More news about super-duper police spy team

Yesterday we covered the Daily Mail story about the Confidential Intelligence Unit - a special task force set up to tackle "domestic extremism". For those of you who missed the memo, the new unit has been set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers: a private company which is unanswerable to the public, believes itself outside of the remit of the Freedom of Information Act and generally lords it about the place.

Thanks to the power of t'interweb we've found the job description for the head of the CIU. Successful applicants will be tasked with "manag[ing] the covert intelligence function for domestic extremism, and the confidential intelligence unit" and "Develop[ing] the business of the confidential intelligence unit to support NCDE [National Covert Domestic Extremist] units and the wider DE policing objectives."

They will be asked to "Represent NPOIU [National Public Order Intelligence Unit] at Public Interest Immunity hearings, and legal meetings regarding sensitive source material" - basically refusing to give any info about who they are and how they work, should anyone be prepared to risk arrest and ask. It's very important that officers "Consider and shows respect for the opinions, circumstances and feelings of colleagues and members of the public, no matter what their race, religion, position, background, circumstances, status or appearance"... unless those opinions and feelings happen to be anti-state, in which case it's open season.

Update: according to yet another document we've taken off the web, people with concerns about CIU, NETCU, ACPO and the like should contact Laura Holford at the Home Office. You can phone her on 0207 0848739 - but be polite! She'll probably record all your details and pop you in the database.