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CCTV Network Tracks Getaway Car
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that a 'pioneering number plate recognition system in Bradford played a vital role in the arrests of six suspects' after the murder of a Policewoman - within minutes of Friday's shootings, police were using the system to track the suspected getaway car." From the article: "When a car is entered on the system it will 'ping' whenever it passes one of our cameras, which makes it a lot easier to track than waiting for a patrol car to spot it."
Big Brother is watching you. Don't you feel double plus safe?
You can't take the sky from me...
Oh ... the criminals still get firearms anyway while the law abiding citizens are victims of criminals and an oppressive government. No wonder the IRA fought for their freedom.
An even better reason to steal license plates than boredom!
I for one welcome our no-murder enforcing CCTV-watching overlords.
:-)
Privacy? They killed a policewoman. let em hang. whoops... do they do that in Britain?
"When a car is entered on the system it will 'ping' whenever it passes one of our cameras, which makes it a lot easier to track than waiting for a patrol car to spot it." If the "Ping" is above 100, I'm finding another server..
The ever-popular "forget the children, think of the police" justification.
Still don't like it.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Man, does that seem inefficient to anyone else? Why not use a wonderful cell phone to track where people are. Much better...
Err, not...
So because it has one good use does that mean we should ignore all the possible misuses?
This system is so sophisticated they tracked it for 211 miles across the country.
:(
For a pioneering system, this sounds very well integrated or they are just using the bad news to give a reason for the cameras. It was only last week we heard about this for the first time.
I don't like living in the UK. Big brother really is watching us
(Though I am very pleased they caught these crooks in this instance, I still don't see why a criminal would go up north, rob a store then flee to the biggest city in the country. Don't these people think about lying low?)
liqbase
How does this system handle brand new cars which don't have plates? What about a thief who swaps the plates in a back alley before moving on?
If this concept spreads, criminals will merely switch from making getaways in cars to making getaways in boats. The speeds may be reduced, but boats have much less maneuverability and longer stopping distances. Risks to neighboring automobiles from anchors and propellers also promises to raise the number of injuries to innocents in this misguided effort to fight crime.
I wish this article had more technical details, like...
When the cop pulls over the car, does he arrest the guy under a "ICMP Destination Unreachable" charge or "Source Quench"?
TDz.
That actually blot off the license plates to cameras watching them. Or how about repaint the plate so it says another number. How about steal another set of plates. Remove the licencse plates??? Place them in the windsheild of their car so the cameras don't see them. Any other ideas??
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I've been wondering why I've been hearing a pinging sound lately when my wife and I are having a go at it.
But, now I'm relieved to know that it's probably just the bobbies keeping a watchful eye on us via their CCTV security system.
Three cheers for those grand ol' chaps!
That goes 'ping'... That's the most expensive machine in the country
Probably explains why there are about 35 fatal shootings each year in the UK, and 11,000 in the US.
...electronically flippable license plate. This cameras work off OCR and can probably be fooled that way. A similar network is being thought up for NYC, as part of a proposal to charge tolls for using the most crowded streets at certain times, specifically around mid-town. Apparently other cities have been pretty successful w/ such a system. The New York Times ran an article on this over the last month or so.
I wonder how long it will keep records? Or would such a system look for patterns of behavior, like circling in a neighborhood known for prostitution? Seems all fine and good to track a criminal on the run, but can guarantees be made against abuse?
How about installing license plates that can switch numbers on the go? I know, I would use them.
You can't handle the truth.
"When a car is entered on the system it will 'ping' whenever it passes one of our cameras [...]"
Ah yes. The machine that goes 'ping'!
2) What is it?
1) It's the machine that goes Ping!
2) What?
1) We don't know what it does, it just goes "Ping" every now and again and we are scared to turn it off.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
In China, CCTV stands for China Central TeleVision.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
I hope the ACLU's British equivalent has been notified of this gross encroachment onto our civil liberties. It's appalling! Next thing you know, they'll be allowed to take DNA samples from prisoners to attempt to "link" them to crime scenes.
The society we live in these days...
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Photoblocker. It shines up your plate so much that it doesn't appear in pictures. It looks all washes out to cameras.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
These posters were all over London when I was there a couple of years ago. No joke.
...there are always stuff like this.
I am not affiliated with this company in any way.
I read
There was already a huge differential before these systems were put in place. People shouldn't have to take into account that they are being watched continuously. This is just a milder form of outright drugging you into conformity. What does this do to the evolution of a culture?
uh never mind...this seems a lot like something soviet russia would do!
Does that include fatal shootings by the Police?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm
Is your basic argument that society shouldn't be safe, because it gets in the way of the "evolution" of a culture?
What do you mean by, "evolution of a culture?"
That is a meaningless statistic. You should actually compare the actual murder rate instead, because it doesn't matter what you murder somebody with, just the fact that you murdered them. Even then I don't think it will be all that easy to compare apples to apples because the cultures are different. I'm just glad I live in Texas where I can and do own guns so as to be able to protect myself and family, because criminals certainly don't give a damn about gun laws.
If you give a liberal an enema, he'll turn transparent.
only if you exclude Glasgow.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
You could certainly replace the plates, but if the system is tracking all plates in the region, a flag would probably be thrown when one number disappeared and a new number reappeared in the same vicinity. There are ways around any system, of course, but once they have plate recognition it can go pretty far. If they do simple color/model matches in combination with the plates it becomes significantly more difficult to dupe the system.
It seems to me though that what a system like this really does is crack down on the idiots or the unplanned acts of rage scenarios, of which there are no doubt quite a few. It's kind of amazing to see the idiotic things people do when they are caught breaking the law and they panic. I can just see right now all those incredibly dangerous to everybody chases that you see footage of in the news just disappearing. Let the person drive where they want to go and track them. Then when they get out of their vehicle, you have them. That sort of thing.
I'm not much for the whole big brother thing, but if there were an automated system in the US to track all cars on carefully designated roads (most public ones), and checks and balances in place to prevent abuse, I would not be averse to automatic ticket issuance for traffic violations and the use of a system like that to find criminals. I know a lot of people conceptualize dire Orwellian scenarios where big brother gets into everything, but that does not need to happen. Significant time and effort can be taken to ensure legislation that holds enforcement authorities accountable.
Anyone that thinks the government does not already have tremendous power to surveil the general public is smoking something anyway. What keeps us free is the checks and balances in place to curb abuse. Sometimes the checks fail, but mostly they seem to work. Why should this be any different? It can be a beneficial use of emerging technology.
I suppose it is up to our brothers and sisters in GB to tell us if they feel like they are living in 1984. GB seems to be an earlier adopter of these types of measures than we are. What say the British? :-)
Of course. You can have liberty or you can have safety, not both. Safety is stagnation.
your statistics are even more informative when converted to per-capita rates (the uk rate is over 100 times smaller, per capita, than the us rate). that said, i'd be more curious to see how the statistics break down based on geographic and demographic criteria --- i suspect that there's a very small portion of the us population which accounts for an overwhelming majority of the gun related incidents. factoring that portion out, the us and uk end up being on much more even ground. of course, this is pure speculation since i haven't actually looked at the relevant data.
Oh ... the criminals still get firearms anyway while the law abiding citizens are victims of criminals and an oppressive government. No wonder the IRA fought for their freedom.
Nearly everyone I know owns at least on gun, legally.
