Secret Policing dribbles

[Peter Lemkin]

Hundreds of lawyers 'bugged on prison visits' - By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor12:01AM GMT 09 Feb 2008 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1...isits.html
The full scale of a nationwide policy to bug British jails can be disclosed today after a whistleblower revealed that hundreds of lawyers and prison visitors had been secretly recorded.
The covert eavesdropping of the MP Sadiq Khan is alleged to be just the first case in a far wider operation to bug terrorist suspects and other serious criminals introduced after the September 11 attacks.
Lawyers, including the human rights solicitors Gareth Peirce and Mudassar Arani, were allegedly "routinely bugged" by police during visits to see clients at Woodhill prison. Listening devices were said to have been concealed in tables at the jail.

• Detective who bugged MP 'was bugged himself to stop him talking'
  06 Feb 2008
  
• Secret unit 'bugged hundreds of prison visits'
  09 Feb 2008
  
• Who was taped?
  09 Feb 2008
  
• Was the law being broken?
  09 Feb 2008
  

Nationally it is thought that many more people may have been covertly recorded.
Serious criminals, including the Soham murderer Ian Huntley and the letter bomber Miles Cooper, are also thought to have been targeted by the alleged secret bugging.
It is feared that the eavesdropping of legally-privileged discussions could lead to calls from defence solicitors for major criminal cases to be retried.
This weekend, ministers are under intense pressure to reveal what they knew about the secret bugging practice. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said last night that he would be writing to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, demanding an inquiry into the surveillance process.
"It is inconceivable that this action has taken place without ministerial approval," he said.
"Whilst there can be reasons for eavesdropping on legal meetings, it is such a serious infringement of people's rights that there has to be a very good reason if this has happened. It can put the trial at risk which means that serious crimes may go unpunished."
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, said that he was "appalled" by the latest revelations.
"The confidentiality between a lawyer and client is a pillar of our legal system. I'm astonished that ministers have apparently given the go-ahead to this without any public discussion," he said.
Andrew Holroyd, the president of the Law Society, said: "It is completely unacceptable that defence solicitors should fear that their conversations with clients are being monitored.
"The law requires that conversations between a solicitor and their client are legally privileged. All monitoring should cease and if a conversation between a solicitor and a client is captured accidentally the tape should be destroyed."
The scandal came to light after Mr Khan, a Muslim Labour MP, was covertly recorded during two visits to a terrorist suspect held at Wood*hill prison in Milton Keynes in 2005 and 2006.
It led to a political outcry as the bugging of MPs has been prohibited since the 1960s. Mr Straw was forced to set up an inquiry. He insisted he had known nothing of the operation before last weekend, although it later emerged that officials in his department had learnt of the allegations two months ago.
Now someone with detailed knowledge of the operation claims that Mr Khan's visits were allegedly among "hundreds of conversations" bugged by Det Sgt Mark Kearney during his time with a four-man intelligence team based at the prison since early 2002.
The recordings are deemed so sensitive that copies are stored at a secret facility protected by armed guards.
Initially, only a handful of prisons implemented the alleged bugging policy - including Woodhill and Belmarsh - but over the past 18 months the secret policy is alleged to have been rolled out across Britain.
At least 10 solicitors had conversations recorded at Woodhill while dozens more are thought to have been monitored across the country, the insider claimed. Hundreds of prison visitors were also targeted.
The whistleblower said: "Mark [Kearney] didn't feel what was going on was right or legal. Every person who came in and saw these terrorist suspects was the subject of an eavesdropping operation. He was put under huge amounts of pressure. Initially, it was just one or two machines but it steadily increased and now covers other category A prisoners such as murderers."
Documents seen by The Daily Telegraph reveal that Mr Kearney's team was also ordered to search and copy the contents of prison visitors' bags including keys and mobile phone sim cards.
These allegedly included confidential documents left by lawyers. It is also alleged that senior Woodhill prison staff were extremely unhappy with the practice.
A written statement drafted by Mr Kearney last year as part of his answer to criminal charges he now faces, claimed the pressure of what he was being asked to do affected his mental state.
After he became concerned about the work he was doing, detectives launched an investigation in February 2007 into whether he was leaking stories to the press via a local newspaper journalist, Sally Murrer.
He was charged with misconduct in a public office and, along with Mrs Murrer, faces prosecution next week. The pair claim their prosecution is a witch-hunt.
Last night, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "Police monitoring operations are a matter for the police and are undertaken in line with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
"The Prison Service may grant the police permission to operate in prison providing that there are no concerns about order or control. Such co-operation is vital in the fight against serious crime and terrorism.
"It would not usually be appropriate for the Prison Service to question the police's decision to monitor an individual; nor would it expect the police to share details of the intelligence cases underpinning its monitoring operations.
"It would not be appropriate to discuss particular prisoners or other individuals."


Solicitor fears over prisoner bugging - Last Updated: Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 11:55 GMT - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7227918.stm
....
Legal implications
Mr Creighton said there were also implications for trials and, in particular, those which involve the government.
"The real worry is that, very often, the case is being brought against the government, and if the government have the knowledge of exactly what's happening in your case and how it's being prepared, then it gives them an unfair advantage from day one." [Speaking of which, I've just popped-along to the hospital to dish-out a few docs to the docs on the piquet line, but it seems they've all got Brighton headaches and have buggered-off - that'll be the boogeymen - maybe]
Mr Creighton also said that the case involving Mr Khan would only further existing fears that bugging in prisons is already taking place.
"It's certainly the case that many prisoners have long been worried that their supposedly legally privileged, confidential calls have been monitored.
"And obviously, discovery of this has happened on at least one occasion [and this] will give rise to further paranoia on the part of people and further suspicions that it does indeed happen more regularly".

That has been going on in the USA since at least 2001....likely in high profile cases before...after just about everyone.