5 ms·

Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of stu

Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course. Action Palestine, Cut the Rent, Justice for Cleaners, Intersectional Feminists and Climate Strike

brighter2morrow 7y ago
>The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course. >Action Palestine, Cut the Rent, Justice for Cleaners, Intersectional Feminists and Climate Strike Extreme organizations always give themselves genteel names. The whole point of such groups is to mainstream their views, so a mainstream-friendly name is just part of that effort.
- lostmyoldone 7y ago
  First I thought you to be mostly right about that, how groups name themselves. But looking at the lists of extremist groups I was able to find, I was surprised to see that names (at least in languages I can read) are actually quitw often just as extreme as the groups, and follows some rather superficial patterns. Further, almost all names that are not obviously extreme still referred to either nationality or religion one way or another. Quite surprising to be honest. According to those patterns, most of those organisations are extremely unlikely to classify as extremists in the usual sense of the word. The might still have extremely unusual opinions, but that's a completely different matter.
DanBC 7y ago
They had the list because they've had problems with some students occupying buildings in demonstrations around pay and conditions of cleaning staff. Often cleaning is sub-contracted to a different company, and the cleaning staff have terrible pay and conditions. Police requested the information, but did so informally. Police didn't specify specifically what information they needed. [EDIT: This is bad! The uni should have asked for a formal request, and then done a privacy impact assessment. This is mentioned in the report linked to below] Ignore the Register, which is hopeless, and read the report which is also hopeless but at least it's mostly factual. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/bush-house-security-report.pdf https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/bush-house-security-re...
- t34543 7y ago
  Informal requests aren’t harmless, and still need to be lawful (GDPR).
  - DanBC 7y ago
    Yes! Sorry, I should have said that the uni was wrong to just dump that info to the police without a formal request and without doing an impact assessment first.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Wouldn't an informal request be more concerning than a formal request since it is more likely not to undergo the normal scrutiny?
  - DanBC 7y ago
    Yes!
cgriswald 7y ago
> The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. I'm not sure why the police asking for the list would be disturbing by itself. If they are investigating a crime and group X is suspected of being involved, finding out who belongs to group X seems prudent. > The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course. I don't know how you can tell that from the name. In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified.
- Emma_Goldman 7y ago
  >"I'm not sure why the police asking for the list would be disturbing by itself." Unless they have evidence that these individuals either committed a crime or intend to, then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power. >"In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified." I don't think 'extremists' is the right word. It's extremely unlike that we are talking about terrorism, or even the destruction of property. I suspect that KCL feared the normal modes of student protest: occupation, no-platforming, and spectacle. If you read the report, the list at issue is a list of 'student protestors', made up of names from an occupation at KCL opposed to the outsourcing of the university's cleaning staff, a series of climate changes protests, and a protest outside a lecture by a Colonel in the Israeli Defence Force. These kinds of things have occurred at most universities in the UK over recent years, and they are fairly innocuous.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    > Unless they have evidence that these individuals either committed a crime or intend to... Police routinely ask questions of and about people who are not suspected of a crime in the process of investigating a crime. If a crime occurs and they have reason to suspect that a person in group X knows something about the crime, it's completely reasonable for them to seek out and question members of that group. Requiring police to not only suspect, but have actual evidence against a person in order to investigate is an unreasonable burden and would make all but the most trivial cases impossible to solve. > then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power. Sure. There are several reasons why a request might be objectionable, but I don't see any of those reasons being seriously and credibly alleged; only assumed or implied.
closeparen 7y ago
It would take a strong positive commitment to privacy to not notice when people are publicly declaring their opposition to you and their intention to disrupt your operations.
yrro 7y ago
> Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of havi g extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.
- DanBC 7y ago
  In theory the PREVENT agenda is only concerned with groups that support terrorism or similarly extremist views. In practice a lot of people who are not violent hold extremist views, which is why there have been so many prevent agenda referrals. Here's a reasonable article about PREVENT: https://www.anncrafttrust.org/what-is-the-prevent-agenda/ https://www.anncrafttrust.org/what-is-the-prevent-agenda/
yrro 7y ago
> Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of having extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.

