Who buys and controls the CCTV? Back to contents 24 to identify and monitor activists who have been most vocal about the government, effectively restricting their freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. Under the NLD government, special police (the police from the Special Branch of the Special Intelligence Department) used camera footage against activists in legal cases.39 Since the coup, protesters have expressed fear that footage from the CCTV cameras linked to public networks and private residences has been used by the military to track or arrest them.40 As civil society expressed in interviews, they fear surveillance technology would increase the NLD government’s control on freedom of assembly, thus shrinking civil society space. This has now become a reality when the military is empowered by the same surveillance technology. Thousands participate in a protest organised by the General Strike Committee of Nationalities to denounce the military coup and call for federal democracy in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: February 2021, Digital Rights Collective.