The Echo and Councilbust have covered this pretty thoroughly, but it’s still worth us mentioning that senior Lib Dem Norman Baker came to Southend Airport last week, and quite rightly wasn’t happy at the police taking photos of a meeting between himself and local residents.
To quote the Daily Mail
Police were at the centre of a fresh surveillance row tonight after photographing campaigners against airport expansion who held talks with an MP.
Furious campaigners criticised Essex Police for snapping people who attended a peaceful meeting about the future of Southend Airport.
A police officer photographed residents and members of campaign groups at the airport on ‘crime and disorder’ grounds.Tonight Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman who was at the airport to discuss the plans, condemned the ‘gross intrusion’ into innocent people’s civil liberties.
He likened the constabulary’s heavy-handed approach to ‘Stasi-like spying’, and warned it was just the latest example of ‘Big Brother Britain’.
Mr Baker visited the airport and met members of Greenpeace and campaign group Stop Airport Expansion Now, which are opposed to plans to increase the size of the airfield.He said: ‘This sort of police behaviour is more akin to East Germany in the 1980s than a democratic country like Britain. It seems to becoming a habit.
‘People should be able to lobby members of parliament without being photographed by the police. It was quite wrong that police were taking pictures.’
Mark Sharp, of Greenpeace’s South East Essex branch, said: ‘This was an unpleasant and intimidating experience.‘It would appear that today in this country all one has to do in order to be treated as if one were a terrorist is to be invited to meet with a member of parliament.’
He added: ‘We neither broke nor did we intend to break any laws; we had no intention of holding any form of protest, which is not against the law anyway
Kiti Theobald, chairman of the Stop Airport Extension Now group, said: ‘I was walking out of the main building and there was a policeman with a camera. I asked him if he was taking pictures of me and he said yes.‘I asked him why, but he just said his boss told him to do it. He wouldn?t tell me anything else about it.
‘I am not a criminal and had gone there to speak to Mr Baker, as the airport is an important issue for local people. I found it very disconcerting as I haven?t done anything wrong.’
Chief Inspector Andy Prophet, of Essex Police, admitted he had authorised police officers taking photographs of campaigners. He said the tactic was often used at football matches and to police ‘troublemakers’.He said: ‘I had information to suggest that some might use the occasion to disrupt the business of the airport by breaching the perimeter. On the basis of this information, I took the decision to allow officers to use cameras.’
He said all the images obtained had been destroyed because the meeting was peaceful.
As transport spokesman, is Mr Baker aware that by simply travelling along the A127/A13/A130/A12 he would have had his car number-plate photographed at numerous points by fixed ANPR cameras, with details of the journey stored for potentially 2 years.
Many Essex towns are also ringed by ANPR cameras to record which vehicles enter and leave them, I was wondering when Rayleigh will finally add to this intrusion.
I’d be interested to know what Mr Baker makes of the fixed ANPR network and recording of driver’s movements.