... I used to get in my Inbox all the time. These people use spam to market their product, don't go their way. How legal is this stuff anyways? What happens when a cop pulls you over, and notices the camera on his dash can't see your plate, he will know that you put that stuff on it. In America at least, it would probably be under defacing government property.
Sig: I stole this sig.
only if you exclude Glasgow.
Oi! We've only had about four or five shootings this year so far... It's all stabbings these days.
Don't touch that, it's the web server! (It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the post actually)
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Either that, or the english are terrible shots. ;)
Some guy goes to a meeting with his probation officer, and parks in front of a squad car with the plate recognition equipment in it. The system pings his ride - which was stolen.
Pretty convenient for the cops.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I can't resist. They really tracked these boneheads for 211 miles before stopping them? Who's to say that the people in the car when they finally stopped were the people who were in the car when the crime happened? How about this for a scenario?
1: Commit crime
2: Drive to least favorite relative's house
2: Loan car to (for me anyway) sister-in-law, who borrows everything & returns nothing, for vacation trip
3: Laugh for a very long time while she tries to prove she's innocent.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
do they:
1) input a number plate that they want to track and it pings every time they pass a camera, discarding records of number plates which aren't the ones being tracked (i.e. recognise plate, check against list of plates being looked for, if it's not on the list, discard)
2) record every number plate and look through the logs to look when a particular one passed a particular camera, then keeping the logs until forever.
3) some sort of hybrid, like keeping the logs for 24 hours to see what happened earlier in the day, but killing them after that. (like some sort of caching system)
No1 I'd just about support (so long as there were adequate safeguards to make sure that it was only used to track suspects (not potential suspects) and I'd just about stretch to No3 so long as the logs really were being killed.
No2, however, is a BIG no-no. Automated camera systems to track the movements of every car in the country and then keep that on a permanent record are VERY bad (although I suspect that is what happens). When did spending a vast sum on public money on an automated system to track the car-using public go through parliament?
And another thing, where do the police get the idea that it's a given that they can 'deny the use of the roads to criminals'? take this very case, right now these people are SUSPECTS they haven't even been charged, as such they aren't 'criminals'. Someone explain why being a suspect means that you're no longer entitled to use the roads without being tracked? They'll be wanting tracking bugs in shoes next 'to deny criminals use of their feet'
FGD 135
Cheatin' spouses beware!
...... Gran Theft Auto murder sprees.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Looks like they will roll them out bigtime after this.
The Register has the backround as usualo vement_database/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/15/vehicle_m
I mean, it pre-dates infrared video cameras....
darkness.. pfft.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
All this will do is create a big black market for fake plates.
If you are going to commit a crime, make sure you pick up a 10-pack of fake plates and switch them out randomly during your arrival and your getaway. Even better if the fakes use valid numbers off other vehicles in the same vicinity giving the coppers two nearby "pings" to choose from. They don't even have to be high-quality fakes, just enough to fool the cameras and anyone else looking at them from a distance.
"Who watches the watchers?"
Back in my day they used to be called citizens. What are you all using now?
How does it handle a thief that takes the plates and puts them on an entirely different car (of the same make if they are clever)?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...michael moore, i didn't realize you were a member here.
i'd like nothing more than for you to be one of this year's homicide statistics.
"I know you were modded up informative but the law does not say police have carte blanch to search your car."
Nope sorry. Thanks to the combination of the seat belt law and the patriot act police can now pull you over for not wearing a seat belt and immediately search your vehicle. No warrent needed. Because as we all know, terrorist don't wear seatbelts. (In the US)
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I think that a system just introduced could not explain anything that happened in the past. Maybe one needs to ask why with 35 fatal shootings in the UK, the state thinks there is enough cause to track 60,000,000 people who are innocent until proven guilty.
And why there are so many more burglaries and car thefts in the UK per capita, criminals have less fear that their victims are armed.
f _wal_in_dar
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_bur_cap
And why in the US we feel 10% safer walking in the dark, second only to sweden in a survey of 15 nations
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_per_of_sa
Brilliant. The one good use for the ANPR system (tracking criminals) has now become public knowledge. That means your local gang-land thugs will find a way to avoid their registration plate being scanned (custom plate with obscure font). Meanwhile, every other law abiding joe normal will continue along their merry way, quite happy being scanned and tracked because "it's to help catch criminals".
We end up with a system that spies upon and punishes the law abiding citizens that make accidental mistakes, whilst letting the professional criminals find an easy loophole. Its good to see my tax money finding new and creative ways to rape me of my income.
Poor criminals, suspected criminals, and people in general - deprived of their privacy in public spaces. How utterly Orwellian...
;) I kid, I kid...
To wit, folks, the license plate on the car belongs to the government. They're not tracking YOU, they're tracking their property.
Any crook truly determined to elude the police would just peel the layers of contact paper off of their car, each time they were spotted.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
And, of course, the IRA never won their freedom having disbanded before uniting Ireland. They probably stood a better chance without weapons and I imagine the former members will succeed in uniting Ireland without weapons in the coming years.
Isn't US gun control as strict as UK gun control, i.e. bad guys are prohibited from getting them by a series of barriers that seem to be about equal in "strictness". The only real difference appears to be that law-abiding citizens can get them in the US and cannot in the UK (well, they can get some types). Citizen gun posession doesn't seem to be very effective either. In the 12 months to March 2003 there were 10250 gun crimes in the UK, roughly 0.00017 per-capita. In the US there were 357822 in 2002. Approximately 0.0014 per-capita I believe. Of course, if all the UK gun crimes were against an average of more than 12 people and the US ones were against an average of one person then you'd have a point. Let's accept the gun lobby stance that law abiding citizens should should not be punished for the crimes of a few. If we do plan to say that legal gun ownership reduces [gun] crime against the law abiding, then we really ought not to be using an anecdotal, single example like the murder of a police officer to "prove the point" when since actual data could be used to show that the UK is safer per-capita from gun crime.
All governments are oppressive, it's their job. Your job is to get wealthy enough to own a piece of government large enough to ensure that they oppress someone else instead of you.
Hmmm...I wonder if that means the UK police can also use information from the trafficmaster system of cameras, which AFAIK also use number plate recognition to make estimates of speed and congestion on trunk roads.
Now that's a scary BIG brother thought!
I have more freedom through 60 million people not having guns than I do by me having one...
While you have a point regarding making a per capita comparison, I feel your comment about the murder rate being linked to a "very small portion of the US population" is beyond the pale. Be honest, "very small portion" is just a euphemism for "poor people who are mostly not Caucasian." I'm sorry, you don't get to ignore minorities, or people of lower socioeconomic status, when computing statistics at a national level. Just because they aren't part of your community doesn't mean they don't count. Part of the reason that America has a violence problem is that people like you won't face up to the fact that America has a violence problem. "The first step is admission", and all that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-step_program.
I believe in the USA 75% of police shot are either shot with their own gun or by another policeman, so arming the police is not the answer either.
What these and other similar arguments fail to consider is how often guns are used to save a life. Note that this does not necessarily means that shots were fired or that a weapon even cleared a holster.
Yes, after all, there's such a low murder rate in Texas.
The mere attempt to look for evidence of crime is search, and an invasion of privacy if lacking probable cause. Legalistic bullshit about being within arms reach and having hounds sniff you up being "routine" is just grease on the slippery slope.
