Detectives made breakthrough hours ahead of planned attacks in capital after scouring mobile phones of people who had been arrested during riots
Scotland Yard stopped planned attacks by rioters on iconic sites across London just hours before they were to take place, after they managed to "break into" encrypted social messaging sites, it has emerged.
Attacks on the Olympics site, upmarket stores in Oxford circus, and the two Westfield shopping centres in east and west London were plotted using BlackBerry messenger.
Detectives made the breakthrough just hours ahead of the planned attacks, after scouring the mobile phones of people who had been arrested during the riots. It gave them access to the messages planning riots and looting, which were bouncing around the heavily encrypted BlackBerry Messenger service.
In effect by last Monday afternoon they were able to monitor BlackBerry messaging, and send extra officers to disrupt attacks on the high profile sites in the capital, attacks which would have heightened the sense of threat and danger felt by Londoners.
On Tuesday morning police revealed they had considered switching off social messaging sites, including BlackBerry Messenger and Twitter.
Testifying before MPs on the home affairs committee, the acting Metropolitan police commissioner, Tim Godwin, said police discovered they did not have the legal powers to do so: "We did consider seeking the legal authority to switch it off. The legality is questionable, very questionable."
He added that as well as social messaging sites being used to plan riots, it was a useful "intelligence asset" for police who were able to monitor it.
Police chiefs last Monday sent officers to thwart the planned attacks on the Olympic site in Stratford, east London. Shops in the area also closed after "intelligence" obtained from social messaging sites, namely BlackBerry messenger and Twitter, of conspiracies to riot.
Godwin revealed that police were not "at this moment of time" asking government for new powers to turn of social messaging sites during outbreaks of extreme disorder.
On Monday the Guardian revealed that the government had drafted in the security service MI5 and the eavesdropping centre at GCHQ, to join the hunt for those using social messaging to plot riots, and to work out how the heavily encrypted BlackBerry messaging can be "cracked" in future, in real time if needs be.
Godwin told MPs beginning their investigation into the riots, that David Cameron had been wrong to tell the House of Commons last week that his officers had been too timid when faced with rioters and looters.
Godwin, who confirmed he will apply to be the next commissioner of the Met, said: "I do not believe that the men and the women of the Met were timid, which is an accusation that has been levelled at us."
Also testifying was Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, who said police had no inkling the riots would erupt.
"What we saw, fundamentally different in my assessment, was almost non-existent pre-intelligence; this was spontaneous rather than organised," he said.
The police chiefs again rejected government claims they had quelled the rioting by ordering a massive surge officers onto the street.
Godwin said he took the decision last Monday evening, after it became clear police were still being overrun as riots hit 22 out of 32 boroughs in London. The Met, Britain's biggest force, needed help from 30 other forces.
Orde told politicians they legally had no role in setting tactics.
"If politicians want to make tactical decisions, they must take the responsibility and change the law to make that happen," he said
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/police-accessed-blackberry-messages-thwart-riots
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