Flickr/Nathan Meijer. Some rights reserved.Today marks the launch of the Special Branch Files Project, a website publishing declassified files focused on the secret police monitoring of political activists and campaigners in the UK. It includes documents about the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Anti-Apartheid Movement and the psychological welfare of undercover police officers who spied upon such groups.
Collectively the files convey the scale of political surveillance and the eye-watering level of detail recorded. They are also a testament to the discoveries that have been made by journalists using the Freedom of Information Act, and their publication responds to official attempts to retreat on such openness.
In the first years following the introduction of the FOI Act in 2005, the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office were relatively open to releasing Special Branch documents and disclosing files about the monitoring of political movements and individuals. Unfortunately such transparency was short-lived and they began routinely refusing similar requests, relying upon an exemption for information relating to security bodies. The Met argued that because Special Branches work closely with the security services and routinely share information with them, Special Branch material is likely to ‘relate to’ a security body and therefore needn’t be disclosed.