Your rights are fictitious, and like all fiction, subject to the whim of the author. I suggest you learn how to write. Remember, the whole aphorism is: "Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword." I submit that the former condition is not met, ergo the latter is not necessarily true. I suggest no less than revolution. I leave you to it--I will not sacrifice my comfort for your rights. Good luck.
Do you have any numbers to back up that 75% claim in the US? From the reports I've seen, you are way off.
n tal.htm
m
Accidental Police deaths:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/2004/section1accide
As you can see, the majority were auto related. Also: "In the 10-year period 1995 through 2004, 717 law enforcement officers died from accidents occurring in the line of duty." Further down it says that only "28 of the officers were mistakenly shot".
Compare to the number shot and killed by people meaning them harm:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/fidc9397.ht
"A study of data regarding weapons used to kill law enforcement officers showed that over the past decade, 545 officers have been slain with firearms. Of these, 396 were killed with handguns, 114 were killed with rifles, and 35 were killed with shotguns. Also in this same time period, 28 officers died after a vehicle was used as a weapon, 9 officers were killed by bomb blasts, and 7 were killed by assailants using knives or other cutting instruments. Personal weapons, i.e., hands, fists, or feet, were used in 3 of the slayings, and blunt instruments were used in 2 of the murders. (See Table 28.)" This data doesn't include the Sept 11th attacks, as explained on the front page of the report. (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/2004/openpage.htm)
So put up some real facts, or stop spreading bullshit.
Hey to all, I have heard of this with photo radar (Canada) and such.... Don't know if this applies. I have heard of people that have used plastic wrap, hairspray, or specially bought license plate covers to "cover up" the license plate. Don't get me wrong, from directly behind the vehicle or with the human eye, you can see the plate fine, which is perfectly legal under the law. However, at a angle where the photo radar sits, and the flash that it uses, the flash is reflected causing missing letters/numbers in the photo radar picture. Thus, the cops can't clearly read the license plate, so they can't give you a ticket (ie. look up the plate number to find the owners mailing address). So... my question is, can this "plate tracker" be circumvented because it would not be able to read the plate number p2p so and thus wouldn't/couldn't be "pinged". Just something to think about. Maybe if enough people use a working method, then the system becomes useless..... and no 1984 senario for the Brits.....
..to put a sticker behind your licence plate:
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP
Opensource is evil.
(sorry, too tempting to resist)
--
Seriously, well done in a case like this, but the scenario is worrysome in the worst orwellian way if there isn't also a strong "control the controllers" culture to prevent abuses.
--
Sometimes I'm so glad I was born in a country and in a far enough time when you still could see and join people having a sigarette on the corner of a street without hearing pings, being taped, then being asked your ID, then searched, then sued, then wiretapped, then triangulated, then arrested for possession of sigarettes, then [..]
Can I have my steam clock back, please?
We're all gonna be so scared to live predictably like androids and be rootkit'd if we don't ever watch our daily assigned hours of commercials on the digital screen then we don't spend the designated amount of money. Or even if we do.
Ah yes, my wife and child can get blown away by a legal semi-automatic, but Heaven forbid that someone take the criminals picture that may violate their rights. But at least the police's inability to know who did it means my family got to live free before their heads were blown off.
And for the people who are upset that someone would be constantly watching them, get a grip. You're just not that important.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
i suspect that there's a very small portion of the us population which accounts for an overwhelming majority of the gun related incidents.
In shootings in the home, ~75% the person shooting or the person being shot is a previously convicted felon, ~50% they're both felons.
Ummm, yeah. By eliminating data you don't like, you can make statistics say whatever you like. Congratulations.
Your attempt at sarcasm falls flat since the high murder rate is one of the reasons why I like to have weapons to protect myself. Just up the road and across the border in Nuevo Larado, the Mexicans have had 156 murders (gun related) this year alone. There is a war going on between drug lords. This is quite big news around here, and my point is that Mexico has strict gun laws, but a high(er) murder rate.
If you give a liberal an enema, he'll turn transparent.
"i suspect that there's a very small portion of the us population which accounts for an overwhelming majority of the gun related incidents."
would that be people with guns?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Some police cars have cameras in them.. there are manned cctv all over the place. You get noticed and you WILL get pulled. The theoretical aspects of bb become instantly real if you try this.
Brain(s): 0.0% user, 1.3% system, 0.1% nice, 98.6% idle
Well tickle me pink and call me Norman, but I'd rather have my car stolen than my brains blown out.
Maybe it's just us Brits that see the advantage.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Well, this is terrific. Let me know when there's an automated system that watches the people watching THIS automated system, to ensure that it is not being abused by any government or civil service employee, and I'll be on board.
Er, or at least I will be provided someone is watching the people watching the automated system that watches the people that watch the automated system.
And so on.
Oh, and criminals never swap their plates, or cover them up.
Coming up next: devices that automatically read and report the info on the RFID chips in our drivers' licenses (once they're there) so that criminals can be spotted by the automated system rather than a policeman having to spot them. And no criminal could thwart THAT, could they?
Also coming up: criminals purchasing vanity plates with a lot of Os, 0s, Is, 1s and ls.
Back in 1972 there was a French movie called "Un Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire" (The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe). In the movie, the chief of French secret service lays a trap for his rival - he convinces him that a particular man is a dangerous and cunning secret agent that is planning to expose the rival's dirty secrets. This rival then goes crazy trying to investigate this "agent". The truth is that the man is, in fact, what he appears to be - a clumsy orchestra player. The movie is summed up with these lines:
"...because when looked at closely enough, every man's life is suspicious".
Individually, any of these systems may appear to do good things in individual cases. And the arguments for them always center around certain immediate benefits without considering the wider picture. The bigger truth is that such systems lead to a society full of anxiety, fear, and guilt, with arbitrary and random enforcement of the rules. There's a word for such conditions - the word is "despotism".
If the government keeps making newer laws for "safety"
If we allow them to take away our freedom piece by piece
It does not matter if there is a good use for the system
In the future every citizen could become a criminal
even if they never did anything wrong.
Being happy happy and jolly while ignoring history leads to brutal opression.
Especially when those in power know they have the means to stay in power without threat from the citizens.
Q) The Question is how do you prevent it from being abused?
A) Violations of privacy should be judged on merits by the courts (same as a wiretap). Was this done here. NO. Was this then an abuse of authority? Yes.
Q) Should you even worry about it?
A) At First, all the British police wanted were a few camera's in high crime area's, then a few camera's at dangerous intersections. Then a few in malls. Look at it now.
Q) Do you have a right to privacy while on a public road?
A) Yes. You have a right to privacy everywhere. Why? Because all "authority" will be abused - that's just human nature.
Pretty simple wasn't it. The details in the questions change, but human nature remains the same.
Yes, I would rather live in a free society where there was a greater chance of my family being raped and murdered than a police state where they were completely safe. We'll defend ourselves and keep our rights, thank you very much. Some people talk about "saving lives" as if it were a worthy end goal. I'd rather half the people in my country die and the rest live as men than all of them live safely as sheep.
No proof of registration is needed to make up a plate, as there are perfectly valid reasons for having spare plates. Trailers and caravans don't have their own registration - they display the number plate of the vehicle towing them. So you might very well have a couple of spare plates for your main towing car lying around that you can use.
