Out of Control!

Activist meeting against the “European security architecture”

19-22 November 2009, Southern Germany

European security politics of the last twenty years has increased the potency of social and state control in a prodigious manner. New technologies, legislations, techniques and doctrines were established in the middle of the judicial, police and military apparatuses. The forces of control are merging, while the fronts of struggle are multiplicated.

Conflicts did not miss of course. From popular neighbourhoods to video surveillance, “border management” and "e-borders“, databases, control of telecommunication, new DNA or biometric technologies, satellites and flying cameras, blocking of websites, repression of militants, migrants, “crowd control” at summit protests or alternative cultures as the free parties, the hold of state control stretched.

But resistance is too punctual, located and specific to succeed. Very rare are the initiatives which managed, from demonstrations to direct actions, from meetings to judicial procedures, from speech to riots, to find a long-lasting echo among the population and to really prevent the march towards the control society.

There are many struggles and many actors of those struggles, but there is very little space for meetings and only little convergence.

But there is a need to find a common understanding of the changes regarding the “European security architecture”. Surveillance and control are shifting towards preventive, proactive, preemptive repression. New legislations, guidelines and treaties should help the European Union becoming an own state with more power and institutions, such as the “Treaty of Lisbon” or the “Stockholm Programme”, that should develop guidelines for the next five years of western security politics. The EU wants to set up a new “strategy of security”.

Such is the paradox of the security subject: on the questions of security, new technologies, repression, control of migration and public liberties, the attack is transverse, but the resistance is both generalized and split up.

We are calling for the creation of a convergence for resistance through meetings and political campaigns. We want to try to bring together the struggles from different countries and spectrums.

But there is a need to find a common understanding of the changes regarding the “European security architecture”. Surveillance and control are shifting towards preventive, proactive, preemptive repression. New legislations, guidelines and treaties should help the European Union becoming an own state with more power and institutions, such as the “Treaty of Lisbon” or the “Stockholm Programme”, that should develop guidelines for the next five years of western security politics. The EU wants to set up a new “strategy of security”.

Such is the paradox of the security subject: on the questions of security, new technologies, repression, control of migration and public liberties, the attack is transverse, but the resistance is both generalized and split up.

We are calling for the creation of a convergence for resistance through meetings and political campaigns. We want to try to bring together the struggles from different countries and spectrums.
We are not naive. We know it will take a lot of time of synthesizing, understanding and commitment, so we look at this project as a long term process to bring out a clearer vision of the European control system and resistance against it.

We propose four levels of workshops:

The means and tools
We want to research new technologies that are used for proactive surveillance and control: databases and networks (like SIS, VIS, Europol-IS, Eurosur), software to process this data and “foresee deviant behaviour”, satellites used by police and intelligence, “flying cameras”, “non-lethal weapons”, border control, robotics, surveillance and blocking of internet communication, governmental hacking ("remote forensic search of computers“), “crowd control”. We want to study the new guidelines and treaties, such as the “Swedish Inititaive”, the “Treaty of Prüm”, the “Treaty of Lisbon” and the “Stockholm Programme”.

The ideas and concepts
After researching the means of control and restriction of liberties, we want to understand the strategies and theories on which the security society is built like. Possible approaches are the militarization of society through the spirit of “defence”, the “doctrine of the revolutionary war” (DGR) for the control of populations, the creation of a “database society” or proactive and preemptive policing against “deviant behaviour” for norming and standardization.

The actors
Regarding the paradigm changes of European inner security politics, we want to understand who sets them up, who is lobbying them and in which purpose. Actors are for example political parties, merging security and defence companies (such as Siemens, EADS, Finmeccanica, Thales, SAP or Nexter), think tanks, armies, international corporations like NATO, EU and G8, but also institutions like Europol, Eurojust or Frontex.

How to fight against the totalitarian drift of our European societies
The moment has come to look critically on our actions. We don’t suggest to establish one of the numerous struggles as priority or transverse nor calling others to join it. But we want to ask ourselves collectively of effective practices against the new european security order. Our task is to exchange past experiences, but most of all to establish common and convergent actions susceptible getting together a large number of people. Current struggles on a European level (like national and crossborder campaigns against Frontex, data retention, databases or the “Stockholm Programme”) can help us.

The meeting should help to facilitate crossborder networking among activists.

We want to organize the convergence meeting to understand the strategies and logic at work at the European level and the interactions between the 27 national states. If we manage to bring out a clearer overview, we are sure that we can move on from understanding and analyzing towards structuring and organizing resistance.

The meeting takes place from 19-22 November 2009 in Southern Germany. Contact us for more details.

The organizers take care of sleeping places, food, workshop materials and a proposal for a structure. We have some funding for helping to cover higher travel costs, so money should not be no problem if you come from other countries.

Contact us about your participation on outofcontrol@riseup.net and inform us about your needs for sleeping places, help on travel costs or other wishes and proposals. Find more information about European politics of “inner security” on http://stockholm.noblogs.org and http://euro-police.noblogs.org.

Task force “out of control” of the Dissent!-Network