Johnny Vedmore Cuts A Lonely Figure Opposing Peter Thiel’s Police State Panopticon in the Welsh Capital.
I was in Cardiff city centre on a very busy Sunday in June, and I was surrounded by fully grown adult children who had all paid an extortionate amount of money to a corporation to hear senior citizens sing them adult lullabies. Yes, Metallica were in town to sing their extremely camp nursery rhymes to an audience that appeared intent on recreating 1984.
You may think that I sound a little down about the event, and you’d be right. Not only were the gayest metal band in human history in the city of my birth, but Cardiff was also being targeted by an even more villainous bunch of guttersnipes; South Wales Police’s Facial Recognition Unit was deployed in an attempt to criminalise the concert attendants.
There is always an extremely small amount of resistance to this burgeoning new technology, connected to Peter Thiel’s Palantir Foundry and Gotham Systems, which the authorities claimed to be relatively benign for anyone but wanted criminals. I had walked into the city centre from the Gabalfa area of the Welsh capital. On the way, I had music playing loudly, as always. In fact, I must admit that I am well known around the streets of Cardiff. I am one of the many lively and loud characters who are famed for traipsing around the capital of the land of song, often singing.
Those who read my work know that I write about some serious stuff. My usual output is long-form investigative articles covering heavily censored topics. When no one else dares to cover a topic for fear of censorship or harassment, I am often left with the unwanted job of reporting on the most egregious topics. I was reporting on the Epstein case almost a decade before it was cool. I was the first to reveal the many allegations against former BBC DJ Tim Westwood, I was willing to take on David Sullivan’s vast legal teams to see him removed from West Ham Football Club, I was the first to reveal the Nazi ancestry of Klaus Schwab, as well as breaking the Junkermann story, the Pottinger/Epstein connections, and many other important stories which would have remained unknown if I hadn’t pulled out my proverbial journalistic pistols.
I talk about the things you’re not allowed to talk about; I tackle the subjects others avoid like the plague; and I deal directly with whistleblowers in cases that often centre on the safeguarding of women and children. What I do is very stressful, and I spend a lot of time facing the most harrowing information head-on. I don’t ask for much in return. It certainly isn’t a career which pays well. There are not many benefits to what I do. So, when I have free time, I like to cool down, chill out, and go for a stroll, often singing as I stroll. That may not be usual behaviour. But I come from the capital of song in the land of music. I LOVE TO SING! I have been writing, recording and performing music since I was about 13 or 14 years old. No one has ever dared get in the way of me and my music.
My City Run Roughshod
I have spent most of my journalistic career being officially silenced by the growing police state, which has been smothering independent journalism in the United Kingdom for many decades. Throughout COVID, I was censored for writing about the people who were secretly organising large parts of the international COVID control grid from the United Kingdom. My articles on The Wellcome Trust and Jeremy Farrar, the man who was giving orders to Anthony Fauci, had been heavily targeted. My work on the Epstein enterprise, including my research work for Whitney Webb’s One Nation Under Blackmail, made me an obvious voice to silence. My work exposing Epstein’s victims lawyers previous association with Epstein and the CIA caused panic in the Department of Justice, leading to me appearing in the Epstein Files on 17 occasions as a “journalist of concern”. My work on Epstein’s favourite girl, Nicole Junkermann, had led to Italian intelligence infiltrating my everyday life in Cardiff and to my being pursued around Rome by representatives of the Vatican. My journalism sees me targeted in the real world.
However, the targeting I experienced in Cardiff during the Metallica gig was less personalised. I was experiencing the police state as many others around me would. It was clear that the police presence was significantly different on this occasion. The gig itself was to take place right in the centre of town at the Millennium Stadium, which opened in 1999 alongside the River Taff. This central placement makes Cardiff a prime site for the police to test-bed new technology. It is especially useful for testing out their new facial recognition technology on the masses.
I came into the centre of Cardiff from the North of the city. I encountered the first of South Wales Police’s facial recognition technology, placed near Wales’ National Museum and the Civic Centre. There was another of these units in the West Gate area of Cardiff, outside the Castle itself, and another was placed by Cardiff Central station, between the BBC studios and the UK Government buildings. It was clear that each of these vans was manned, and that a couple of police officers, carefully trained on what to say and what not to say, stood outside each Facial Recognition Unit.
