Shanon Activists accused of spying

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday February 12, 2003 22:26 by Slarti

According to a report in today's Evening Echo "A plot to spy on US military aircraft using Shannon Airport has been foiled in a joint operation between the gardai and airport police"

It goes on to say that "A garda investigation is underway into the circumstances of the attempted surveillance and into what use would have been intended for the filmed material"

It further describes the incident as "alarming". It says the three men a one woman involved are "suspected to be anti-war protesters". It admits they were outside the perimeter fence and just filming "US-chartered troop-carrying planes and other commercial aircraft" It also claims thjat "film was removed from a camcorder and confiscated by the gardai".

My information is that the four people involved were monitoring the airport and were filming. I understand that they had some interaction with the gardai/airport police but that they did NOT have any film confiscated. What's more worrying is that they seem to think they'd get away with confiscating film in these circumstances. Monitoring of the airport has been ongoing since October 2001 (by various people) and is the main reason why the use of Shannon is even an issue (the initial official reaction was simply to deny that it was happening). If standing on a public road filming activities taking place in another public place (when such activities are the basis for a major national debate) is spying then we've gone further down a vaery dangerous road than i thought we had.