of the Vietnam war has now been adapted for police usage (See Fig.6). Particularly successful are heli-tele surveillance versions which allow cameras to track human heat signatures in total darkness. The art of bugging has been made significantly easier by a rapidly advancing technology and there is a burgeoning European market.21 Many systems described in Section 4 (below), do not even require physical entry into the home or office. For those who can secure access to their target room, there is a plethora of devices, many pre-packaged to fit into phones, look like cigarette packets or light fittings and some, like the ever popular PK 805 and PK 250, that can be tuned into from a suitable radio. However, the next generation of covert audio bugs are remotely operated, for example the multi-room monitoring system of Lorraine Electronics called DIAL (Direct Intelligent Access Listening) allows an operator to monitor several rooms from anywhere in the world without effecting an illegal entry. Up to four concealed microphones are connected to the subscribers line and these can be remotely activated by simply making a coded telephone call to the target building. Neural network bugs go one step further. Built like a small cockroach, as soon as the lights go out they can crawl to the best location for surveillance.22 In fact Japanese researchers have taken this idea one step further, controlling and manipulating real cockroaches by implanting microprocessors and electrodes in their bodies. The insects can be fitted with micro cameras and sensors to reach the places other bugs can't reach.23 Passive Millimeter Wave Imaging developed by the US Millitech corporation can scan people from up to 12 feet away and see through clothing to detect concealed items such as weapons, packages and other contraband. Variations of this through-clothing human screening under development (by companies such as the US Raytheon Co.), include systems which illuminate an individual with a low-intensity electromagnetic pulse. A three side very-low X ray system for human useage, in fixed sites such as prisons, is being developed by Nicolet Imaging Systems of San Diego. Electronic monitoring of offenders or 'tagging', where the subject wears an electronic bracelet which can detect if they have relocated from their home after certain hours etc, has entered into use in the 1990's after being developed to regulate prison populations in the USA. (Schmidt, 1988). Satellite tracking of VIPs, vehicles, etc., is now facilitated by the once military Global-Positioning System(GPS) which is now available for commercial uses. Vehicle recognition technologies are discussed in Section 4 below.
3.3 Data-veillance - The use of telematics by the police has
revolutionised policing in the last decade and created the shift towards pre-emptive policing. It is properly the focus of an earlier STOA report on the technology of political control. Some of the most recent trends are discussed in Section 4 below. A comprehensive analysis of how such equipment has led to widespread abuse of civil liberties and human rights has been published by Privacy International (1995) and includes 100 pages of all the companies involved in servicing the security requirements of the regimes mapped in Fig.38.
Using data profilers, torturing states have used these systems to compile death lists. For example, the Tadiran computer supplied to Guatemala and installed in the control center of the national palace.
According to a senior Guatemalan military official, "the complex contains an archive and a computer file on journalists, students, leaders, people on the left, politicians and so on." Meetings were held in the annex to select assassination victims. A US priest who fled the country after appearing on such a death list said, "They had printout lists at the border crossings and at the airport. Once you got on that then its like bounty hunters."24 Within Europe, systems, such as that produced by Harlequin, allow the automatic production of maps of who phoned whom to show friendship networks. Other companies such as Memex described above, allow entire life profiles of virtually anyone in a state having an official existence. Photographs and video material can be included in the record and typically up to 700 other databases can be hoovered at any one time, to extend the data profile in real time.Significant changes in the capacity of new surveillance systems can be
anticipated with the advent of new materials such as Buckminster Fullerene, which will lead to minaturisation of systems by several orders of magnitude.26
10
3.4-Discrete Order Vehicles - Hundreds of companies are now manufacturing police and internal security vehicles in Europe.27 The newer companies entering the market for law enforcement vehicles tend to manufacture for both military and police purposes (e.g., armoured personnel carriers, patrol, riot control, mobile prison, perimeter patrol etc.) and configured to have a 'non-aggressive design'. In real terms this means that their external appearance rather than their operational characteristics are modified to give a non-threatening appearance. Such 'discreet order vehicles' look benign - like ambulances, whilst retaining a retaliatory capacity, capable of dispersing, containing or capturing dissident groups or individuals.(See Fig.7 Savage, 1985). Some models such as the Amac vehicle and more recently the Talon incorporate repellant electrified panels as well as a weapons capacity such as water cannon. Such vehicles are frequently used to seal people into a dispersal zone where the riot squads are at work, rather than chase them out.
3.5 Less-lethal Weapons - For reasons explained more fully in Section 5 (below), the essential role of new crowd control weapons and tactics is to amplify the level of aggression that can be unleashed by an individual officer. Thus the same rationale lies behind the use of the new US side handle batons, the use of horse, riot shield charges using riot wedges and snatch squads and the new martial arts style arrest techniques which entered European policing training in the mid 1980's.28 (see Fig 8). The biggest growth area however, has been in what used to be called 'non-lethal weapons.' The fact that some of these weapons kill, blind, scalp and permanently maim led the authorities and manufacturers to act - they came up with a new name - "less-lethal weapons" - i.e. they only sometimes kill. Again a PR objective is catered for in the names which sound as if the security forces are using relative restraint. Whether it be in Belfast or Beijing, these technologies are converging around the same design types. (See Fig 8). One of the authors of the 'Technology of Political Control' (Ackroyd, 1977) Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, believed that the emergence of such technology in China vindicated their original thesis. That is, after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese authorities needed weapons
options which would not excite international criticism, particularly when some much lucrative foreign investment was entering the Tiger economies of the Pacific Rim.29
As described in Section 5 below, this area has seen prodigious innovation including a second generation of new weapon types being produced in the former nuclear weapon laboratories of the US in conjunction with big business.30 The Council for Science & Society explained the phenomenon in terms of technological and decision drift (CSS, 1978). BSSRS argued that such processes were integral to any attempt to apply technical fixes - an alternative explanation is that the riot control arsenal is never complete. Much of a weapon's effect lies in creating a sense of uncertainty.31 Even the insectoid appearance of riot squad members is part of the threat impact despite its ostensible purpose of personal protection.(See Fig 10).
Individually these weapons are becoming more powerful, for example each new riot agent is more powerful than the one it replaces. Thus CS is nearly 20 times more powerful than the CN it replaced; CR is more than 30 times more powerful than CN and the newest and most aggressively marketed agent OC, (See Fig.11), the most powerful of them all (Chart 3). Little notice has been taken of the professional hazard assessments of the most commonly used kinetic impact weapons deployed in Europe and USA which have consequences in the 'dangerous or severe damage region'. (See Chart 4).