Even the dumbest of criminals will work around that problem before too long. Get spare false plates made up. Attach the false plates to the car using sticky-backed velcro or something similar. Immediately after you've carried out your robbery / murder / kidnap / etc. , duck into a car-park, rip the spare plates off, and drive away at a steady restrained place, happy in the knowledge that the cops won't be actually out looking for you, they'll be replying on Big Brother to spot your car.
Britain is unfortunately becoming a surveillance society. In addition to the number of speed cameras dotted around the country (they outnumber trees in some areas) almost every town centre is covered by CCTV. The latest plan, as referenced in TFA, wants to place cameras every 400 metres on trunk roads and motorways. No doubt it will be described by Bliar & cronies as a way to fight terrorism and crack down on crime; in effect, it will be a way for the police to massively increase their revenue by being able to monitor your speed constantly, and automatically ping you should exceed the limit. They'll then introduce per-mile road charges, motorway tolls, etc. on the back of the technology.
It really makes me very glad I left that country.
Windows Tweaks
...before they link this into the MAGINOT BLUE STARS system for look-to-kill capability, eh?
Have you patented that yet? I don't recall reading that inventions had to be legal.
Foreign car plates probably cant be handled. they also cant handle the old plates you could get in custom fonts.
it used to be you could go anywhere and get some new plates made up; no ID, nothing. now you have to have the vehicle ownership certificate and the drivers license (of the owner) to get a plate, and it comes in an extra-machine-readable font. Primarily to stop people avoiding speed cameras and then london congestion charges.
I have more freedom through 60 million people not having guns than I do by me having one...
Sounds like you need a bigger gun.
You then have a really screwed up value system. Did you read what you just wrote?
I see no difference between a cop behind a camera checking my license plate, and one driving up behind me and checking it.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
...showing us how much it'd suck to trade our freedom for security, then end up with neither.
I thought Brave New World was marginally more intellectually honest.
But on the whole, I'd have to agree with Propagandhi:
"I'd rather be imprisoned
In a George-Orwellian world,
Than this pacified society
Of happy boyz and gurlz.
I'd rather know my enemies
And let you know the same.
Whose windows to smash
And whose tires to slash
And where to point the fucking blame."
Or maybe I'm just shilling for the police state.
We've got to accept that the police, the government, like anyone else, can observe us in public. But we've also got to ensure they don't take that too far, invading our privacy. Like keeping records of public observations too long, or cross-referencing with private info without just cause, or even invading our privacy beyond the public access.
And we've got to apply that consistency to the police and government employees themselves. Public employees should be monitored, even if those records are available only to duly authorized government overseers. Every official should be recorded for review. Including police officers. The police especially would benefit from being monitored, if we replaced their "paperwork" to just fast-forwarding video with voice annotations that are transcribed. Then they can spend more time dealing with criminals and each other than with forms and bureaucracy. And their "witness" roles would all produce much more accessible evidence to be used by the rest of the justice system. Rather than having to believe an officer's "word", which gradually undermines its credibility, police videos would make it faster, cheaper, easier and more reliable to administer justice. And budget-strapped precincts could auction the bloopers to C.O.P.S. shows.
--
make install -not war
No, it would be black people.
Why? Because I'm not willing to give up my rights so that someone else feels they can relax and let Mommy and Daddy Government take care of everything? A police state is an abomination, no matter how many lives it saves. The "nothing matters but life" approach is ridiculous and winds up rendering worthless the one thing it claims to value.
OK fine, there's one country. But I wouldn't say that Mexico's crime problems stem from its gun laws... for instance, look at the UK and (especially) Canada. MUCH lower murder rates than the US, and both have gun control.
So you are saying YOU wart to be the police? I'm sure that will make everyone feel a lot better.
I don't see how adding cameras turn society into a police state. And you didn't answer my question about what the difference is between a cop checking your license plate off a camera vs. following you in a car.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Did you quote the right source? I don't see where you found those numbers.
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action
Yeah, because it is so much better to be stabbed to death than shot to death. Oh wait, what was that about leaving out information?
It didn't stop the guys from killing the poor lady, makes you think.
... still nothing to watch.
Erm, we aren't a very small portion of the US population. :p
My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/
Unless you're a drug dealer or gang member, you stand very little chance of having your brains blown out here in the US either, despite what the evening news might imply.
But hey, I guess being stabbed to death in the UK is somehow a morally superior state of affairs than being shot in the states.
I'm glad you live in Texas too. Remember, kiddies, guns don't kill people; gun nuts do!
...it's a joke! it's a joke! Put that thing down!
For the actual statistics on the US side, the FBI provides some pretty comprehensive reports. Only 11 poisonings in 2004.
A pro women's rights police bitch died. :D.
I am happy
now you have to have the vehicle ownership certificate and the drivers license (of the owner) to get a plate
Say you have a new driver and a new car. How can this new driver practice driving if you need plates to practice driving but you need a licence to get plates?
Probably explains why there are about 35 fatal shootings each year in the UK, and 11,000 in the US.
And how many IRS bombings?
And how many 'push-in' robberies?
I see no difference between a cop behind a camera checking my license plate, and one driving up behind me and checking it.
And that's the problem. You don't see a difference between a cop casually checking one car's plates and an electronic system capable of tracking (potentially) every single car on the road, and keeping the data for, effectively, forever.
There are SOOO many potential abuses for such a system, that I can't name them all.
You're probably not interested in history, but just for the record, public executions don't stop crime any better than anything else. You'd think they would, but they don't. About all they do increase the violence of the society as a whole.
"The difference between those cases is that one is an empowering technology for people, while the other is an empowering technology for the government."
Onstar.
"Government has to be held to a much higher standard due to their sheer size and power over any one man."
The Negro race agrees with you.
Probably explains why there are about 35 fatal shootings each year in the UK, and 11,000 in the US.
This is just plain wrong. Where did you get this information? This following information is just England and Wales, too. I have just noticed that there are no statistics available to show homicides as a result of firearms being shot. These are homicides involving firearms, but they include being beaten to death with one. There are statistics for shootings, but these also include shootings from crossbows, etc. Anyway, the two sets are very similar, differing by 1 or 2 per year, so I assume 90%+ of these homicides are shootings, and 90%+ of the shootings involve firearms. Just to nip you pedants in the bud ;)
The following information I find particularly interesting. Bear in mind that hand guns were outlawed (to all intents and purposes) in 1997.
Anyway, make of these statistics what you will. They are official government statistics, from http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb0104.pd f (pdf). I can't seem to find more recent ones with year by year comparisons, there are probably some about. I don't think the situation's got much better over the past couple of years though. Also, I am English, and I do support gun control of some kind, I don't think a blanket ban of handguns is the way to go though. I learnt a couple of other things looking this up. Firstly there are more guns in the UK than I thought there were, almost 2 million legally owned IIRC. Secondly, the gun controls of the UK mean that some Olympic sports are outlawed. There will be special dispensation for 2012. However, our competitors are not getting any dispensation to practise, so apparently many of them have now moved to Switzerland so that they can practise regularly.
I've only been here for a couple of months and there's already been 2 murders (both of which happened while i was very, very closeby). I know to some americans, this figure might seem low... but goddamn, i'm scared.
sudo killall humans
Being under 24/7 surveillance means you no longer have privacy. You become tracked in all of your travels, all of your associations, all of your purchases. All of your patterns outside the house are now known. The government has an immediate and fairly accurate profile of all citizens. You commit a crime, no matter how minor or how ridiculous, and the government knows. You effectively have police at every streetcorner and every light post, watching, but recording everything they see.
