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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."
So because it has one good use does that mean we should ignore all the possible misuses?
Probably explains why there are about 35 fatal shootings each year in the UK, and 11,000 in the US.
Who watches the watchers?
I know of suspicious/vindictive/controlling/abusive people who if they had the power to see where their spouse/ex-spouse/SO would certainly abuse the priviledge by doing so.
I find it hard to believe that buddies of buddies wouldn't use something like this to say "hey, keep an eye on my SO, I've got to be on stake-out for the next few nights"
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
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
Well... If the system was so good why the f*** did the car get all the way from Bradford to London? That is 4+ hour drive across half of the country.
What you are seeing here has nothing to do with the merits of the system. It has something to do with typical newsmanagement by Tony Bliar cronies. Similar to the one they tried on the "Good day to Burry Bad News (9/11)". They want to push this system as a replacement for speed cameras with the difference that speed will be checked every 400m, not in specific locations. Further to this you have the transport secretary which is waiting in the wings to use the same network for charging per road use.
The only problem - the road users are just a few inches short of wanting to lynch 'em both. So what do you do in this case - get good publicity. And this all this is about. And using the death of a mother with 4 kids in the line of duty for this is as appaling as it can get.
By the way who is the criminal idiot who sent two unarmed, untrained women without body armour to investigate a reported armed robbery in progress?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
1984 was also deliberately extreme to show the problems with a surveillance society, as is often the case in fiction.
Ummm, yeah. By eliminating data you don't like, you can make statistics say whatever you like. Congratulations.
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!
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".
"Important when the populace is entirely unarmed and at their mercy"
Cop has no gun: Citzen has no gun - it's a decent balance of power, no?
Seriously, I see a lot of this kind of sniping, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of logic behind it.
Say you're in a state where open or even concealed carry is legal, you're in a confrontation with a cop and you decide it's going badly, so you draw on him/her. What happens now?
You've got the full attention of the criminal justice system focussed on you. If captured and tried, you can obviously expect the DA to be calling for the harshest possible sentence against a merciless mad-dog killer...
Me, I prefer a society where as few people as possible have access to firearms.
I'd like to own a weapon, try my hand at the range (which I haven't done since the Air Training Corps many moons ago). OTOH, I'd be scared shitless if my crazy neighbour had similar easy access to deadly ranged weapons.
That's the crux of it: I'd like to own a weapon. I'd absolutely hate to feel I needed to own one.
T&K.
Political language