brighter2morrow 7y ago

>The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course. >Action Palestine, Cut the Rent, Justice for Cleaners, Intersectional Feminists and Climate Strike Extreme organizations always give themselves genteel names. The whole point of such groups is to mainstream their views, so a mainstream-friendly name is just part of that effort.

lostmyoldone 7y ago
First I thought you to be mostly right about that, how groups name themselves. But looking at the lists of extremist groups I was able to find, I was surprised to see that names (at least in languages I can read) are actually quitw often just as extreme as the groups, and follows some rather superficial patterns. Further, almost all names that are not obviously extreme still referred to either nationality or religion one way or another. Quite surprising to be honest. According to those patterns, most of those organisations are extremely unlikely to classify as extremists in the usual sense of the word. The might still have extremely unusual opinions, but that's a completely different matter.

DanBC 7y ago

They had the list because they've had problems with some students occupying buildings in demonstrations around pay and conditions of cleaning staff. Often cleaning is sub-contracted to a different company, and the cleaning staff have terrible pay and conditions. Police requested the information, but did so informally. Police didn't specify specifically what information they needed. [EDIT: This is bad! The uni should have asked for a formal request, and then done a privacy impact assessment. This is mentioned in the report linked to below] Ignore the Register, which is hopeless, and read the report which is also hopeless but at least it's mostly factual. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/bush-house-security-report.pdf https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/bush-house-security-re...

t34543 7y ago
Informal requests aren’t harmless, and still need to be lawful (GDPR).
- DanBC 7y ago
  Yes! Sorry, I should have said that the uni was wrong to just dump that info to the police without a formal request and without doing an impact assessment first.
harimau777 7y ago
Wouldn't an informal request be more concerning than a formal request since it is more likely not to undergo the normal scrutiny?
- DanBC 7y ago
  Yes!

cgriswald 7y ago

> The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. I'm not sure why the police asking for the list would be disturbing by itself. If they are investigating a crime and group X is suspected of being involved, finding out who belongs to group X seems prudent. > The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course. I don't know how you can tell that from the name. In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified.

Emma_Goldman 7y ago
>"I'm not sure why the police asking for the list would be disturbing by itself." Unless they have evidence that these individuals either committed a crime or intend to, then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power. >"In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified." I don't think 'extremists' is the right word. It's extremely unlike that we are talking about terrorism, or even the destruction of property. I suspect that KCL feared the normal modes of student protest: occupation, no-platforming, and spectacle. If you read the report, the list at issue is a list of 'student protestors', made up of names from an occupation at KCL opposed to the outsourcing of the university's cleaning staff, a series of climate changes protests, and a protest outside a lecture by a Colonel in the Israeli Defence Force. These kinds of things have occurred at most universities in the UK over recent years, and they are fairly innocuous.
- cgriswald 7y ago
  > Unless they have evidence that these individuals either committed a crime or intend to... Police routinely ask questions of and about people who are not suspected of a crime in the process of investigating a crime. If a crime occurs and they have reason to suspect that a person in group X knows something about the crime, it's completely reasonable for them to seek out and question members of that group. Requiring police to not only suspect, but have actual evidence against a person in order to investigate is an unreasonable burden and would make all but the most trivial cases impossible to solve. > then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power. Sure. There are several reasons why a request might be objectionable, but I don't see any of those reasons being seriously and credibly alleged; only assumed or implied.

closeparen 7y ago

It would take a strong positive commitment to privacy to not notice when people are publicly declaring their opposition to you and their intention to disrupt your operations.

yrro 7y ago

> Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of havi g extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.

DanBC 7y ago
In theory the PREVENT agenda is only concerned with groups that support terrorism or similarly extremist views. In practice a lot of people who are not violent hold extremist views, which is why there have been so many prevent agenda referrals. Here's a reasonable article about PREVENT: https://www.anncrafttrust.org/what-is-the-prevent-agenda/ https://www.anncrafttrust.org/what-is-the-prevent-agenda/

yrro 7y ago

> Why did this university have a list of "activist" students curated anyways? The article doesn't make it clear whether the police asked the uni for a list of students involved in x and y organizations or whether the uni just handed over a list of people on a watchlist. Either is disturbing. Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of having extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.