The cop can both make a judgement call and is not able to retain all data observed. In modern government, most laws should not be applied most times. We have far too many of them, and many are created with the promise of "not being strictly enforced". Since we are not likely to throw out all these laws that need to be, you do the next best and have someone with a brain enforcing them.
The cop follows you in the car, and observes you. If you do nothing, the cop does not bother you. If you are being suspicious, the cop runs your plate. It is not a system of continual invasion of privacy, as these ridiculous cameras are.
Not really no. Please explain.
How is someone knowing that I went to blockbuster at 10:45pm three years ago going to reduce my rights? And why would anyone care?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Give the whole set of statistics. How many assaults are there? How many assaults with a deadly weapon? Are you numbers convictions, or incidents? Are your numbers incidents per population, or total for the country? There are a lot more people in the US than Canada and England, combined.
In places in the US with very lenient gun control, violent crime tends to be extremely low. There is even one place where you are required by law to own a gun; they don't have violent crime.
Gun control is about punishing people for a crime they haven't committed.
First, very small amounts of the US have higher rates for theft *OR* violent crime than England. Those places also have a significantly higher population density than London.
Second, most places in the US with very high proliferation of firearms have much lower crime rates than England.
Third, the US was founded on having freedom. England was founded on doing what the royal family tells you to do. That doesn't make you Brits see an advantage, it makes you ignore the problems and believe the disadvantages of your way are positives.
I'd rather have my car stolen than to be shot in the head, too. However, England just replaced getting shot with getting stabbed or hit with a blunt object. Not less crime, just less gun crime. When there are no guns, criminals just use something else.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/21/mall.shooting/ind ex.html
I just grabbed the first link off CNN, nothing specific, just to make a point. I don't suppose you could do us all a favour by becoming a drug dealer or gang member, could you?
First of all, I speak as ex-police officer. The parent post shows a serious lack of knowledge of this crime and British policing.
According to press reports, the two police officers were attending a report of a disturbance. There was no information that this was an armed robbery in progress, and the police women just happened to be the closest officers. Please remember that most city policing in Britain is done by cops on foot walking the streets with inimate knowledge of their beat area; not by remote seeming individuals running around in cars. For example, in the division that I last worked, we had 29 foot patrols and 4 vehicle patrols - which isn't to say that there aren't other vehicles around (traffic division cars, tactical patrol group, special patrol group, vice, Criminal Investigation, etc.)
Gun crimes are rare in Britain - there is no legal way for any individual to own a gun and there are stiff penalties (like jail) just for possession. Having a gun is considered a more serious crime than having drugs. If a police officer suspects that they may be faced by a person with a gun they have only to use their radio and armed officers will be on their way within seconds - literally. Guns are available at all police stations, and many (perhaps most these days) police officers are trained in using them.
In five years as a police officer, including over 1,000 arrests, I was never faced by anyone with a gun, and I can only recall a handful of times that officers had to call for backup because of suspected gun use. However, I was faced by knive wielding people six times and five times I disarmed them without injury to either of us. The first time I was faced by a man with a knife I wasn't quick enough and received a cut to the back of my hand that needed ten stitches, and the knife wielder received six years in prison.
According to all press reports, the policewomen involved in this incident did have body armor. However, body armor doesn't stop all bullet types, and there are bullet types specifically designed to penetrate such armor. The principle reason that most officers wear body armor is to protect themselves from knives, a much bigger threat than guns. Of course, this doesn't apply to all officers, those who carry guns (diplomatic protection group, anti-terrorist group, special patrol group, royal family protection officers, etc.) expect to face guns and wear appropriate protection.
Police work can never be totally safe. In Britain approximately one officer a year dies in the line of duty. However, the most common cause of death is being run over by a vehicle, deliberately or accidentally. Over the last 30 years, 12 officers have died to gunfire, and three of those were in a single incident in London.
British police value the fact they are generally unarmed. It makes the general public feel less intimidated by officers, and there is a general sense of public cooperation with the police that far exceeds that of countries where the police are armed. There have been many strident calls to routinely arm the British police, but very few of these calls have been from police officers. I think that arming British police would fundementally change the way that the British police interact with the public and cause more incidents (such as the case where over-eager officers shot and killed a suspected terrorist in the London underground, and subsequently found out that the man was merely an electrician on his way to work with no terrorist connections at all.) It would also make criminals more eager to carry guns and more willing to use them.
These two policewomen were just unlucky. A routine incident turned deadly. It happens, but it's pretty infrequent. Rules should not be based on very rare incidents.
The parent post asks why the car was allowed to travel all the way from Bradford to London. I don't know, but a number of possibilities come to mind. The most likely reason in my mind is that there was not a suitable location to isolate and take the
Good thing these cop killers knew the serious moral ramifications of removing or replacing your license plate.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
And what exactly is your point? Unless you're actually stupid enough to think that a single counterexample somehow invalidates a statistical truth. Do you go around worried you'll spontaneously combust as well?
Interestingly, you also wrote:
There is even one place where you are required by law to own a gun
...and then you don't tell us where?
First, very small amounts of the US have higher rates for theft *OR* violent crime than England. Those places also have a significantly higher population density than London.
Second, most places in the US with very high proliferation of firearms have much lower crime rates than England.
Neither of which explains why there are ~11,000 fatal shootings in the US per year, and only ~35 in the UK. This is using the OP's figures, I haven't looked it up, but I do know it's a major news event when someone gets shot in the UK. There was one (1) local (within a few miles) shooting in my 15 years of living in London...
[snip pointless rant about history - that of which you speak was in place before your country was. The founding fathers went to the new world to seek religious freedom, not to escape any royal censure. It's easy to claim a clean history when you haven't had much of it, apart from the whole slavery thing, of course. Oh yeah - freedom for *whites*...]
As for your last comment, let me re-iterate. I'd rather be stabbed than shot, too. I have a higher chance of survival. I'd rather be hit by a blunt object than shot too. I have a higher chance of survival. Perhaps it *is* just us who see the advantage...
Actually, looking at the figures, and (being generous) given that the US has some 5x the UK population, there must be some *really* *really* nasty places in the USA if your two assertions are to hold. 5x35 = 175. 175:11,000 ~= 1:63...
Take the plank from your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from mine (or something like that, I never paid much attention to that religious bollocks - the lesson is valid though)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
The technology is not the problem, it is the application of it. In one scenario you assume no one is corrupt because they are not using the technology. In the other with the camera technology, you assume corruption.
I can equally imagine the opposite scenario where the camera images are recorded, and in a few months if no crime was reported, automatically and silently erased without anyone looking at the video. The cop however, seeing a black kid with a new car, automatically assumes he is guilty. The cop then tailgates the car until the kid, through nervousness, DOES break the law by running a stop.
We've all seen where cameras capture child abductors on film, and without the camera there would not be any evidence to convict the abductor.
I would prefer the technology to be present and used appropriately than not present and unable to be used at all.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Within minutes of Friday's shootings, police were using the system to track the suspected getaway car.
But how can this be? All guns were confiscated in England, and what with the "free" healthcare, high taxes to ensure a civilized society, mandatory BBC to make you "THINK RIGHT", blah blah blah, surely a shooting of a cop cannot happen!
