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State agencies put protestors under extensive internet surveillance

01 March 2002

In the run-up to the Barcelona EU Summit 15-16 March the Spanish police and the Guardia Civil put the website, discussion pages and mailings lists of the organisation Nodo50 under extensive surveillance. The group monitored the monitors and their story is told below.

This story originated on: http://losvigilantes.nodo50.org/infoenglish.html
The home page of nodo50.org is: http://losvigilantes.nodo50.org/
(with thanks to www.cryptome.org)

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Watching the watchmen: police espionage on Nodo50 and the anti-globalisation movement

In this report we will explain how Nodo50 has been monitored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in order to point out that the Government knows everything that the Antiglobalitation Movement thinks and discusses. Hence it is lying when it maintains that violent actions are being prepared from Nodo50 including production of a sabotage manual, urban guerrilla warfare etc.

"On December 11th, the Head Director of the Spanish Police, Juan Cotino, declared to the EFE news agency that the Anti-globalisation Movement represented a threat to national security on the occasion of the semester of the Spanish presidency of the EU, comparing it implicitly to terrorism. He also declared that the security forces are investigating the Anti-globalisation Movement"
(Source: El Mundo)

On January 25th 2002 we read in the Spanish mass media of the "fears" of the Spanish Internal Affairs Ministry. An unidentified spokesman alerted officials of the supposed arrival of "4,000 antisystem militants", gathering to demonstrate against the EU summits which will be celebrated during the first semester of this year. Of the many comments, we want to emphasize the following in particular:

"One and a half months ago, the police information services detected a meeting in Zaragoza of radical groups, anarchists, squatters and supporters of leftish "abertzale", at which they suspect protest actions were being prepared for the six months of the Spanish presidency".
(Source: )

This news and the nature of the information filtered from the police suggests that "something suspicious" was being prepared in Zaragoza. The news, gilded with violent shades, gives the impression that what was in reality a public and open meeting of the Antiglobalitation Movement, was little less than a clandestine meeting to destabilize the Spanish Presidency of the EU.

In this report we will explain how Nodo50 has been monitored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in order to point out that the Government knows everything that the Antiglobalitation Movement thinks and discusses. Hence it is lying when it maintains that violent actions are being prepared from Nodo50 including production of a sabotage manual, urban guerrilla warfare etc. Most of the information included in this report is extracted from our server "logs". Neither special knowledge nor espionage skills has been necessary to collect this information: only the ability to read.

A clear example of what we considered media manipulation coordinated by the police is the note of the Colpisa Agency of January 13th 2002 which can be read here

The poisonous nature of this information demonstrates clearly that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has the objective of preparing the ground for repression of the organs of communication of the Anti-globalisation Movement. A previous campaign of criminalization as a basic tool and means for power control is well understood by Mr. Coti