We're Being Watched: Poke Their Eyes Out

No Trace Project > Resources > We're Being Watched: Poke Their Eyes Out

A guide to putting cameras in Toulouse^[1] into early retirement.

Scouting

The location

Movement of people and vehicles, cameras (public or private) with a view of the targeted camera, nearby cops/private security/etc.

What the camera is attached to

On a wall, on a mast, the type of mast (old style light grey or dark grey and smooth for the new ones).

The cabling

Cabling outside the mast, protected by a simple sheath (flexible or rigid), cabling inside the mast.

The fixing of the hatch (in the case of the cabling inside the mast)

Allen type screws, triangle type screws, hatch doubled (or not) by metal clamps.

Preparation

Route

Ideally, don't take the same route on the way there and on the way back, plan routes that avoid as many cameras as possible (especially on the way back) thanks to the website toulouse.sous-surveillance.net, depending on the number of people present for the action and the layout of the place, plan small roadblocks to slow down the cops.

Be careful, scouting on the Internet is good, scouting in real life is better. Google Street View photos are often several years old, and on the website toulouse.sous-surveillance.net some cameras may be missing.

Clothing

For the action, wear gloves, something to mask your face (but really well because their cameras are Full HD), disposable clothing (black and without distinctive markings). Then “normal” clothing under the disposable clothing, and discreet shoes (important because it's not practical to change them).

Mobile phones

NO MOBILE PHONES. Or at the very least turn them off, but several kilometers before arriving at the site because downtown there are telephone antennas everywhere, you can see them here.

Equipment

A. Camera attached to a wall

• Cutting pliers

Cameras attached to a wall will almost always use external cabling protected by a rigid sheath. It is possible to lift the sheath but it takes time, the quickest way is to have a friend helping you get higher because the sheath often stops after 2.5 meters high, leaving the cable without protection.

B. Camera attached on a modern dark grey mast

• Male allen key or male triangle key (7mm allen and 11mm triangle but it can change).
• Cutting pliers (if metal clamps are present).
• Rag.
• Fuel (gasoline, de-aromatized petrol, or lighter fluid such as for zippos).

On these cameras, except in exceptional cases, the cabling always goes inside the mast. To access it, there is a hatch at the bottom, afixed by two screws (allen or triangle) that you just have to unscrew. There are sometimes two metal clamps which double the protection, and they must be cut before or after removing the screws. Once the hatch is open, the cabling is protected by a kind of hard plastic plate. From this point on, there are two options:

• Remove the protective plate and cut the cables with pliers one by one. This is a bit slow.
• Put a cloth soaked in fuel in the hatch and light it. This is much faster.

C. Camera attached on an old light grey mast

It depends, it can involve external cabling (method A) or internal cabling (method B, except that the plastic protection plate is often missing).

Execution

Here, it's a bit hard to be exhaustive, and we don't want to go into too much detail, but we can still make some recommendations:

• In any case, the cops will notice you and they will send the cavalry very quickly, so the idea is to be as quick as possible, but also to make sure they take as much time as possible to understand what's going on (use your imagination).
• You can't foresee the unexpected, but you can prepare for it, and for that it's always better to be too many people than not enough.
• It's important to have a good distribution and definition of roles, from the beginning to the end.
• In the case of a dark grey mast with a hatch, you can practice opening it on a lamp post (out of sight) because it's exactly the same masts and hatches as for the cameras, it may seem superfluous but it will save you time struggling to open it on the big day.
• It's not superfluous to do a sort of dress rehearsal either.
• Finally, don't forget that the cameras have a battery and continue to record even if all the cables are cut, for about 30 minutes.

And even if it was not the topic of the guide, we leave you with a video of a person using a disk cutter to cut a mast equipped with a camera in Toulouse, which we find beautiful and encouraging. Long live direct action.