Stanley Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange as warning to society, he was just 25 years too early. In any case, I can change a license plate in the England with just a strip of black vinyl tape.
Yes, yes, mode me down as a flambe troll for shouting out the bleeding obvious, I really don't give a fuck.
On the bright side, double jeapordy was eliminated in England, so these "suspects" can be tried over and over again till they are convicted.
And so can YOU!
Wheee!
And then again, if the English cared about cops, they would give them all guns so they would have a chance to defend themselves, instead of being slaughtered in the streets by thugs entiteled to legal aid.
Feh.
If it becomes the case that a majority of car related crimes are not being solved because criminals are starting to use fake plates, then law enforcement will start using technology, survillance and new laws to combat that.
Some incremental possibilities:
1) I will become a serious offense to tamper with an "automobile identification system."
2) Places where cars can be stored and plates changed will be monitored for such activity. Example: Police beleive most criminals pull in to grocery store lots or parking garages to change plates before committing a crime. Solution: The police will be given realtime access to those CCTV systems in the store lots to make sure no one is tampering with plates. These systems might then become mandatory in all parking areas that don't already have them.
3) A "test case" will be done in some "security minded" municipality where plates are augmented with radio beacons. If a beacon goes offline an investigator will check it out. Possibly by CCTV, or if that location isn't visible then e* might go there to do some old fashion flat foot police work. Of course, too much of this will be expensive, so more CCTVs will be deployed to save money.
These are just a few possibilites I was able to think of quickly. Smarter people than me will spend more time thinking of other possibilies to combat this problem. Incrimentaly they will build a patch work of laws, technology, and servallince to solve the plate tampering problem (as they are begining to do to solve the speeding problem). Once they've solved the problem, the system will still be in place...
and function creep will begin in earnest.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
And neither was AirStrip One.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun/
The obvious answer is that guns are illegal in the UK, so there are few gun-related incidents. It just doesn't solve the problem of violent crime; it just shifts it from one deadly weapon to another. It also means people have less of a way to defend themselves against criminals and the government. If the overall violent crime rate went down (and stayed down) through banning guns, then you have something to talk about. I don't know if that is the case.
Some of those nasty places in the US are a whole lot worse than most anywhere in England. Not as bad as the OP numbers would require, of course. Then again, I don't live that far away from a city, and I don't hear of gun fatality. Where I grew up, most people had a rifle and/or shotgun. In the twenty years I lived in that area, there wasn't one gun related crime, let alone fatality. The only murder was someone that was killed by crazy guy repeatedly stabbing them, and that was a few towns over.
Every country has had slavery. If you want to say something bad about the US' version of slavery, at least mention how the US was the only western country that rid itself of slavery through violence. I believe it is also the only one to remove slavery as a propoganda and destabilisation move instead of a moral shift.
You don't know that the kidnapper wouldn't have been caught and convicted without the camera. The footage made it easier for the police to track and the courts to convict the perp.
The cameras *will* be abused, I'm not assuming anything about it. As you pointed out, the currect system is corrupted, too. The camera system has a tremendous amount more potential for abuse. So right now, they destroy the footage. Perhaps next month they will begin to retain the footage. The system is already there, so why not keep a copy of the data? It's making better use of the system, it allows for better profiling, and can help to catch the terrorists who are conducting a detailed plot.
It's easy to convince people to go another small step. The small step with cameras is only small in procedure. The ramifications to freedom are truly staggering. You're assuming that the tech will only be used appropriately. I say that the tech will be used to it's potential, and that the potential is undesirable. You have to consider the extremes, because they have an unfortunate tendancy to become the norm.
Ok, on that line of thought, since handguns are used inappropriately by people, beyond their intended use as protection only, then they should be banned too to prevent possible abuse.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Very true, and so on to specific places and numbers!
Alaska and Vermont do not require anything special for even concealed carry of a handgun. All citizens are free to do so. New Hampshire is also very open in it's gun policies. Those three states have much lower violent crime statistics than England.
In Switzerland, all men have guns, and it is also has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Both Australia and England saw large jumps in violent crime after instituting draconian gun control laws. At one point, Manchester was even being referred to as Gunchester, as there were so many illegal guns on the street.
On the other hand, most countries that instituted gun bans shortly followed them with genocides. Turkey, Russia, China, Germany, Uganda, Guatemala, and Cambodia all had mass genocides after banning guns - all in the last 80 years. There was also that pathetic tragedy in Sierra Leone where the UN conned the populace into turning over their guns, and both the populace *and* the UN peace keepers were slaughtered as a direct result.
The US ATF even had to publish the stats that well over 90% of guns used in crimes were illegaly obtained. Gun control did nothing but help to ensure that the victims of those crimes didn't have a weapon.
The place I mentioned that required gun ownership was Kennesaw, Georgia. It is not far away from Atlanta. In 1982 they passed a law that the head of every household had to keep a gun and ammo in their home. Kennesaw had their crime rate drop ~90%, and their population more than double over the subsequent 10 years.
Automated camera systems to track the movements of every car in the country and then keep that on a permanent record are VERY bad
You are anthropomorphizing the data (I refuse to make the obvious joke). The data itself is not bad or good. The data is just data, another tool.
What is bad or good is the procedures by which this data is accessed, the uses to which it is put.
The real question is - is this tool too powerful to exist? I do not think so as long as there is oversight in it's use, because it can do a lot of real good - as in the case of the killers being caught, or (potentially) a vast reduction in stolen cars.
People like to argue that the genie is out of the bottle in regards to filesharing. Well, the genie of pervasive monitoring is so close to out as to make no difference. So we as humanity must adjust and figure out how we are to live with this very powerful tool, and make it serve us instead of fearing it just as the RIAA and ilk must figure how to live in a world when anything can be copied. This situation may seem dissimilar but it is not; something you do not wish to happen is becoming prevalent so instead of a futile battle to stop what cannot be stopped, figure out what leverage you have to control its use.
Some people also claim the UK is now a "Police State". They are mistaken; the difference between a police state and this is that in a Police State is that you are always being WATCHED (or be made to think you are). In the case of the modern UK your public actions are constantly being RECORDED. There is a huge difference between activity and passivity.
If a system is passive and takes no action without direction, if a person in order to direct a system to take action has oversight and rules binding what they may do, then I am generally OK with that system. A network of passive cameras that can be used to track fleeing thugs or stolen cars? Grand. A network of cameras that automatically issues tickets without intervention? Now that pisses me off and I think is a serious misuse of the power granted to the government. The sooner people see the difference the sooner they can push for oversight and reasonable use of the cameras.
Having read David Brin I would argue that any feed from a public camera also be publically accessible. When anyone can watch anyone else, when the police as well as citizens are bothe being recorded in public - then there is equal footing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That is such a typical bs avoid-the-issue response. Yes, and hands kill people, so everyone should have their hands cut off. I bet you also think that abortion should be illegal, and so should guns, cars and SUVs, cigarettes, fast food, bow and arrows and crossbows, knives, and so on?
In the US at least, people are guaranteed the right to own a firearm. Nobody is guaranteed the right to monitor the populace with a vast network of cameras and recording. This is because people need to defend themselves, and guns are an equalizer. You can't effectively fight off a bear, an assailant, or the government without a gun.
Private citizens doing something is very different from allowing the government to do the same. I have simple and easy recourse if an individual were to invade my privacy. I have much less recourse if the government enacts a law that does the same.
