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CCTV Cameras In UK Get Loudspeakers
An anonymous reader writes, "Big Brother is another step closer in the UK where the ever ubiquitous CCTV cameras are being fitted with loudspeakers so that camera operators who spot activities deemed 'anti-social' can berate the citizens below. In January 2004 there were more than 4,285,000 CCTV cameras in the UK (roughly 1 for every 4 households). No data about the number of CCTV cameras now in use in the UK is available."
I live in the UK, and whilst I see lots of cameras, they certainly aren't on every street corner - however the closer to the city centre you go, the more there are.
Is it based on sensor sales, does it include webcams, how about mobile phone cams?
Its always bugged me how they come up with grand figures like they have.
liqbase
" You are the dead ", said an iron voice behind them. ...
...
" Now they can see us ", said Julia.
" Now we can see you ", said the voice. " Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another. "
He heard Julia snap her teeth together. " I suppose we may as well say good-bye ", she said.
" You may as well say good-bye ", said the voice. And then another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in; " And by the way, while we are on the subject, Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head ! "
True, until they start playing The Government Channel 24 hours a day, announcing that:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
They aren't even close to being as ubiquitous as they shall be in the not too distant future. They will be linked to your driver's photo, your credit cards, you name it. People will pay money to live in the country side behind gates, with guards, but no cameras. Only the poor and middle class will have to live under this great experiment in voyeurism. The criminals will find ways around detection. The rest of us will lose more and more of our privacy rights. Kids born today will be numb and accustomed to the lack of freedom, just as our overlords want.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
Stand STILL Woggy!
If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!
Personally, I think this will backfire. It's possible to simply learn to accept that law enforcement is watching and recording everything you do in public, as millions of Britons have apparently done. But when those cameras start vocally reminding you of their presence, they may be much more difficult to ignore. We'll see: this will be interesting to watch whatever happens.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The next step is an automated Counter Fire System. Fire a gun, and within seconds, you're taking heavy fire.
The U.S. Army has had that for almost two decades with the Fire Finder radar system, but that's for heavy artillery. Now DARPA is downsizing the technology to the counter-sniper level.
How exactly can you lose your privacy by being filmed in a public place?
Feel free to cite any abuse of power the government has perpetrated using cctv cameras.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Most Britons SUPPORT CCTV. It's as simple as that. It reduces crime, and leads to prosecution for criminals.
Being seen outside by CCTV doesn't infringe upon your civil liberties anymore than having a cop sit in a car and watch people walk by does.
The US has by far the scariest government in the western world.
Yeah, I keep seeing Daily Mail stories getting posted here on /., and I definitely find it irritating, because of the reasons you just gave. It's not the impression I really want to be giving to foreigners about my country...
Anyhow, adding loudspeakers to these cameras might be a good thing (bear with me, don't mod me down yet!). If the number of cameras stays the same, well we are just getting spied on the same as before, but with loudspeakers, now people will notice the spying is taking place. As it stands, cameras are easy to forget about in day-to-day life, but hearing the voice of authority booming down from on high is sure to raise some alarm. Hopefully we will finally see some kind of backlash! (Now you can mod me down)
As part of an "experiment", which will be "successful". Sure... right.... What's next?
I build networked CCTV equipment as my day job. According the people who install our stuff the best way to get a potential thief or vandal to stop what they are doing is to say "Stop immediately and stay where you are the police have been notified". They usually turn and flee straight away...which is really the best option (at least for private property) where preventing too much damage is usually more important than apprehending the culprit. Sad but true.
I understand why people are wary of CCTV but there is a lot of very unnecessary negative feeling towards it. It could be used for bad but it is used for a lot of good. There are a lot of crimes carried out against people which just could not be solved without the CCTV evidence or leads obtained from CCTV. CCTV really does make the world a safer place (if it didn't I wouldn't be working in the industry trust me).
Joking aside, many of us who were alive before and during WWII do see the parallels of today's Western society to that of Soviet Russia. I was 12 when World War II started in Europe. At that time we didn't know it as 'World War II', as the future magnitude of the conflict was yet unknown to us.
Unlike most young students today, in Wales we were expected to keep up to date on world affairs as part of our studies. Every day we'd read from papers like the Daily Herald and The Manchester Guardian, and from The Economist weekly. We knew of the world around us, and we knew of what went on in the Soviet Union.