Range
Impact Energy /
Joules (1)
L5A3 Plastic BulletRoyal OrdinanceUK135g25-60m150-210'Cross Cartridge'
Heckler and KochGermany179gup to 30mabove 125Flash BallVerney Carron
France28g12m200Jelly BatonCrown
AircartridgeNetherlandsN/AN/A265Bean BagMK BallisticsUSA40g10-30m120
'Cease and Desist'Milstor CorpUSAN/ALess than 18m130
Impact EnergySeverity of InjuryUnder 20 JoulesSafe/lowBetween 40-122
JoulesDangerousOver 122 JoulesSevere damage region
Notes:(1) Testing of kinetic energy projectiles was carried out at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the USA in 1975 to assess their safety and the likelihood, and type, of injuries that might result from their use (see Technical Report Number 24-75: Evaluation of the Physiological Effects of a Rubber Bullet, a Baseball and a Flying Baton, Wargovich, et al., US Army Land and Warfare Laboratory, September 1975.) The results showed that for kinetic energy projectiles at different energies the level of injury was as shown above. (J. Rosenhead, New Scientist, 16/12/76, pp. 672-74)
(2) Information taken from manufacturers product data, updated to modern measurement units where required.
3.5 Lethal Weapons - Police Forces in Europe have acquired many of the weapons normally associated with the military i.e. hand guns, rifles and submachine guns, e.g., the Heckler & Koch MP5. Shotguns are increasingly favoured by police forces because their wide spread of shot enables a blast to hit more than one target and in the US, shotguns are standard issue for a wide range of tasks including anti-terrorist and riot control. Indeed many shotguns and holsters specially adapted for police use have appeared on the market. E.g., those by Ithaca, Mossberg, Remington, Sage International and Wilson Arms. Many of these are literally sawn off shotguns and their wider spread increases the number of likely targets. For example, the Witness shotgun has a barrel of only 12.5 inches. Specialist shotgun ammunition enables some of these weapons to smash the cylinder block off a car or literally cut a human in half. The shotgun 'bolo round' advert e.g. claims "it slices - it dices".
Shotgun ammunition leaves no evidence of what weapon was used to fire it. Similarly caseless cartridges do not leave "a spent cartridge signature" and this has significant implications for associating a particular weapon with a specific crime.
In theory, police weapons should have a different level of lethality and penetration compared with those used by the military. In urban settings there is always the risk of hitting passers-by and if a round has high velocity and penetration, it will easily pass through an intended target and continue penetrating walls and go on perhaps to kill innocents beyond the observed fire zone. To obviate this problem, manufacturers are increasingly producing hollow point, expanding, or 'dum-dum' ammunition for police and special forces use.(See Fig 12).
Paradoxically, the Hague Declaration (IV,3) of 1989, which prohibited the use of hollow point or dum dum ammunition, does not apply to the policing of civil conflicts. Soft nosed ammunition which mushroom in the body, cause far more serious damage than ordinary ammunition. Dum-dums would take an arm or a leg off, whereas ordinary ammunition would sail through leaving a relatively clean hole.(See Fig.13). Some these weapons like Winchester's Black Talon or the high explosive filled pre-fragmented Frag 12 (see Fig.14) cause horrific injuries and raise serious questions about due process and the right to a fair trial since without immediate medical attention, a target would be effectively an extra-judicial execution. Many companies are now producing these bullets in Europe.
3.6 Execution technologies - The equipment illustrated in (Fig.16) are not just museum pieces. In the USA, companies such as Leutcher Associates Inc of Massachussetts supplies and services American gas chambers, as well as designing, supplying and installing electric chairs, auto-injection systems and gallows. The Leutcher lethal injection system costs approx. $30,000 and is the cheapest system the company sells. Their electrocution systems cost £35,000 and a gallows would cost approximately $85,000. More and more states are opting for Leutcher's $100,000 "execution trailer" which comes complete with a lethal injection machine, a steel holding cell for an inmate, and separate areas for witnesses, chaplain, prison workers and medical personnel.34 Some companies in Europe have in the past offered to supply such devices as gallows (Michael Huffey Ltd, UK) or tender designs for the construction of 'Libyan Rehabilitation centre" complete with stainless steel execution bays. (Observer, 5/84). A fuller picture is unavailable, but what is known is that European designers are tendering for Middle Eastern prison building work with all the attendant requirements to cater for Islamic shari'a laws and requisite punishments and amputations. Modern target acquisition aids such as laser sights, coupled with silenced weapons technology also make extra-judicial execution much easier (see fig. 16) or if the deed must be achieved in public, systems like 'syncrofire' (fig.16) take the guilt away from the execution squad by allowing the firemaster to achieve it by pushbutton. Special forces are of course taught how to achieve such executions (See Fig.17 and this is one of the areas of expertise transfer that needs to be brought back within democratic control. (see Section 8 below)
3.1 RECOMMENDATIONS
(1) Given the civil liberties implications associated with new technologies of political control, there is a pressing need to avoid the risks of such technologies developing faster than any regulating legislation. Therefore the EU should develop appropriate structures of accountability to prevent undesirable innovations emerging via processes of technological creep or decision drift. In principle, the process of innovation of new systems for use in internal social and political control should be transparent, open to appropriate public scrutiny and be subject to change should unwanted and unanticipated consequences emerge. Any class of technology which has been shown in the past to be excessively injurious, cruel, inhumane or indiscriminate in its effects, should be subject to stringent and democratic controls. Therefore within Europe:- (a) No development or deployment of blinding laser weapons and ancillary devices for police and internal security purposes should be permitted; No deployment of 'sub-lethal' area denial mine systems such as the
Volcano (discussed above), should be allowed for law enforcement or correctional purposes;
Police personnel should not be routinely armed with 'dum-dum' bullets, use of which is banned in international armed conflicts. Further research should be commissioned by the European Parliament to clarify the legal situation particularly in relation to the suggestion that such ammunition can bypass the legal process and effect extra-judicial execution.
Further measures should be developed to regulate electrified 'stun' & 'kill' fences. Dual function fences with a kill function should not be permissable as their use violates the right to life and the right to a fair trial.
4. DEVELOPMENTS IN SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY
Surveillance technology can be defined as devices or systems which can monitor, track and assess the movements of individuals, their property and other assets. Much of this technology is used to track the activities of dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, student leaders, minorities, trade union leaders and political opponents.
"Subtler and more far reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet."
So said US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, way back in 1928. Subsequent developments go far beyond anything which Brandeis could have dreamt of. New technologies which were originally conceived for the Defence and Intelligence sectors, have after the cold war, rapidly spread into the law enforcement and private sectors. It is one of the areas of technological advance, where outdated regulations have not kept pace with an accelerating pattern of abuses. Up until the 1960's, most surveillance was low-tech and expensive since it involved following suspects around from place to place and could use up to 6 people in teams of two working 3 eight hour shifts. All of the material and contacts gleaned had to be typed up and filed away with little prospect of rapidly cross checking. Even electronic surveillance was highly labour intensive. The East German police for example employed 500,000 secret informers, 10,000 of which were needed just to listen and transcribe citizen's phone calls.
