Spy Blog has a history of asking Questions about the treatment of various assorted people, whose views or actions we do not support, e.g. accused terrorist suspects or their families, computer hackers, etc., but who seem to have got caught up in the complexities of our Kafkaesque bureaucratic Police and Judicial system. We are usually worried about the precedent such cases set for the treatment of all the rest of us.

Hence our worries about the arrest of Tony Gosling, who may well be a Conspiracy Theorist, but it seems to us, one of the saner and more reasonable ones. His long running, but not altogether successful, attempts to gather information on the secretive Bilderberg meetings of the rich and powerful, are to be commended, regardless of any of the more far fetched theories about what they may be up to in secret. His involvement with .various conspiracy theorist populated discussion forums involving 9/11 "truthers" and "no planers" etc. and even UK "7/7 truthers", also appears to be relatively moderate and rational.

He is, after all, a NUJ journalist, and a pacifist peace campaigner.

According to this 911 conspiracy bulletin board discussion thread, and the same information mirrored elsewhere:

Tuesday 24th June approx. 1400 Tony Gosling and fiancee were stopped in their vehicle on the M32 motorway in Bristol by ten police officers under the authority of the Northumbria Police Major Incident Unit.

Why stop them on the motorway, an action which put all the lives of the people involved (including the policemen) at unnecessary risk ?

Gosling and fiancee were held at Trinity Road police station in Bristol until 1200 the next day, 25th June. Both were heavily questioned. They were each arrested three times, a total of six arrests. The arrests in order were, Obstructing a Recovery Order, Theft of a Credit Card and then again for Obstructing a Recovery Order.



He was released without charge, the next day.

Was he fingerprinted, photographed and DNA sampled etc ?

What it really seems to be about is tracking down a woman called Natalie Bracht, who perhaps has mental problems, and who has gone on the run with her 5 children. Tony Gosling had recorded a phone interview with her. He states that he does not necessarily believe her story, but that it was of journalistic / conspiracy theory interest.

Seemingly he cooperated with the Police, and handed over the keys to his home, (the threat seems to be - "otherwise we will kick your door down") and, despite the missing person and her family of 5 children obviously not being present at those premises,

After the raid Northumbria police still have:- both my mobile phones my desktop and laptop computer full printed list of my phone contacts both my dairies etc. None of which could have been of any use in finding Natalie since I was careful not to phone her, write down where she was or type anything about her location on the computers, nor do I now know where she is.



Tony Gosling practices some of techniques we mention in our Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers (and Political Dissidents) when it comes to protecting his sources.

We hope that the Police return his property immediately, undamaged and unexamined forensically, otherwise there will be the obvious suspicion, that the Police are engaged in a fishing expedition to try to uncover his journalistic sources and contacts.

Since one of our many email address aliases is on one of his email distribution lists, will we now also be deemed "guilty by association", or does our own electronic secret police zapiska actually cast a shadow on him ?