You don't want to just hand the government things that it can abuse. You can't prevent people from abusing things, but you can cause there to be repurcussions, be it criminal or civil. Government is like the people, but without the repurcussions and with a lot more power.
Well what if the system is cross-referencing people who have plates with numbers that are not known to be valid and keeping track of them?
Or if you are using someone elses plate, why would the system not flag as a problem that either two cars were in the same place at the same time or suddenly one car has magically "teleported" and is now at a different location from the last known stopping point.
These are definatley ethically grey uses of such a system. But I would have to say that the system at least making note of all vehicles with invalid plates until a query came up based on a crime occuring in the area would not be wrong in my mind.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No ... because 12 out of the last 13 people hung later turned out to be innocent.
Then you should be all the happier at a hanging since these people are known to be guilty, and would improve the average.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
You either steal plates or steal a whole car.
Using a stolen car for thieves to cover their tracks is quite common. And using stolen tags or plates to do so is the reason that police get so freaked out if they find out you don't have the right plates on your car (swapped with someone else) or if your plates are stolen. They assuming you did this as a plan for a larger (probably violent) crime.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Yikes! Your Tax authority bombs you into paying up?!
No wonder Americans don't like tax increases...
By using public transport, like most of the rest of us. Duh!
What happens when the job requires traveling at night (2nd or 3rd shift), or on Saturday evenings, or on Sundays, or on holidays, or to or from locations outside the city limits or other locations not serviced by public transport? Or is public transport in Europe generally better than the bus system in a typical American town of 200,000 people?
This is a sad day if you are a chopper pilot. What is the point of chasing a bad guy if you can't fly overhead with the night vision, the big spot light and the video camera that can zoom in so close with SteadyShot the TV station across town is envious? Not to mention, where is the thrill of danger and the risk of being shot down if the bad guy is heavily armed?
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
my point was that i believe there is something unexpected in the data and i speculate on a possible explanation. i don't say that the data should be ignored because they don't fit my hypothesized pattern.
> "very small portion of the US population" is beyond the pale.
No it isn't. It's quite a sensible realization that, for most people, the US isn't as dangerous a place as the evening news would lead us to believe. A frightened society is a pliable one, and I don't feel like having my civil liberties plied any more, thankyouverymuch.
That's not to say there are not terrible problems with poverty, lack of opportunity/hope, and even discrimination - there are. Acknowledging that many things are distributed very unevenly in the US - from money to violence - is a fact whose ignoring does nobody any favours. How can you address inequality without first acknowledging it?
"...That means your local gang-land thugs will find a way to avoid their registration plate being scanned (custom plate with obscure font).
Great idea! Unfortunately, The Man seems to be slightly ahead of
See Current Requirements on the Display of Number Plates for more info.
T&K.
Political language
http://www.guk.co.uk/
This is the website of the company supplying the system used in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
It's as if I felt the rustle of a Million rolls of tin foil
being used all at once.
As for making your plate hard to see/photo, around here the cops give you two choices, remove the obstruction now, or your car gets towed.
...Both Australia and England saw large jumps in violent crime after instituting draconian gun control laws...
Care to back the Australia comment up with some meaningful information? And the England one too.
Is it just me or does this story breaking, no one previously knowing about this (privacy issues abound) and all of a sudden it's used to break a major crime seem like a nice coincidence????
You know, it just doesn't matter how many "wah wah my civil liberties" types we get complaining about this kind of system, because when it works like this it puts all that in the shade.
If you're a normal law abiding citizen (oh, except we aren't citizens we are subjects but that's a different subject) then you don't have any problems. Doesn't it worry anyone though that the government will have a database of your entire movements that will be kept for 2 years? Here in the UK goverment agencies are in the business of reducing the burden to the taxpayer by selling information to other bodies, including private firms. This is the case with the electoral role and is proposed for the ID card system that they are trying to introduce. This database would be another marketable gem.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
US: 46 Officers shot dead this year, 53 last year, 2 in the last week.
UK: 2 Officers shot dead in the last 2 years, 11 in the last 20 years.
Given that a lot of the US officers shot dead were killed by their own weapons and that fully arming a police force only ups the ante for the criminals I think we'll stick with what we have.
where "fought for their freedom" means killed innocent people, robbed banks, smuggled drugs and arms.
yeah, real heros.
"All governments are oppressive, it's their job. Your job is to get wealthy enough to own a piece of government large enough to ensure that they oppress someone else instead of you."
Life was simpler when we were barbarians.(get food, get shelter, get woman) Now its that and the above.(worse) Doesn't seem worth it, does it? Humanity hasn't changed a bit, just as barbarically stupid(civilized) as ever.
So you wouldn't mind if a private citizen created a network of CCTV camera's monitoring where you go in public?
What use is the capture when there is no death penalty in Britain any more and so copkillers cannot be put to sleep? They will eat and drink and dwell on public expense, while innocent homeless people are wandering in the winter streets day and night, hungry and freezing.
The only good thing in USA is the ol' spark. As President Jackson has said: America is built upon universal respect for three institutions: Motherhood, the Flag and Capital Punishment. Don't let yourself be fooled by liberals and let them take any of that away. When the blessed gallows is gone, the 2nd amendment is also gone.
>> In Switzerland, all men have guns, and it is also has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.
This is very misleading. In Switzerland, everyone who has served in the army (and that is basically every healthy adult male) has to keep a rifle in his home with some ammunition in case the country has to be defended in a war.
Occasionally, the presence of the rifle will be checked, and the ammunition will be counted, and if any of the ammunition is missing, or if the rifle is in a place where it could be accessed easily by someone else, you are in deep deep shit. People in Switzerland _don't_ carry guns. They have them somewhere hidden away in their home, very carefully locked.
>There is even one place where you are required by law to own a gun; they don't have violent crime.
That one is certainly bogus. The US federal first amendment which protects freedom of religion has long been 14th-ized by SCOTUS, so that it also binds the states and anything lesser public entity. Certain religions refute weapons, some buddhists and hindi are so docile they walk with a broom to sweep the bugs away so as not to crush them even accidentally. Some desert monoteists, like the Jehova's also refuse guns. Therefore any public rule requiring all people to own a gun is a violation of the freedom of religion principle and thus sure to be stuck down by the courts.
It is legaly possible to own a gun in the UK although the rules are pretty strict (working from memory here since I gave up shooting about 5-6 years ago).
In order to own firearms you have to have a Licence (Firearms Certificate or FAC). In order to get an FAC you have to have to be a full member of a shooting club (though I think this is not always the case for shotguns due to rural / farming use), and there is a mandatory one year probationary member period for shooting clubs. A background check (incl criminal record check etc) is required and the local police (I forget if this is police local to you or to where the weapon(s) will be stored or both) have to sign off on it. You also have to have secure storage available (this can be a registered armoury or a safe cabinet in your house).
The certificate has your photo on it and a list of the categorys (and number of each category) of the firearms it allows. In addition it lists the type and amount of ammunition allowed. When you purchase a weapon it is listed (make, type, serial number etc) on the FAC (both your copy and the home office's). All purchases of ammunition are logged with the certificate number (and flags WILL be raised if you start buying lots of ammo, I had queries when I purchased ammunition for the club I was a member of).