By the 1980's, new forms of electronic surveillance were emerging many of these were directed towards automation of communications interception. This trend was fuelled in the U. S. in the 1990's by accelerated government funding at the end of the cold war, with defence and intelligence agencies being refocussed with new missions to justify their budgets, transferring their technologies to certain law enforcement applications such as anti-drug and anti-terror operations. In 1993, the US department of defence and the Justice department signed memoranda of understanding for "Operations Other Than War and Law Enforcement" to facilitate joint development and sharing of technology.
According to David Banisar of Privacy International, "To counteract reductions in military contracts which began in the 1980's, computer and electronics companies are expanding into new markets - at home and abroad - with equipment originally developed for the military. Companies such as E Systems, Electronic Data Systems (founded by Ross Perot ) and Texas Instruments are selling advanced computer systems and surveillance
equipment to state and local governments that use them for law enforcement, border control and Welfare administration."36
According to Banisar, the simple need for increased bureaucratic efficiency - necessitated by shrinking budgets has been a powerful imperative for improved identification and monitoring of individuals. "Fingerprints, ID cards, data matching and other privacy invasive schemes were originally tried on populations with little political power, such as welfare recipients, immigrants, criminals and members of the military, and then applied up the socioeconomic ladder. One in place, the policies are difficult to remove and inevitably expand into more general use."37 These technologies fit roughly into three broad categories. namely surveillance, identification and networking, and are often used in conjunction as with video cameras and face recognition or biometrics and ID cards. For Banisar, "They facilitate mass and routine surveillance of large segments of the population without the need for warrants and formal investigations. What the East German secret police could only dream of is rapidly becoming a reality in the free world."38
4.1 Vehicle Recognition Systems
A huge range of surveillance technologies has evolved, including the night vision goggles discussed in 3 above; parabolic microphones to detect conversations over a kilometre away(see Fig.18); laser versions marketed by the German company PK Electronic, can pick up any conversation from a closed window in line of sight; the Danish Jai
stroboscopic camera (Fig.19) which can take hundreds of pictures in a matter of seconds and individually photograph all the participants in a demonstration or March; and the automatic vehicle recognition systems which can identify a car number plate then track the car around a city using a computerised geographic information system.(Fig.20) Such systems are now commercially available, for example, the Talon system introduced in 1994 by UK company Racal at a price of £2000 per unit. The system is trained to recognise number plates based on neural network technology developed by Cambridge Neurodynamics, and can see both night and day. Initiallat a price of £2000 per unit. The system is trained to recognise number plates based on neural network technology developed by Cambridge Neurodynamics, and can see both night and day. Initially it has been used for traffic monitoring but its function has been adapted in recent
years. Such surveillance systems raise significant issues of accountability particularly when transferred to authoritarian regimes. The cameras in Fig 21 in Tiananmen Square were sold as advanced traffic control systems by Siemens Plessey. Yet after the 1989 massacre of students, there followed a witch hunt when the authorities tortured and interrogated
thousands in an effort to ferret out the subversives. The Scoot surveillance system with USA made Pelco camera were used to faithfully record the protests. the images were repeatedly broadcast over Chinese television offering a reward for information, with the result that nearly all the transgressors were identified. Again democratic accountability is only the criterion which distinguishes a modern traffic control system from an advanced dissident capture technology. Foreign companies are exporting traffic control systems to Lhasa in Tibet, yet Lhasa does not as yet have any traffic control problems. The problem here may be a culpable lack of imagination.(Fig.22) Several European countries are manufacturing vehicle and people tracking technologies, including France40, Germany41, The Netherlands42 and the UK43.
4.2 CCTV Surveillance Net Works
In fact the art of visual surveillance has dramatically changed over recent years. of course police and intelligence officers still photograph demonstrations and individuals of interest but increasingly such images can be stored and searched. (Fig. 23) The revolution in urban surveillance will reach the next generation of control once reliable face recognition comes in. It will initially be introduced at stationary locations, like turnstiles, customs points, security gateways, etc., to enable a standard full face recognition to take place. However, in the early part of the 21st. century, facial recognition on CCTV will be a reality and those countries with CCTV infrastructures will view such technology as a natural add-on.
It is important to set clear guidelines and codes of practice for such technological innovations, well in advance of the digital revolution making new and unforeseen opportunities to collate, analyze, recognise and store such visual images. Such regulation will need to be founded on sound data protection principles and take cognizance of article 15 of the 1995 European Directive on the protection of Individuals and Processing of Personal Data.44 Essentially this says that:
"Member States shall grant the right of every person not to be subject to a decision which produces legal effects concerning him or significantly affects him and which is based solely on the automatic processing of data."
The attitude to CCTV camera networks varies greatly in the European Union, from the position in Denmark where such cameras are banned by law to the position in the UK, where many hundreds of CCTV networks exist. Nevertheless, a common position on the status of such systems where they exist in relation to data protection principles should apply in general. A specific consideration is the legal status of admissibility as evidence, of digital material such as those taken by the more advanced CCTV systems. Much of this will fall within data protection legislation if the material gathered can be searched, e.g., by car number plate or by time. Given that material from such systems can be seamlessly edited, the European Data Protection Directive legislation needs to be implemented through primary legislation which clarifies the law as it applies to CCTV, to avoid confusion amongst both CCTV data controllers as well as citizens as data subjects. Primary legislation will make it possible to extend the impact of the Directive to areas of activity that do not fall within community law. Articles 3 and 13 of the Directive should not create a blanket covering the use of CCTV in every circumstance in a domestic context. A proper code of practice should cover the use of all CCTV surveillance schemes operating in public spaces and especially in residential area. The Code of Practice should encompass:- a) a purpose statement covering the key objectives of the scheme; b) a consideration of the extent to which the scheme falls within the scope of Data Protection legislation; c) the responsibilities of the owner of the scheme and those of local partners; d) the way the scheme is to be effectively managed and installed; e) the principles of accountability; f) the availability of public information on the scheme and the principles of its operation in residential areas; g) the formal approaches to be used to assess, evaluate and audit the performance of both the scheme and the accompanying Code of Practice; h) mechanisms for dealing with complaints and any breaches of the Code including those of security; i) detailing the extent of any police contacts or use of the scheme; and j) the procedures for democratically dealing with proposals of technological change. Given that the United Kingdom has one of the most advanced CCTV network coverage in Europe and that the issues of regulation and control have been perhaps more developed that elsewhere, it is suggested that the Civil Liberties Committee formally consider the model Code of Practice for CCTV produced by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU, 1996) in London (A Watching Brief) at a future meeting of this committee, with a view to recommending it for adoption throughout the EU.
