Surveillance in Clontarf

Thursday February 06, 2003 11:40

by Kitty-Kat

The cops in these here parts seem to have a lot of time on their hands... to harass anyone who knows the Catholic Workers

I was minding the flat of one of the Catholic Worker 5 for the week…
On Monday morning I called in sick to work, needed to catch up on some shut-eye. The phone in the flat was hopping. Didn’t answer it. Despite getting no answer on the phone, the local Gardaí decided to call over anyway. Ban Garda rang the doorbell maybe half a dozen times. Nursing a hangover, I tried to ignore her. Someone else in the building let her in and she hammered the door, this girl was persistent!! So eventually I relented and opened the door. Blah blah blah can you confirm she lives her etc etc. What’s your name? Where are you from? No comment no comment. Where is she from? Dunno dunno dunno. So I thought, well, it was inevitable someone had to confirm her address after she got arrested - back to bed.

So why did another plain clothes cop arrive at 11:30 last night again doggedly determined to get into the building? I’d a splitting headache and had no intention of letting whoever it was in, assuming it was someone ringing the wrong number. In the quiet of the building I could hear her buzzing all the other flats. My question… if no one answers from the flat she’s going to, why get into the building? Another hammering on the door. What’s your name? What’s your relationship to the detained? Are you living here? How long are you staying? Oops… now why didn’t I know someone had already been around, sorry, um… miscommunication. So my question… I’ve been in since six this evening, no-one called, so why wait til the middle of the night to hammer the door, get me out of bed and flash some I.D. at me in a dark hallway and ask questions, not about Deirdre, but me????

A friend called over on Tuesday night, he left pretty late and as he wasn’t familiar with the area I kept an eye out the window to see he got a taxi. Thought I saw him across the street, but after a little scrutiny realised it wasn’t him, but as a result I noticed a lot of detail about the bloke. The guy was walking north by the flat, very slowly, despite it being freezing out there. I happened to look out again a little later, feeling guilty that I’d sent my mate packing on such a cold night and there was the same big burly guy. Again he was walking north real slow, so he’d obviously walked by the place twice already, this time he stared right up at my window so I walked out onto the balcony to get a good look at him and possibly scare him off … once he saw me come out he sped up alright and quickly ducked around the corner. Thing was, my mate was still down there, waiting on a taxi, he said the guy had dumb undercover cop written all over him.

Now maybe I am jumping the gun here, putting 2 + 2 and getting 5 but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were up to their post-street party tricks. They are trying to make sense of all this and I guess they want to root out “the network” ha ha ha!! fucking morons.

And as they are no doubt trawling through this site.. if i'm wrong call me paranoid, if i'm right call me ... on to you...

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Comments (4 of 4)

kitty

by pat c

Thu Feb 06, 2003 11:55

The best way to deal with this is to COMPLAIN!

Make a written complaint to the Garda Complaints Tribunal; it may not get anywhere BUT it will mean some type of incvestigation will take place. The relevant cops will be discommoded.

Also write letters of complaint to the Garda Commissioner, again he will have to reply to you. (You can complain to the Garda Complaints Tribunal if he doesnt!) This will peeve him a bit, even he'll wonder why the local cops wre carrying on in such a silly manner.

The same goes for the Minister of Justice. Also write to the the Ministers private secretary; then if you dont get a response, you can complain to the Ombudsman!

All of this will set in motion a paper wagon train that will use up time and resources.

make a complaint

by kitty-kat

Thu Feb 06, 2003 13:23

fair point but the claim of harassment is easily dismissable in this case...the "oops! i didn't know anyone else had been" comment by the second Ban Garda may well be sincere. but more significantly... it WILL be denied and they'll have all my personal details. so the ratio of what am i giving up vs. what can be gained is not a good one.

Police and Political Intimidation

by shoegirl - none but me

Thu Feb 06, 2003 13:32

shoegirl at eircom dot net

nada. my own business.

This is nothing new. I have always had potentially very radical political views, and after publicly speaking out in an interview many years ago, my father was called to the head office of his largest customers. This customer basically intimidated my father by threatening to close his business, and hinted that he had been told to do it by a now disgraced politician to whom he was very close. Polticial intimidation is unsurprising in this country since we are not a true democracy and recent incident involving police intimidation of radical protestors is quite unsurprising.

As to your friend, I believe I knew her back at college some years ago, I think I remember somebody of that name in Trinity with unique but genuine views. If it is the same person, I'm delighted for her to have made such a courageous move to highlight the hypocrisy of this very dubious government, and it is time that the great unwashed recognised the democratic deficit that activists have been arguing about for years.

yeah but

by pat

Thu Feb 06, 2003 13:33

A NAME and a KNOWN address could be used. dont want to sound paranoid but it is possible they already have all your details.

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Surveillance in Clontarf

Comments (4 of 4)