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Even More Surveillance Cameras For England
An unidentified reader writes that a "new type of camera to allow the police to monitor from a laptop has been developed. Cheaper, and with G3 about to come in, faster data transmission," and points to this story in the UK Sunday Times. Unnamed experts in that story say that in Britain "an individual is already likely to be filmed by up to 300 cameras a day."
The only negative consequence I can think of is that it's going to increase the price of dope... :(
That's the only negative thing you can think of?
Here, let me add a few more...
1) If you are willing to let the cops film you, you are giving up your civil rights to walk around freely without someone monitoring you. This is possibly the very definition of freedom. If you give that up, you don't have a lot left...
2) Police states DO have lower rates of crime. Nobody disputes that. Saudi Arabia and Singapore monitor practically everything you do, and there's almost no crime. There's almost no innovation, art, or human expression of any kind either. If you want that kind of society, you're welcome to it.
3) Software is a global market. People don't realise it, but $$$ aren't the only thing that programmers, scientists and engineers look at. I can work in Singapore any time I want to, but I don't ever want to go back there because the only thing I remember is clean streets and deadly dull govt. propaganda on TV. The only free expression I encountered was hastily written on restroom walls.
4) You can't have the govt. surgically monitor the "bad guys" and let the "good guys" run around happily inventing things.
5) Britain already has a really bad image - an inbred monarchy, a racist class driven society, slow technology, foot-and-mouth-disease, and mad cow disease. Trust me, surveillance cameras aren't going to make anyone want to go there.
6) If the cops monitor you, who monitors the cops? Abuse is inevitable.
Britain is already leading the charge towards a monitored society, and satisfying bureaucratic deadweights. In contrast, libertarian places such as California are attracting all the talent. It's your choice.
w/m
Whatever your take on CCTV and the whole privacy issue, Mark Thomas' (British comic, bit like Michael Moore for all you State-side folks) recent take on the issue was interesting.
Seems CCTV footage is now covered by the UK Data Protection Act, which means that, for a nominal fee (ten pounds in most cases) the owners/operators of the cameras have to release any footage they might have of you.
Mark's taken this to the obvious conclusion by hosting a competition for the most creative short film captured via CCTV and obtained via the DPA. Details here.
As to whether CCTV is a good thing or not, I'm still sitting on the fence on the issue I must admit. Key point seems to be how the use/availability of any captured film is regulated and policed, but you're probably looking at cases on a site by site basis, which naturally makes it very hard to administrate.
Sure we have a hell of a lot of cameras over here, but just making the film easier to view isn't going to further "erode" the rights of UK citizens. As the article says, CCTV cameras are already everywhere in the UK, and you can't walk through a major urban metropolis without being caught every 50 yards or so.
This is a good thing, because it has worked in keeping levels of crime in our cities down, and making them safer for people to walk late at night. CCTV footage has led to convictions for many people committing acts of violence, and I, and many other UK citizens feel safer for having them around.
Considering that the police already have access to all of the footage, it's hardly going to change much for them to be able to access it on the move. Rather, it will enable them to respond more quickly to criminal acts, and hopefully mean they can be stopped quicker. By piping them through a computer, face and car number plate recognition technology can be used to further aid identification of criminals and their vehicles.
The police need every bit of help they can get in their fight against crime. This development is something that can help, whilst at the same time causing no further decrease in our freedom or privacy.
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
The other reason I'm in favour is that Brixton (in South London) has a bad (but deserved) reputation for aggro between the police and the local black population, going back beyond the riots in 1981 (that's the London police's site, by the way - more realistic stuff here.) With CCTV, allegations of brutality can be more easily verified and rascist / thuggish cops thrown in jail, where they belong.
The only negative consequence I can think of is that it's going to increase the price of dope... :(
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
There are two, no three, estates in Brighton that you DON'T want to walk alone in. Crime is high, people get beaten up and the police can't do much about it. The suburb my parents live in have steadily declined over the last few years. A reason for this is the fact that the bus company made a single bus route serve us and the worst estate in Brighton. Now all the little brats hop on a bus and cause mayhem where things used to be OK.
There is CCTV but that's in the town center, places of retail and the shit estate I have mentioned. I would welcome more especially as I have had members of my own family attacked. My father has been attacked by groups of youths on two occasions now. He didn't know who they were so what chance is there of prosecution. Now that I have moved away (albeit only for a year before my final year of uni), my father has got a job teaching in Japan and my little brother has got a scholorship over there too. They can handle themselves in a fight - they are both blackbelts in karate. But what of my mum and sister. I do worry that anything could happen - especially to my sister.
I'd feel safer knowing that I was being watched. the police aren't stupid - they know who to look for and there are statistics to show that crime is reduced by CCTV. I ask the people who feel that their personal privacy is being invaded "How would you feel if you, a member of your family, or a friend were attacked ?".
I was in two minds whether to post this anonymously or not but I thought I'd better had to preserve my privacy.
Me
This is a common mistake made by people, but it's simply not true. We are in fact British citizens, and seeing as no legislation at all relating to nationality existed before the British Nationality & Status of Aliens Act of 1914, the term "subject" is simply a holdover from when the monarchy wielded real power.
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
1) Your wife goes to a departments store.
2) She goes into a dressing cabin to try on a new dress.
3) She unknowingly gets caught on a camera in the dressing cabin installed there to prevent shoplifting.
4) The camera operator gets a boner and saves the tape for his collection.
5) Camera operator needs cash and sells his private coolection to porn-mongerer.
6) You accidentally walk in on a colleague in the men's room at work. And find that he is wankinig him self off over a vidcap of your wife's naked tittes that he downloaded from www.amateur-sluts.com.
Hahaha funny? Or maybe not!
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
As a deterent to crime, which would you prefer:
We Britons find it offensive that the US criticises us for having too many cameras whilst at the same time the US is repeatedly mopping the brains of their schoolchildren off the floor.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
If you're walking down a public street, you can expect to be seen by anyone. If you're on someone else's property, you can expect to be seen by them.
If the police started recording me in my home, that would be different. But no-one would stand for that. In fact, such evidence isn't even admissible in court.
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