We are all extremists now[UK]

Guardian ^ | 16 Feb 2009 | Seumas Milne

[BGHater]

The government is criminalising legitimate dissent under the guise of fighting 'extremism', a word for which it has no definition

For most of the past century, Britain's secret state bugged, blacklisted and spied on leftists, trade unionists and peace campaigners, as well as Irish republicans and anyone else regarded as a "subversive" threat to the established order.

That was all supposed to have been brought to a halt in the wake of the end of the cold war in the early 1990s. MI5 now boasts it has ended its counter-subversion work altogether, having other jihadist fish to fry (it will have soon doubled its staffing and budget on the back of the 9/11 backlash).

Whether those claims should be taken at face value must be open to question. But it now turns out that other arms of the secret state have in any case been stepping up to the plate to fill the gap in the market.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) insists that its confidential intelligence unit – reported last week to be now coordinating surveillance and infiltration of "domestic extremists", including anti-war protesters and strikers – is not in fact a new organisation, but has been part of its public order intelligence operations since 1999, liaising with MI5 and its 44 forces' special branch outfits across the country.

But yes, Acpo's spokesman tells me, it is in the business of targeting groups such as those involved in the recent Gaza war protests, trade unionists taking part in secondary industrial action and animal rights organisations – though only if they break the law or "seek to break the law".

[ZULU]

It would seem to me that this unit should be directing its actions against British Islamists as well as the dirball groups it is currently targetting.

It would seem to me that they are not as all encompassing as they should be and I have no problem with them rooting out most of the people they are targeting.

The Guardian must be a leftist rag.