4.3 Bugging & Tapping Devices
A wide range of bugging and tapping devices have been evolved to record conversations and to intercept telecommunications traffic. (See Fig. 24) In recent years the widespread practice of illegal and legal interception of communications and the planting of 'bugs' has been an issue in many European states. For example, Italy, France, Sweden,45 Belgium,46 Germany,47 Norway,48 the Netherlands49 and the U.K.50 The level and scale of some of these illegal activities is astonishing. For example, a court meeting on 30 September 1996 was told that the Presidential Palace's anti-terrorist unit was tapping six former Mitterand administration officials, including ex-cabinet chief Giles Manage.51 An official panel, the independent Commission for the Control of Security Interceptions, said that 100,000 telephone lines are illegally tapped each year in France and that state agencies may be behind much of the eavesdropping. They found that curbs imposed by official bodies may have tempted them to farm out their illegal bugging to private firms.52 However, planting illegal bugs like the one shown in (Fig 24) is yesterday's technology. Modern snoopers can by specially adapted lap top computers like that shown in (Fig.24), and simply tune in to all the mobile phones active in the area by cursoring down to their number. The machine will even search for numbers 'of interest' to see if they are active. However, these bugs and taps pale into insignificance next to the national and international state run interceptions networks.
4.4 National & International Communications Interceptions Networks
Modern communications systems are virtually transparent to the advanced interceptions equipment which can be used to listen in. Some systems even lend themselves to a dual role as a national interceptions network. For example the message switching system used on digital exchanges like System X in the UK supports an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) Protocol. This allows digital devices, e.g. fax to share the system with existing lines. The ISDN subset is defined in their documents as "Signalling CCITT1-series interface for ISDN access. What is not widely known is that built in to the international CCITT protocol is the ability to take phones 'off hook' and listen into conversations occurring near the phone, without the user being aware that it is happening. (SGR Newsletter, No.4, 1993) This effectively means that a national dial up telephone tapping capacity is built into these systems from the start. (System X has been exported to Russia & China)
Similarly, the digital technology required to pinpoint mobile phone users for incoming calls, means that all mobile phone users in a country when activated, are mini-tracking devices, giving their owners whereabouts at any time and stored in the company's computer for up to two years. Coupled with System X technology, this is a custom built mobile track, tail and tap system par excellence.(Sunday Telegraph, 2.2.97). Within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by Satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York Moors of the UK. The system was first uncovered in the 1970's by a group of researchers in the UK (Campbell, 1981). The researchers used open sources but were subsequently arrested under Britain's Official Secrets legislation. The 'ABC' trial that followed was a critical turning point in researcher's understanding both of the technology of political control and how it might be challenged by research on open sources.(See Aubrey,1981 & Hooper 1987) Other work on what is now known as Signals intelligence was undertaken by researchers such as James Bamford, which uncovered a billion dollar world wide interceptions network, which he nicknamed 'Puzzle Palace'. A recent work by Nicky Hager, Secret Power, (Hager,1996) provides the most comprehensive details to date of a project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed more than 50 people concerned with intelligence to document a global surveillance system that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world's satellite phone calls, internet, email, faxes and telexes. These sites are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong Kong, and Morwenstow in the UK.
The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex. to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers.
Each of the five centres supply "dictionaries" to the other four of keywords, phrases, people and places to "tag" and the tagged intercept is forwarded straight to the requesting country. Whilst there is much information gathered about potential terrorists, there is a lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the countries participating in the GATT negotiations. But Hager found that by far the main priorities of this system continued to be military and political intelligence applicable to their wider interests. Hager quotes from a"highly placed intelligence operatives" who spoke to the Observer in London. "We feel we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we operate." They gave as examples. GCHQ interception of three charities, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. "At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their communications for a routine target request," the GCHQ source said. In the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes its called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to third world aid, the source was able to demonstrate telex "fixes" on the three organisations. With no system of accountability, it is difficult to discover what criteria determine who is not a target.
In February, The UK based research publication Statewatch reported that the EU had secretly agreed to set up an international telephone tapping network via a secret network of committees established under the "third pillar" of the Mastricht Treaty covering co-operation on law and order. Key points of the plan are outlined in a memorandum of understanding, signed by EU states in 1995.(ENFOPOL 112 10037/95 25.10.95) which remains classified. According to a Guardian report (25.2.97) it reflects concern among European Intelligence agencies that modern technology will prevent them from tapping private communications. "EU countries it says, should agree on "international interception standards set at a level that would ensure encoding or scrambled words can be broken down by government agencies." Official reports say that the EU governments agreed to co-operate closely with the FBI in Washington. Yet earlier minutes of these meetings suggest that the original initiative came from Washington. According to Statewatch, network and service providers in the EU will be obliged to install "tappable" systems and to place under surveillance any person or group when served with an interception order. These plans have never been referred to any European government for scrutiny, nor one suspects to the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament, despite the clear civil liberties issues raised by such an unaccountable system. We are told that the USA, Australia, Canada, Norway and Hong Kong are ready to sign up.All these bar Norway are parties to the ECHELON system and it is impossible to determine if there are not other agendas at work here. Nothing is said about finance of this system but a report produced by the German government estimates that the mobile phone part of the package alone will cost 4 billion D-marks.
Statewatch concludes that "It is the interface of the ECHELON system and its potential development on phone calls combined with the standardisation of "tappable communications centres and equipment being sponsored by the EU and the USA which presents a truly global threat over which there are no legal or democratic controls."(Press release 25.2.97)
Clearly, there needs to be a wide ranging debate on the significance of these proposals before further any further political or financial commitments are made. The following recommendations have that objective in mind.
20
4. RECOMMENDATIONS
(i) All surveillance technologies, operations and practices should be subject to procedures to ensure democratic accountability and there should be proper codes of practice to ensure redress if malpractice or abuse takes place. Explicit criteria should be agreed for deciding who should be targeted for surveillance and who should not, how sensure democratic accountability and there should be proper codes of practice to ensure redress if malpractice or abuse take All requisite codes of practice should ensure that new surveillance technologies are brought within the appropriate data protection legislation.
Given that data from most digital monitoring systems can be seamlessly edited, new guidance should be provided on what constitutes admissible evidence. This concern is particularly relevant to automatic identification systems which will need to take cognizance of the provisions of Article 15, of the 1995 European Directive on the
Protection of Individuals and Processing of Personal Data.
Regulations should be developed covering the provision of electronic bugging and tapping devices to private citizens and companies, so that their sale is governed by legal permission rather than self regulation. Use of telephone interception by Member states should be subject to procedures of public accountability referred to in (i) above. Before any telephone interception takes place a warrant should be obtained in a manner prescribed by the relevant parliament. In most cases, law enforcement agencies will not be permitted to self-authorise interception except in the most unusual of circumstances which should be reported back to the authorising authority at the earliest opportunity.
Annual statistics on interception should be reported to each member states' parliament. These statistics should provide comprehensive details of the actual number of communication devices intercepted and data should be not be aggregated. (This is to avoid the statistics only identifying the number of warrants, issued whereas organisations under surveillance may have many hundreds of members, all of whose phones may be subject to interception).
(vii) Technologies facilitating the automatic profiling and pattern analysis of telephone calls to establish friendship and contact networks should be subject to the same legal requirements as those for telephone interception and reported to the relevant member state parliament.
