Campaigners in the UK have long been aware that spies could be infiltrating their networks. From undercover cops to social media monitoring, the right to protest comes with the risk of surveillance.
Just this week, openDemocracy revealed how a gold mining company in Northern Ireland spent years monitoring a 72-year-old activist, amassing a 92-page dossier of information on his campaigning.
But snooping is no longer the preserve of police and private intelligence firms. Increasingly, many of the country’s leading political and cultural institutions are tracking peaceful activists.
