Gareth Crossman Policy Director of Liberty and His Links to Unmanned Surveillance Aircraft To Be Used To Spy on The British Public

Gareth Crossman is Director of Policy at Liberty

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gareth_crossman/profile.html

He has written papers for the following organisationsThe Smith Institute

http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/default.htm

A UK Think Tank with the folllowing notable trusteesLord Murray Elder ex Bank of England and Labour peer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Elder

Paul Myners- Chairman of the Guardian Media Group, member of the court of the Bank of England

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Myners

One member of staff is very interesting

Senior research fellow Irwin M Seltzer , M.D of Rothschilds Bank, Henry Jackson Society and the Hudson Institute

http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/staff.html

Both Shami Chakrabarti and Gareth Crossman were involved and contributed a chapter in a document produced by the Smith Institute called Britain and Security
This was edited by and the introduction written by Dr Paul Cornish Carrington Chair in International Security and Head of the International Security Programme (ISP). Chatham House

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/research/security/

The foreword to this document was by Keith Butler Wheelhouse CEO of The Smith Group PLC ( Retired 2007)

http://www.smithsdetection.com/eng/index.php

The former chairman of The Smith Group was Sir Nigel Broomfield ex chairman of the Ditchley Foundation and still a member He was also one of the participants in Exercise Atlantic Storm, the Bioterrorism exercise alongside Madeleine Allbright

http://www.atlantic-storm.org/flash/flash.htm

Another chapter writer in this document wasElizabeth Wilmshurst CMG, Associate Fellow at Chatham House

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4377605.stm

Here is the document Britain and security

http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/pdfs/british_security_FINAL.pdf

Another document for the Smith Institute with a chapter by Shami Chakrabarti was Social Justice- Criminal Justice

http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/pdfs/social-justice_criminal-justice.pdf

Although this is not incriminating in any way it shows that her involvement with the Smith Institute is an ongoing relationship.

Another coup for the Smith Institute was a lecture given by Bill Clinton and Gordon Brown titled Globalisation and progressive politics

Trancript-- http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/pdfs/globalisation_and_progressive_politics.pdf

NOW FOR THE BIG ONE IN MY OPINION

Gareth Crossman Policy Director at Liberty was quoted in todays Independent on an article titled Unmanned spy planes to police Britain

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unmanned-spy-planes-to-police-britain-886083.html

Gareth Crossman was quoted

Gareth Crossman, director of policy at the civil rights watchdog Liberty, said: "The question is not so much about the technology but what one does with it. We have quite definite laws about where CCTV can be used but of course with UAVs you have much greater ability to gather material in private spaces and this would lead to concern."He added: "If they are used to simply hover to gain random information then that would obviously be a matter of worry and a civil liberty issue."

He was on the steering committee and contributed to a project for DEMOS titled

National Security for the 21st Century (10th December 2007)

Another contributor to this project was once again Paul Cornish of Chatham House

This project was supported (financed) by

The Cabinet Office

G4S Global Risks

http://www.g4s.com/grk.htm

Thales

Now Thales are a massive defence contractor

http://www.thalesgroup.com/uk

and one of their products is the Watchkeeper unmanned aerial surveillance aircraft

http://www.thalesgroup.com/uk/Activities/Details.html?link=1C5F4D3C-4A50-7F01-1C67-016839696201:central%20activities%20all&locale=EN-gb&Title=WATCHKEEPER%3A+The+UK+tactical+UAV+surveillance+system&dis=1

The very system mentioned in the Independent article to which Gareth Crossman appeared

So the policy director at liberty was part of a project funded in part by the suppliers of drone surveillance aircraft which is going to be potentially used to spy on the British public

The project document

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/National%20Security%20web.pdf

It goes further though

The Smith Institute openly endorse Thales and have carried out work for them

http://www.smithinst.co.uk/cs-thales.php

Thales are commercial partners in the ASTRAEA project

ASTRAEA stands for Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment.

The programme seeks to research, develop and validate the necessary technologies, systems, facilities and procedures to promote and enable safe, routine and unrestricted use of UASs.

http://www.projectastraea.co.uk/?OBH=354

This project for unmanned surveillance aircraft in the uk has had injected into it £16 million of public money split as follows
£5 million from the DTI
£11 million from the regions namely

Public sector input is led by the Welsh Assembly Government. Other regions that are investing in ASTRAEA are the South West of England Regional Development Agency, South East Economic Development Agency, Scottish Enterprise and the North West Regional Development Agency.

Six of the country's leading universities Cranfield, Lancaster, Leicester, Loughborough, Sheffield and West of England are partners in the ASTRAEA programme, engaged in projects ranging from Ground Operations & Human Systems and UAV Handling to Multiple Air Vehicle Integration and Decision Making.
Sub-contracts have also been awarded to the universities of Aberystwyth and Glamorgan to work on aspects of Prognostics & Health Management and Communications & Air Traffic Control respectively.

http://www.projectastraea.co.uk/?OBH=360

1. Should the Policy Director at Liberty Gareth Crossman who is their to protect Civil Liberties be involved in projects funded by the very organisations who are progressing surveillance on the british public.

2. Did he gain financially from his work for the Smith Institute ?