(viii) The European Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making private messages via the global communications network (Internet) accessible to US Intelligence Agencies. Nor should the Parliament agree to new expensive encryption controls without a wide ranging debate within the EU on the implications of such measures. These encompass the civil and human rights of European citizens and the commercial rights of companies to operate within the law, without unwarranted
surveillance by intelligence agencies operating in conjunction with multinational competitors.
(ix) The Committee should commission a more detailed report on the constitutional issues raised by the National Security Agency (NSA) facility to intercept all European telecommunications and the impact this supervisory capacity has on any existing
constitutional safeguards protecting individuals or organisations from invasion of privacy such as those extant for example in Germany, the political, cultural and economic autonomy of European member states. This report should also cover the social and political implications of the EU/FBI proposals made to operate a global telecommunications surveillance network as discussed above. This report should also analyze the financial and constitutional implications of the proposals and provide an update of the work undertaken so far and the status of political approval.
(x) Relevant committees of the European Parliament considering proposals for technologies which have civil liberties implications for example the Telecommunications Committee in regard to surveillance, should be required to forward all relevant policy proposals and reports to the Civil Liberties Committee for their observations in advance of any political or financial decisions on deployment being taken.
(xi) All CCTV surveillance schemes operating in public spaces and especially in residential areas should be governed by a comprehensive Code of Practice which encompasses:- a) a purpose statement covering the key objectives of the scheme; b) a consideration of the extent to which the scheme falls within the scope of Data Protection legislation; c) the responsibilities of the owner of the scheme and those of local partners; d) the way the scheme is to be effectively managed and installed; e) the principles of accountability; f) the availability of public information on the scheme and the principles of its operation in residential areas; g) the formal approaches to be used to assess, evaluate and audit the performance of both the scheme and the accompanying Code of Practice; h) mechanisms for dealing with complaints and any breaches of the Code including those of security; i) detailing the extent of any police contacts or use of the scheme; and j) the procedures for democratically dealing with proposals of technological change. It is suggested that the Civil Liberties Committee formally consider adopting the model Code of Practice for CCTV, produced by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) in London (A Watching Brief, 1996).
5. INNOVATIONS IN CROWD CONTROL WEAPONS
The original development of riot weapons goes back to Paris before the first World War, where the police began chemical crowd control using bombs filled with ethyl bromoacetate, an early form of teargas. The British colonies proved to be the forcing ground for the wide range of chemical and kinetic impact weapons which followed. The irritant CS for example was first used in Cyprus in 1956, and between 1960 and 1965, CN and CS were used on 124 occasions in the colonies. (Ackroyd et al, 1977).The growing demands of counter-insurgency and urban warfare generated a first generation of new riot weapons serviced by a growing police industrial complex. Thus plastic and rubber bullets were products of British colonial experience in Hong Kong where the flying wooden teak baton round became the template for future kinetic weapons. The concept was one of a flying truncheon which could disperse a crowd without using small arms. They were however regarded as too dangerous for use on white people, so in 1969, Porton Down came up with a 'safer' version for use in Northern Ireland in 1970. Just as plastic bullets were considered far too dangerous for use in mainland Britain until 1985 when they proliferated throughout the UK's police forces,so were wooden baton rounds regarded
as too dangerous for the residents of Northern Ireland but not Hong Kong. Now plastic bullets have been deployed in virtually every continent from the USA to Argentina, from South Africa to Israel and China. Obviously, the shift in whether or not a riot weapon was appropriate or safe had nothing to do with differences in physiology. Wooden and plastic baton rounds created injuries which did not take account of generation or race. A predominant concern appears to have been what can be portrayed as politically safe in a particular context.
The seductive notion of soft and gentle knockout weapons is recent but not new. It has its roots back in the 1970's when so called 'non-lethal' weapons formed the holy grail of riot weapon Research & Development. During that decade, then Congressman James Scheur outlined a new philosophy of crowd control weapons.(see Fig.26). He saw such developments resulting from 'spinoffs from medical, military, aerospace and industrial research' and expressed the view that: 'We are now in the process of developing devices and products capable of controlling violent individuals and entire mobs without injury.'53 The veracity of this assessment is briefly examined below, particularly the assertion that control is achieved without harm.
Some idea of the range and variety of riot control weapons under consideration at that time can be gleaned from the 1972 US National Science Foundation's Report on Non-lethal Weapons. (NSF, 1972). Altogether it listed 34 different weapons, including chemical and kinetic weapons; electrified water jets; combined stroboscopic light and pulsed sound weapons; infrasound weapons; dartguns which fire drug-filled flight stabilized syringes; stench parts which give off an obnoxious odour; the taser which fires two small electrical contacts discharging 50,000 volts into the target; and instant banana peel which makes roads so slippery, they are impassable.
Many of these weapons were then only partly developed or had problems of public acceptability:others have since achieved operational status. They include: incapacitation weapons such as the electronic riot shields and electro-shock batons (discussed in Sections 6, 7, & 8 below); Bulk chemical irritant distributor systems, (delivered by watercannon such as the UK made Tactica or the many back pack sprays like those made by the Israeli company Ispra (Fig.27 or the German Heckler 8 Koch (Fig. 28);
New forms of irritant such as OC (or peppergas); kinetic impact weapons like the German & UK plastic bullet guns (shown in Fig. 32) or the South African hydraulically fired, TFM Slingshot rubber bullet machine; biomedical weapons, such as the compressed air fired drug syringe now commercially available both in the US & China (shown in Fig. 33).
The range of weapons currently deployed for crowd control is vast indeed and defies any attempts to be comprehensive. In Britain, since the first use of CS gas, rubber bullets and water cannon at the beginning of the Northern Irish Conflict in 1969, there has been a globalisation of such public order technologies. To our knowledge some 856 companies across 47 countries have been or are currently active in the manufacture and supply of such weapons. This proliferation has been fuelled by private companies wishing to tap lucrative security markets, a process which has led to both vertical and horizontal proliferation of this technology. (See Appendix 1 [not provided with report]) For example, one company, Civil Defence Supply, who provide nearly all UK police forces with sidehandled batons, boast of an international riot training programme, having trained the entire Mexican Police Granaderos with armadillo linked riot shields, CS and baton firing guns like the Arwen and what they call the complete 'Early Resolution System', for its elite forces.