As for types of firearm you can own; Shotguns and manual action rifles are not particularly hard to get a license for (well, relatively not hard). It's even possible to own pistols still, though you'd have to be a memeber of the olympic team (or something along those lines) in order to be able to do so and the handling rules are insane (may only be handled by the registered owner, may only be removed from a secure case on a firing range or armoury etc). I belive certain semi-auto weapons are still legal as well (.22 carbines only if I recall correctly).
Doesn't seem to have helped.
I had to replace my plates about a month ago. I went to a Halfords and was turned away because I didn't have: 1) the registered owner (V5) document 2) a current MOT certificate and 3) my driving licence. Apparently a recent change in the law means that you must provide these items when getting plates made up. Halfords were also required to keep a record of my details. The name of the garage that made them and their postcode must be printed on the plates and they cannot provide plates that are illegal (different fonts, graphics etc.) You can still have 'show' plates made up, but they come with a warning that they must not be used on public roads.
>You can't effectively fight off a bear, an assailant, or the government without a gun.
/. reader's hero, as he actually shot people to death and actually had a girlfriend to fuck. Pity he will feel the ol' spark because he was stupid enough to make a domestic terrorist video to top off all those achievements:
n dex.html
You certainly can't fight the goverment with guns (as in rifles or pistols). Government = Armed Forces. Tanks, attack choppers, fighter jets are invulnerable to rifle fire. US foot soldiers have ceramic point blank body armour that stand even against sniper rifles. You would need RPG, Stingers and guns (as in cannon) for any chance to beat Uncle Sam, all of which are banned from the citizens for good. Face it gringo, you are also at the mercy of your gov't no matter if bearing a rifle or not. WACO broke like a box of matchsticks when the Abrams CEV rammed it. Shattered dreams.
It looks like the average Slashdot reader is a paranoid, who hates positive rights, loves firearms and canot get a chick. I think a gun is a kind of imaginary penis enhancement for him. But let's face it, 99.99% of Slashdot readers would run with brown pants if they ever saw UBL or Zarkavi face to face, because there is a big difference between bragging about guns and being a great warrior. Those bearded man-eaters are sure tough ones, but you are not.
This white, anglo-saxon, protestant ubermensch guy is the average
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/17/parents.slain/i
In Russia, many of the police have AK47s, legal private ownership of guns is much more difficult than the UK, yet their rates of crime are far worse.
See my journal, I write things there
Care to back up any of the information that I asked about three posts up? It would answer your question quite handily.
% 20ban%20australia
http://www.google.com/search?q=crime%20rate%20gun
The top fifty hits or so will tell you all about it, and that's just for Australia. Gun bans are a complete failure, and gun control doesn't prevent any crime.
Replace Austalia with England, and the first few hits tell you how Englands violent crime rates are higher than America. It will also tell you about how gun crime went up around 40% since guns were banned.
If you ignore all the evidence that gun control and gun bans work, then I suppose you lot have an argument. History, however, clearly shows that removing the weapons is a mark of an oppressive government that has gone out of control.
My post isn't misleading at all. All male citizens are required to have a gun. You even confirm that in your reponse. It means that nearly every household has at least one gun with ammunition. I did *not* say they carried their guns around with them. That would be quite annoying to do with an assault rifle.
As long as they don't mind me suing them, avoiding the cameras, purpusefully invalidating the input to the cameras, or putting up my own cameras. Seeing as it would be illegal for me to do those things with the government run cameras, your post is kind of moot. Then again, the private cameras on a public road could not directly result in prosecution.
I object to being monitored at all, but on private property I have to go with what the owner wants, or I can leave. The only way to avoid the big brother government cameras is to leave the country. That is not acceptable.
If you had comitted a capital crime in the UK, you were entitled to the best representation, if necessary, for free. The QCs really didn't like doing the work as the trials went on for a long time and were extremely high stress. Believe it or not, some British lawyers (both barristers and solicitors) take comfort in the fact that if their client is sent down there was no time limit.
Note that if no lawyer volunteered to look after the client, one would be appointed for them and it was considered a duty of the legal profession.
See my journal, I write things there
And the typical anonymous coward is still misinformed, insulting, and ignorant.
As it turns out, all of your points are easily invalidated. Choppers and fighters are both vulnerable to rifle fire, you're just unlikely to hit either in a critical place. Personnel combat armor does not cover full body, and is not some kind of force field. You get hit with a sniper shot, and you're likely quite dead (and maybe dismembered). As for tanks, hell, a longbow archer can stick an arrow into the side of that armor. You won't be stopping a tank that way, but you think somehow the magical armor of the soldiers will stop it? You want to stop a tank, you take out a tread. That is within the grasp of anyone with a bit of intellect.
I do not have a typical set of political beliefs regarding weaponry. My belief is that if the government wants to be allowed, then the populace needs to be allowed. If they want to play with their Apache helicopters, F-22s, B51s, etc, then they have to be prepared to allow the citizens to possess the same. Sure, you couldn't legally use most of those weapons, but if it came down to an armed rebellion, you have to stand a chance.
Of course, the part that all you government is mommmy, government is daddy types miss is that if it came down to armed revolt, there would likely be military support for it. Just because someone is a soldier does not mean they automatically agree with everything the government says. Once you stop being an enlist, you tend to be expected to think for yourself somewhat. You should try doing the same.
Wow - you should see a psychiatrist. Paranoid delusions with god complex. A sense of your own self imporatnce so large that the government has nothing else to do but watch your every move.
Get a grip.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Doesn't seem to have helped.
How can you tell?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Oops - you're right, my fault. I was looking at two, used one, and gave the url for the other. The right link is here.
Yes, you should see a psychiatrist. You seem to have a problem where you're making up things that I supposedly said and then presenting them as fact. That shows a distorted view of reality, at least mild psychosis. You should get that checked out.
Yeah, you could do something stupid, like jacking a car.
Alternately, you could steal a car from a airport parking lot, just before your other crime, and the owner won't notice in time.
Besides, the most important thing is that they can't figure out who you are from your car. It'd be nice if the car is not known as hot too. But most important is they can't just look DMV (or whatever) records to find out who just robbed that store.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Great idea if you can forge them yourself. Otherwise, you're letting someone else in on your secret.
Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.
Besides, now that there are cameras, you assume they will pick up a stolen car, but not one with forged or stolen plates? That's convenient to your argument, but doesn't really make sense.
If you can use forged plates, I can use stolen ones. Either the cameras look up every plate instantly and match them against the car that should have them (in which case forged plates and stolen plates won't work) or else they don't, in which case stolen plates or forged plates work great.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
> Well tickle me pink and call me Norman, but I'd rather have my car stolen than my brains blown out.
Who made you think those are your only options?
Not much better. So all I need to do is get a job in one of these places that makes up plates, or find someone I can bribe to make some for me? Not hard.
What they really should do is adopt the system used in many other countries where plates are government issued. It's quite difficult to make a realistic looking fake license plate in the USA, as there are special colored reflective paints used (colors you won't find on the shelf at your hardware store) and the characters are embossed into the metal before painting.
A British plate can be faked by anyone with some perspex, a couple of rolls of 3M reflective tape and a sharp knife.
To clarify:
In 1984, Winston Smith isn't "secure" at all, he's terrorized by the omnipotent state.
So Orwell's basically saying, "It sucks when you trade freedom for nothing."
Um, duh.
Brave New World is more intellectually honest, because they the citizens actually get something out of the deal.