Aside from the Facial Recognition Units constantly scanning faces across the city centre, there was also a heightened police presence, including armed police. I don’t think they were expecting an attack, but they were significantly prepared for one. I have been investigating Peter Thiel’s Palantir and some of his other enterprises that target public contracts and public services in the United Kingdom for about 7 years now. In fact, my first entrance into the Epstein scene was exposing how Jeffrey Epstein, Nicole Junkermann, Peter Thiel and Ehud Barak had created a company which looked to get police contracts in the United Kingdom and the United States, and their links to UK NHS contracts given to them by the then Secretary for Health, Matt Hancock. I have also recently written about Palantir’s German-based contracts. So, when I see that some parts of this technology have since been deployed in the United Kingdom, I am left both saddened and angry.
I walked around the rear of Cardiff Castle feeling a little disgruntled about how these large events impact my city. Throughout the summer, Cardiff hosts major events almost daily. Many of these events are held in Bute Park, which sits to the rear of Cardiff Castle. Before, during, and after these events, the entirety of Bute Park becomes filled with railings, trucks, and the many comings and goings of a normal major corporate event. There are multiple good reasons for my disdain towards these events. Firstly, Bute Park is one of many parts of Cardiff which were donated to “the people of Cardiff” by the Bute family. Many of the hospital buildings, police stations, castles, parks and other spaces were signed over to the people of Cardiff with very special instructions. Some of those special instructions are extremely awkward for the city planners. For instance, the land and buildings which make up Cardiff Royal Infirmary are only legally allowed to be used as a hospital free at the point of use. If the local authority tries to sell the buildings or redefine their uses, ownership reverts to the people. They have to use the buildings designated as police stations for that purpose, and every time they’ve tried to challenge this, they’ve failed. The Bute family will always have a massive place in my heart for their foresight.
I love Bute Park, not only because it’s owned by the people; I love Bute Park because it is absolutely stunning. It is an active arboretum and a sanctuary for all sorts of wildlife. Like many residents of Cardiff, I use Bute Park regularly. I love to walk my dog in the park, and sometimes I like to uncover some of the more hidden history lurking in amongst the absolutely stunning surroundings.
However, when summer comes, corporations take control of large parts of this sensitive ecosystem, and they show it absolutely no respect. Firstly, the noise pollution during these events isn’t simply a little bit of music. The entire ground shakes as tens of thousands of revellers enter into what is essentially a nature reserve and begin to disrupt life on every level. The bins start to overflow on the very first days of these events, and in no time the beauty is undermined, the rivers and leats are polluted, the natural world becomes a distant afterthought, and giant corporations rape Bute Park with the local authority’s permission.
The Police State Cherry
As I walked through Bute Park, a look of horror washed across my face at the sight of this travesty. It wasn’t simply the mess and the mass of temporary fences and vehicles and the restrictions on free movement which caused me such distress. It was also the visible layer of Peter Thiel’s police state atop the mess, which made me feel sick to my stomach. They weren’t only running roughshod over the people’s land for the benefit of a private corporation; they were also using the opportunity to test a key facet of the Digital Panopticon upon myself and others. Not only have our nature reserves and quiet spaces been annexed, but they have also been scanning our faces in an attempt to criminalise people.
I left Bute Park out of the West Gate of the castle grounds. Metallica fans were absolutely everywhere, and I was planning on trying not to become too disgruntled. I was listening to Donna Summer’s infamous I Feel Love as I walked towards the front of Cardiff Castle. I began wishing the passing fans a “Happy Police State” as I passed by them and the Facial Recognition Cameras. It was then that something happened which I’ve only experienced once before. My speaker was turned off, and my iPhone was turned to “Unavailable”. I don’t know what technology was used to make this happen, what decision was made, or which authority made it, but it happened right outside the most active Facial Recognition Unit. The only other time I experienced this was during a tense protest, and on that occasion, it was clearly carried out by the police. On this occasion, I do not know who was impinging on my freedom, but alongside the clear police state infrastructure and the decimation of Cardiff’s public spaces, I had what I describe as a “Police State Meltdown”.
I recorded what came next because I wanted to make something very clear to those present: The Police State wasn’t simply targeting me; its technology and infrastructure had been deployed to target those attending the Metallica gig. However, the people who had turned up to watch Metallica clearly didn’t care. Why should they? They were heavily primed to allow perpetual infringement upon their rights. To buy the tickets for the gig, they would have given their details, proof of ID, and everything else required. They had travelled to the city centre expecting to queue up and repeatedly show their ID during the process. They’d expect their faces to be scanned and their details processed over and over throughout the day.