To understand why this arsenal of crowd control weapons has been
developed, it is vital to understand the thinking which underlies their construction. An
important task in assessing new crowd control technologies is to examine the criteria used to evaluate just what is an 'acceptable' police weapon, and to whom. In the discussion below, an attempt is made to clarify why the theory of 'non-lethal' weapons used for 'minimum force' policing, does not match the reality of para-militarised riot squad
approaches to 'peacekeeping'. Governments themselves have been using Technology Assessment to evaluate the relative effectiveness of such weapons. For example, since 1963, there has been an exchange of information on public order weapons between the US, Canada, Britain & Australia, allowing Porton Down to share technical evaluation of
proposed non-lethal hardware, with US military scientists. Virtually all the most recent US government projects on this weaponry have been classified as "special access" (see 5.6 below) but the early work is quite revealing. Military scientists working at the US Army Human Engineering Laboratory in the early 1970's elaborated a systematic set of procedures to evaluate the desirable and undesirable effects of particular weapons. (See Chart 5a), covering a comparative assessment of both the medical and physiological consequences of each weapon type, together with an evaluation of public acceptability.(See Chart 5b).
5.1 Cost-Effective Crowd Control Weapons
The simplistic theory which underlies the use of riot weapons assumes that a 'minimum force' strategy of area denial or dispersal can actually contain deep seated conflicts. The problem with this approach is that real peace can never be simply defined as an absence of anyone remaining in the conflict zones. 'Minimum force' is an elastic concept, particularly when the force deploying it no longer enjoys widespread legitimacy.
A dominant assumption behind the acquisition of new police weapons, is the belief that they will create both a faster policing response time and a greater cost-effectiveness. Again, a key aim has been to save policing resources by either automating certain control functions, amplifying the rate of particular control activities, or decreasing the number of officers required to perform them. Consequently, nearly all the weapons discussed in this report, have been functionally designed to yield an extension of the scope, efficiency and growth of policing power. New riot weapons enable police, paramilitary and state security forces to distribute more coercion to a greater number of people. Therefore they allow a fewer number of officers to threaten a larger number of people in a crowd and over a distance. Hence, riot weapons allow fewer officers to break up a disturbance than when using unarmed personnel, or a larger gathering to be tackled than could otherwise be taken on. The basis of this cost-effectiveness criterion has been neatly summed up by the then Brigadier, Sir Frank Kitson:
"For example, three or four times as many troops might be required, if they were only allowed persuasion, as would be needed if they were allowed to use batons and gas; and three or four times as many troops might be needed if they were restricted to using batons and gas, as would be required if they were allowed to use small arms." (Kitson, 1971,p. 90).
However, although in the short term, it may seem that these weapons can contain overtly violent conflict, their use in the longer term may feed or exacerbate the processes responsible for its development. A study undertaken at the Richardson Institute at the University of Lancaster, described evidence of such processes at work in Northern Ireland.
(Wright, 1987)55 The study found that less-lethal weapons used in the context of a phased deployment of counter-ifound that less-lethal weapons used in the context of a phased deployment of counter evidenced by the deployment of higher numbers of riot weapons, then the substitution of each new less-lethal weapon by a more severe type. The
initial use of water canon thus gave way to the use of CS gas. This was augmented by rubber bullets which were then replaced by the harder hitting PVC variety, (See Chart 6) and in greater quantities. Further empirical work suggested that because these riot systems were being deployed in the context of a phased set of counter-insurgency tactics, the resistance they bred led to a successive deployment of each subsequent and more violent phase of the low intensity conflict programme. In effect they bred the dissent they were designed to 'fix". (Wright, 1981 ) Graphing the deployment of less-lethal weapons against the crude indicator of political killings in Northern Ireland revealed a pattern which appeared to corroborate this finding. As each new weapon deployment was associated with an upsurge in the death count (See Chart 7). Over longer time periods, another study detected predictable levels of weapon utilization. (Wright, 1981)
For example, fairly constant levels of munitions were used as if the supply itself was the greatest determinant of usage. (See Chart 8). A new form of multivariant time series analysis was evolved to describe the effect of deployments of these weapons and tactics. (Wright, 1987). What emerged was a complex set of causal influences which locked the participants into their own violent behaviour. During the period when this conflict broke down, variables indicating violent behaviour of the various participants, were most influenced by their own previous behaviour. (See Chart 9) Paradoxically, whilst these weapons were meant to provide a new series of flexible responses, their ultimate effect was to programme their targets into traditional anti-state activities and procedures. In other words, their most invidious characteristic may be to undermine non-violence as a means of public protest. (Wright, 1992) The real physical effects of these weapons described below, may go some way to explaining their dysfunctional impact on conflict behaviour.
5.2 Harmless Weapons? - The Scientific Evidence
Statements made by military scientists and police chiefs about "non-lethal" weapons and "minimum force", have led the public to believe that crowd control weapons were designed for humanitarian reasons and are in fact harmless. Such sentiments have been echoed by many governments and reinforced by reports from laboratories and the manufacturers actually creating the technology of political control.
If safety was the prime consideration, we might expect the research on such weapons to be especially thorough prior to their authorization. Since most future developments are still essentially modifications of existing chemical or kinetic impact weapons, it is worth reexamining the historical research which has permitted and legitimised this research in respect to the European state which has used these weapons the most, i.e. the United Kingdom.
5.3 Harmless Kinetic Impact Weapons?
In January 1977, the then Secretary of State For defence, was asked about the research on the likely death and injury rates from rubber and plastic bullets carried out prior to their introduction. The reply referred to a report produced by four surgeons working at the Victoria Hospital in Belfast in 1972, (two years after rubber bullets had been used in Northern Ireland), and said that comparable information for plastic bullets was not available.
The Belfast surgeons report makes stark reading.(Millar et al, 1972). It informs us that of 90 patients who sought hospital treatment after being hit by rubber bullets, 41 needed in patient treatment. Their injuries included three fractured skulls, 32 fractures of the facial bones
(nose,jaw, cheek etc.), eight ruptured eye globes (all resulting in blindness), three cases of severe brain damage, seven cases of lung injury, and one case of damage to liver, spleen and intestine. The overall role call included one death, two people blinded in both eyes, five with severe loss of vision in one eye and four with sever disfigurement of the face. The surgeons also found evidence of rubber bullets being fired at much closer ranges than those for which they were designed. Rubber bullets were not meant to be fired at distances of less than 25 metres but the surgeons found that half of those brought into hospital had been shot at less than 15 metres and one third at less than 5 metres. Part of the problem is that such area dispersal weapons are meant to create a dispersal zone. If anyone is unfortunate enough to be in such a zone, there may not be much choice in avoiding being targeted by such weapons, since part of their threat is the fear of becoming a random victim.
In the 1970's, military researchers in the US undertook their own research on kinetic weapons. They concluded that rubber bullets had an extremely high probability of undesirable effects in any scenario for their possible operational use. The US Army research undertaken on live animals, found that impact weapons with energy levels of above 90 ft. lbs., caused injuries, "in the severe damage region."(Thein, et al, 1974; Wargovitch, et al, 1975). A member of BSSRS, Jonathan Rosenhead, was able to use the comparative kinetic energy/damage figures in the US literature, to establish that given their muzzle velocity (about 293 ft.
lbs.), for most if not all of its range, the rubber bullet is in the
severe damage region. (Rosenhead, 1976).
