We're Being Watched: Poke Their Eyes Out

2020
English • French
History

Original text in French
Moudenc nous surveille : crève lui les yeux
2020
iaata.info

English translation
No Trace Project

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

This guide only deals with methods of destroying camera cabling. To destroy the camera itself you have to knock down the mast or climb to the top to break the camera, this requires heavy and cumbersome equipment (disk cutter, ladder…) and is therefore another story.

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

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

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:

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:

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.


1. 

No Trace Project note: A city in France.