What better group of people to test Facial Recognition Units on than those who are so willing to acquiesce in return to watch an aged metal band, whose members can be expected to pop their clogs at any moment? Once they had removed my music, I began to rant publicly at those sitting outside the castle. They were turning up to a corporate concert in the capital of song in the land of music, and they were happily lazing on land donated to the people of Cardiff by the Bute family, while I was no longer allowed to sing in my own city. Instead, I was expected to be silent and accept the police state.
I would like to say that I was surprised by the response I received, but I wasn’t. The majority of those who had flooded the city of my birth to use it as a giant dustbin while disregarding its population were totally accepting of the Facial Recognition Units deployed to systematically capture them. They instead saw me as the issue. My complaints were the problem, while the clear facets of the police state being enacted around us were not. Some people called me a “wanker”; others told me to “shut up” and “be quiet”. But I know that many people agreed with me. However, they were silent. They did not say anything. They put their heads down and acted as anyone would in a panopticon: they changed their behaviour in case they were being observed.
How a “Panopticon” Works
I didn’t only chastise those who were in Cardiff to watch Metallica; I also did what I normally do: I ranted directly at the police. One point that really intrigued me was that those tasked with implementing facets of the panopticon didn’t know what they were implementing or the consequences of creating a panopticon.
I am going to include an extract from a previous article I wrote for Whitney Webb’s Unlimited Hangout in 2020 called Daniel Korski’s Panopticon:
“For those not so familiar with 18th-century social philosophy, a Panopticon was originally the design for a prison building by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The Panopticon prison’s architecture allowed a single guard in a central tower to observe every inmate without the prisoners knowing they were being watched, so the incarcerated were left to assume they were being observed at all times. This prison, in theory, allowed that single guard to maintain order among all inmates.
Much later, in the 20th century, the famous French philosopher Michel Foucault used the concept of Bentham’s original Panopticon to describe and explore “disciplinary power”. According to Foucault’s work, disciplinary power had been successful due to its utilisation of three technologies: hierarchical observation, normalising judgment, and examinations. Hierarchical observation refers to the fact that the observer in a Panopticon can occupy any hierarchical position within the observing body, meaning that a prison guard, supervisor, or governor could be the one viewing the inmates. Foucault also insisted that the normalisation of judgement is imperative for disciplinary power to exist. The final principle, the examination, is used to combine the first two principles of the observations and the resulting judgements to help decide whether further actions should be taken or punitive measures applied.
Among the most notable of Foucault’s analyses of the utility of the Panopticon is the following quote from his book Discipline and Punish: “The major effect of the panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” In other words, the uncertainty of whether an individual is constantly being watched induces obedience, allowing only a few to control the many.
In addition to Foucault, the concept of the Panopticon has been vigorously studied over the past few centuries and is particularly relevant to understanding modern forms of mass surveillance. Many modern-day state surveillance apparatuses function under a doctrine similar to the original ideology behind the invention of the Panopticon.”
The response of those attending the Metallica gig in Cardiff was totally analogous to the very notion of a panopticon. They were willing to submit and change their behaviour at the very idea of being observed by a judgmental hierarchical power structure. The power of the panopticon was clear to me. However, I am an expert in the use and implementation of such control mechanisms. I am also an expert in implementing Palantir-linked technologies, the official contracts they tender, and the company’s many ties to international intelligence infrastructure. Most of the people attending the event in Cardiff do not understand disciplinary power, let alone know about Peter Thiel’s many links to intelligence assets such as Jeffrey Epstein.
Still, I am no longer going to be forgiving of ignorance. We are entering the later stages of a digital panopticon police state. There are no good reasons to comply with this total travesty of justice and freedom.
In fact, over the past month, I have discovered that those who oppose me on these matters are nearly always forced to side with Peter Thiel as though he is some sort of saviour, and that only lasts as long as the manic laughter which proceeds such a stance. One man, who was sitting outside the castle, briefly attempted to deride my comments about Peter Thiel. I told him straight:
“Peter Thiel’s a wanker. You’d be stupid to oppose that message. That’s not the message you want to shoot.”