It is worth noting that for the purposes of this present study, sample kinetic riot weapons from the USA, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands were assessed using the original US military criteria on impact effects. It was found that all these weapons were in either the dangerous or severe damage region categories. (See Chart 4)
Plastic bullets totally replaced rubber bullets in Northern Ireland by 1975. Although authoritative sources such as Jane's Infantry Weapons (1976), asserted that rubber bullets were withdrawn because the disability and serious injury rates 'were not considered acceptable', the official explanation was simply the plastic baton round's greater accuracy.57 Rosenhead argued that given the even higher muzzle velocity of the plastic bullet, it was even more dangerous, especially at close range.
His analysis has been amply born out by the history of injuries and deaths caused by plastic bullets in Northern Ireland. A survey undertaken by Mr Laurance Rocke, (Senior Registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast), reported in the Lancet during 1983, that plastic bullets are even more deadly than the rubber bullets they replaced.(Rocke, 1983). They cause more severe injuries to the skull and brain and therefore more deaths. Despite the security forces rule that baton rounds must be aimed below the waist, 31 of the 99 plastic bullet victims covered in the Rocke survey suffered head injuries, He attributed the difference in the respective injuries and deaths for
rubber and plastic bullets to their corresponding ballistic characteristics. Plastic bullets caused serious injuries less often than rubber bullets because the latter was less stable in flight and tended to hit a victim sideways. Plastic bullets resulted in more fractured skulls, lacerated scalps and deaths. More worrying are the human faces behind these statistics. Between May 1973 and August
1984, 12 people were killed by plastic bullets. Inquests have found that six of the twelve fatalities were not involved in any civil disturbances when they were shot and seven of the twelve victims were children aged under 15.58
During August 1981, an international commission of enquiry, sponsored by the Association of Legal Justice, travelled to Belfast to investigate the use of plastic bullets. One of its members was senior British research scientist, Dr. Tim Shallice, who Legal JusticeNew Statesman, "The conclusion seemed inescapable to members of the commission: the Northern Ireland authorities were knowingly allowing widespread, indiscriminate and illegal use of a weapon whose lethal potential was well known" (Shallice, 1981).
Since then it has been very much business as usual. Just last summer in Northern Ireland, the RUC used the now British owned Heckler and Koch anti-riot weapon to fire thousands of plastic bullets. Whilst an immediate inquiry was called, few reports emerged of the way that innocent residents out for a night socialising were corralled by Landrovers and fired upon as all escape exits were sealed off.
Evidence Gathered by the Committee for the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland (CAJ), suggests a serious flouting of official guidelines for the RUC use of plastic bullets, when over 6002 plastic bullets were fired in just one weekend (July, 1996). CAJ recorded instances of the RUC firing indiscriminately when no disturbances were going on (including people being injured by plastic bullets as they were coming out of a disco); young people being shot by plastic bullets as they left a fast food restaurant; CAJ observers and journalists shot at by plastic bullets; people who were clearly attempting to leave areas of disturbance were also targeted. Victims of the conflict seeking medical attention at Altnagelvin Hospital were subject to a baton charge by riot police who had entered the casualty area dressed in full riot gear with dogs. Witness statements were gathered which suggested that many people refused to seek treatment from injuries they sustained from baton rounds for fear of arrest. (CAJ, 1996)
In such circumstances, the indiscriminate deployment of plastic bullets removes people's rights of assembly and may remove their rights to freedom of movement and in some situations their right to life. The provisions of the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers in regard to the principle of proportionality appear to have been breached last summer by the RUC, (as well as their duty not to use excessive force if it is possible to use non-violent means before resorting to force and firearms). We can think of no reason to challenge the European Parliament's decision of May, 1982 which called for a ban on the use of plastic bullets within the EU, and recommend that the European Parliament reaffirm their call for a total ban on this weapon.
5.4 Harmless Chemical Irritant Weapons?
We know that over 300 companies are currently manufacturing and marketing chemical incapacitants to military, security, prison and police forces around the world and a vast range of equipment is available, including cartridges, grenades, backpack sprays and hand held aerosols. Yet the safety of the commonly used riot control agents is also questionable. In high doses they can kill, a reality harshly brought home by deaths of children in South Africa during the apartheid years. Even in lower doses, there are a range of very unpleasant side effects including bronchitis, asthma, lung and eye damage, contact dermatitis and prolonged diarrhoea. An examination of the actual
research undertaken on CS prior to its authorization for use in the Derry riots of 1969 reveal some gross omissions and assumptions. The claim that CS did not harm people with breathing ailments rested on a study of two bronchitic rabbits; possible effects on the unborn child were tested by the response on fertilised chicken eggs when injected with CS.59 Inadequate evidence had been gathered on its effects on those suffering from heart complaints and experiments to determine whether or not CS was carcinogenic, were not completed until two years after it had been intensively used in Northern Ireland.
After the 1969 Derry riots, a committee of inquiry was set up, (the Himsworth Committee) to look at the medical and toxicological effects of CS. Although it drew heavily on existing Porton studies, the Himsworth Committee accepted that under certain circumstances CS can kill and that it can also produce highly unpleasant but non-fatal injuries to the lungs. Himsworth made the sensible recommendation that in future, riot agents should be regarded more akin to drugs than weapons and the authorities should publish the results of safety tests, in the scientific press, in full, prior to any authorization. (HMSO, Cmnd 4775, 1971). This is such a clear and reasonable precautionary stance, that we recommend that the European Parliament adopt it as the baseline criterion for all the chemical irritants which might ever be deployed in the EU.
Alas, for the amount of attention the UK government paid to this recommendation, we have only to look at the circumstances surrounding the introduction for use throughout the UK in certain special circumstances, of CR in 1973. CR is an incapacitant which causes temporary blindness. According to one Porton report, it feels like being thrown blindfolded into a bed of stinging nettles. (See Fig. 28)60 In 1977 the Secretary of State for Defence was challenged to withdraw authorization for CR until the Himsworth recommendations were complied with. The Minister refused, claiming this was already the case and went on to quote a string of articles all except one of which was published after 1973. None of these articles addressed the issue of carcinogenicity, an important consideration for chemicals that are intended for direct spraying on the skin. If research on these new weapons was not fully completed before they were used then the idea that they were deployed because of safety considerations must be rejected. Less-lethal weapons of this type are also presented as more acceptable alternatives to guns. But these weapons augment rather than replace the more lethal weapons in police arsenals. Euphemistic labels such as watercannon, teargas and rubber bullets are used to create the impression that these weapons represent soft and gentle forms of control, CS is never referred to by the authorities as vomit gas, in spite of its capacity to cause violent retching.
