Rebelión among the surveyed webs
Adolfo Mena/Rebelión in Indymedia
What was a voiced secret has now been acknowledged the last two
days by the Spanish National Police and spread by various press
agencies -EFE and COLPISA- as well as several newsmedia -El Norte
de Castilla, Ideal, Las Provincias, La Verdad-. The information
services of the National Police and the Civil Guard have revealed
that since December ‘01 they spy and track the alternative
information networks on the Internet with the aim of facing the
anti-globalization movement.
“Information and prevention are our two main weapons,”
has been the excuse of the experts of the National Police according
to news agency COLPISA.
The sources counted eight alternative web servers, which they
have criminalized as “main resources of anti-system elements
to spread all over Europe schedules of the main protests as well
as urban guerrilla warfare tactics.”
The criminalized webs are, according to information offered by
police services, Barcelona Indymedia, Observatorio Global, International
Protest Action, Nodo50, Acción Internacional de Estudiantes,
Rebelion, La Haine and Sin Dominio.
Without any judicial cause or legal action against these alternative
collectives, the police services have started a campaign of criminalization.
The sources of the police defend their espionage saying that these
media organize sabotages against planned activities and “promote
street-fighting.” The security experts of the Ministry of
the Interior, without giving any detailed information or proof,
say that they have detected urban guerrilla warfare tactics and
sabotage methods to provoke and face the security forces deployed
under the demonstrations.
The police forces justify their actions with the events that
took place in Genoa, where the police killed an activist. Those
days of repression and murder were described by a Spanish police
official that spoke to COLPISA as “important failures on
the part of the police because of, that’s it, lack of information.”
This espionage has also been acknowledged by the Governor of
Valencia, Carmen Mas, who said last Monday that “the police
has been investigating during the last several months on the internet
the movements of the anti-globalization groups” and explained
that “those investigations have intensified because of the
Euro-Mediterranean Summit taking place in Valencia next April,”
according to a report of EFE. The governor also acknowledged that
“these sources of information are investigated by other the
police in other autonomous communities as well.”