A further danger of stronger incapacitating chemicals sprayed directly on to crowds is the impact it can have on changing police practices. In the 1960's crowd dispersion was seen as the key requirement so that the a provision of escape routes was part of the training packages used. With the advent of new paralysing systems, crowd capture becomes a possibility as foam barriers to seal off all escape routes become a precursor for mass arrest. This tactic was deployed against German anti-nuclear protestors in Wackendorf, over ten years ago, when 7,000 police were used to ring a crowd of 1000 activists.61 (See Fig 29). On this occasion chemical foam was used in area denial rather than capture so the example is illustrative. However, with the back pack sprayers now being produced, much fewer personnel could achieve the same tactic. This is part of the problem on the horizon.
5.5 Harmless Irritant Gas Sprays?
The introduction of hand held gas irritant sprays into Europe into countries such as Germany, France and most recently, the UK, has yielded an offensive as well as a defensive capacity. Again1 in the UK we might have assumed they would be governed by existing UK policy on the introduction of new chemical weapons for domestic control. Until the nineties, despite intensive research, only four chemical agents were primarily used for such purposes, namely CN, CS, CR and most recently (Peppergas) OC. This is because there are real difficulties in marrying an agent with low toxicity and high effectiveness. CN and CS (developed by Porton Down in the fifties) are in fact war gases and hundreds of deaths are attributed to their use in the Vietnam conflict
where they were used to flush out Vietcong in tunnels. Porton scientists have always been quite realistic about the possible dangers of new chemical weapons for public order control. "As with other foreign chemicals to which man may be exposed, no matter how detailed, extensive and carefully effected are the pre-clinical toxicity investigations and observations in controlled human exposures, there can be no complete guarantee from such studies that there is absolute safety in use for a given chemical."63 Such caution about weapons designed to be sprayed directly in the face is well founded. Their use in riot control is based on an assumption that the level of irritant will be dispersed because they will be deployed in wide open spaces. There are special dangers associated with using chemical aerosols in tight designed to be sprayed directly in the face is well founded. Their use in riot control is based on an assumption that the level of irritant will be dispersed because they will be deployed in wide open spaces. There are special dangers associated with using chemical aerosols in tight confines where dangerous concentrations can build up. As another
scientist has commented, "Politician and scientist alike must accept the inescapable conclusion that any subs64
As we have seen, there is evidence that CS can cause permanent but non-lethal lung damage at comparatively low doses65, as well as second degree burns with blistering and severe dermatitis.66 In situations where high exposure to CS has occurred, heart failure, hepatocellur damage and death have been reported (HMSO, 1971). Some evidence also exists that people subject to repeated doses of CS develop tolerance, further increasing their level of exposure.67 One study has concluded that a single exposure to high level of respiratory irritants similar to CS have led to the development of 'reactive airways disease syndrome' in some individuals, characterised by prolonged cough and shortness of breath.68 New restraint tactics used alongside gas sprays are a potential recipe for fatalities. It is revealing that when tests on French made (SAE Alsetex) CS spray took place in the UK, a Metropolitan police inspector suffered burns to
his eyes during tests in Northampton - thought to be due to the propellant.69 It also emerged that Dr Jill Tan, the Home Office scientist who gave these devices the all clear, suffered blisters to her face when sprayed with the CS product during tests. Self-Defence expert Inspector Pete Boatman who was training the instructors when the accident happened has now been banned from training officers outside his region because his Chief Constable is worried about being sued by people injured by the incapacitant.70 Throughout the CS trials in the UK, which began on March 1, 1996, the public were constantly reassured about the safety of this product based on French studies, studies undertaken in the USA and military research conducted at Porton Down. A UK Channel 4 Dispatches programme revealed serious flaws in these assumptions.
(Liberty, 1996). The French gendarmerie keep no statistics or records of CS use to suggest it is safe. Indeed Professor Jean Claud Roujeau of the Hospital Henri Mondor in Paris can quote much evidence to the contrary. "I have to disagree because we have seen, in the last few years, several cases of patients suffering from severe skin reactions to these spray. These reactions look like acute burns, they are very spectacular and sometimes need hospitalisation for several days, and can reach 10-20 per cent of the body surface area of the patient. (See Fig. 30) It is generally agreed that above 20 per cent there is a risk of death, so I think it is impossible to consider these products as generally safe and harmless." (Liberty, opp cit)
The British Government also cited work by the US National Toxicology Programme (NTP) in Boston, but one of the world's leading toxicologists Professor Howard Hu said, "The NTP was purely designed to assess whether CS can cause cancer in laboratory animals. It was not designed to see whether CS could cause pulmonary (breathing) problems of a non carcinogenic nature, or skin problems and it really says nothing about the potential of CS to cause health problems in vulnerable people." Professor Hu also said that CS may actually cause asthma. "One of the conditions that CS may cause is commonly referred to as RADS, a variant of asthma caused by a very high, brief intense exposure to an irritant like CS". He also said that CS may be linked to chromosomal mutation - damage to the body's DNA itself.
In fact, the French made spray was given a specification in the UK which demanded that it be a 5% solution and release 5 centileters of fluid per burst which compares with U.S. versions which contain a 1% solution and release a 1% burst. In other words the French Sprays adopted by the UK were 25 times as strong as those used in the United States. It is perhaps somewhat revealing that the UK Government gave the go ahead for deployment of these sprays before the trials were complete and before all the relevant research was published in the scientific press.
In fact the safety concerns outlined above, are even more pressing in regard to this newly introduced disabling chemical, Oleoresin Capsicum (OC), or 'peppergas'. OC is a new irritant based on extracts from Chile pepper. As a plant toxin it is banned for use in war by the 1972 Biological Weapons convention but not for internal security use.
Porton Down began researching analogues of capsicum after it was used as a military harassing agent in World War I in the form of acylated vanillylamide and its more potent homologues such as VAN as a possible replacement for the riot agent CN. However, the agent was predominantly used in the seventies for Porton funded studies in the neurophysiology of pain such as those conducted in 1975 by Foster and Ramage at Manchester University's Medical School.71 However, it was in the USA that companies transformed this irritant into a commercial product which is now widely used by both police, corrections departments and private citizens.
The effects of peppergas are far more severe, including temporary blindness which last from 15-30 minutes, a burning sensation of the skin which last from 45 to 60 minutes, upper body spasms which force a person to bend forward and uncontrollable coughing making it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 to 15 minutes. For those with asthma, taking other drugs, or subject to restraining techniques which restrict the breathing passages, there is a risk of death. The Los Angeles Times has reported at least 61 deaths associated with police use of pepper spray since 1990 in the USA,72 and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) documented 27 deaths in custody of people sprayed with peppergas in California alone, since 1993.73 Whilst peppergas has been widely adopted in the US and Canada so far it has not seen widespread usage in Europe. Nevertheless, several European companies such as France,74 Germany,75 Spain76 and the UK77 are known to be either marketing their own brand or importing OC sprays and backpacks from the USA. However, the US Army concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause "Mutagenic effects, carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities .There is a risk in using this product on a large and varied population"
(Salem, 1993) However, the pepper spray got the go ahead despite the reservations of the US military scie