Many years later, in the mid 1990s, I was lucky enough to get to work alongside people from nations like Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, and even Georgia. It was very interesting to hear them tell of their lives in the Soviet Union. In many respects, what they said mirrors the social situation we have today.
They'd tell of fearmongering from the government and the media (which itself was government-run). This fearmongering was used to turn the people against other nations and peoples, and even against certain ideals.
A result of this fearmongering was a sense in insecurity between individuals. Few people would trust one another to any extent. People knew they were being watched at all times, but they never knew by who.
We seem to have much the same today. Many people in our society today share the same paranoia about others, hyped on by the efforts of the mass media. The media itself is guilty of extreme self-censorship, and won't challenge the government to any extent. It thus becomes what is essentially "government-run", even if the government isn't directing day-to-day operations and selecting what stories are printed.
Today, as evident by this article, we are all being constantly watched by shadowy figures within various governments. The level of security is extensive, as is the cost. And what's worse, there is little to show but extreme inconvenience for law-abiding citizenry. Some are even shot dead, as we saw in London a year-and-a-half ago.
Those of us who lived in the Soviet Union, and those of us who were even just alive during that time period, we all agree: Western society is beginning to severely duplicate the Soviet experience.
For most towns in the UK the mayor has no power at all, it's just a figurehead position for the council (some towns are getting directly elected mayors though). As for schools, I've never heard of CCTV with speakers in them, my kids have never mentioned them and a friend who is a school caretaker has never mentioned it, of course if Tony Blair reads /. then we can expect it any day. As posted earlier CCTV is not as widespread as you may think, mostly they are in town centres, shopping centres (and shops), road gantries, and carparks. My village has one, and that overlooks the village hall carpark, the village next to us has one overlooking an ATM. My home town has full coverage of the town centre, usefull on a Friday and Saturday night, it also has the lowest crime rate in the UK and most residents are more than happy about it.
There is a fundamental difference between the US and the UK in how the public preceive "big-brotherness" and the role of the government in general. In the UK there just arn't nearly as many populised "government conspiracy theories" like they are in the USA and very few people fear the government/secret service malicously "spies" on people.
Besides this, the vast majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are owned by either local government/councils (which operate and are widely recognised as being very independant of central/national government) or by private landowners and businesses. Very few of the millions of CCTV cameras which are being, and have been, installed over the last few years in the UK have been requested by any organisation connected to central government.
Well ... I hope there's some kind of a backlash. Cameras are certainly here in the U.S., with more appearing all the time. They don't talk yet, but where I live there are cameras popping up everywhere, and that's just the ones you can see. I watched an ambulance driving down a street the other day (remotely switching all the lights to green as it went) and at each intersection a white light above the camera went on for a second or two as the vehicle went through. I guess I should be thankful they had the courtesy to have those lights, although I assume they can turn on the camera without the light. Besides, those were some of the earliest ones that were installed, back when public opinion on the matter was important ("See? It's not so bad, you'll know when we're watching you.") Not that it makes any difference, since nobody seems to care anymore. People I talk to about it use England as an example of why there's nothing to worry about. And maybe that's true in England, I don't know since I don't live there. However, I have less faith in my various governments to handle that kind of responsibility, since they're failing in so many other areas at the moment.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That was my attitude when I was fresh out of college prior to 9/11. I've had 21 years of "land of the free & home of the brave" rah rah rah. I would read what was happening in the UK and thought that our Constutition and especially the Bill of Rights would prevent all of that from happening. Little did I know that there was already an increase in the seizing of our freedoms - 2nd Amendment via "gun control", 4th Amendment via "war on drugs", etc. And all it took was 9/11 to throw the majority of Americans into a fear-stricken "we must give up our liberties for security" attitude. And our politicians were more than willing to pander to it. The money from Homeland Security for the major cities has gone for more CCTVs to monitor the public. Police rave about how they can put more "virtual" cops on the beat to "fight crime." Citizens say they have nothing to hide because they aren't doing anything wrong and are glad they are now "safe" by being monitored 24/7.
I have since come to accept that whatever Big Brother mess we see start in the UK will eventually make its way into the US. "Land of the free, home of the brave"???
Uk citizens are plenty aware of CCTV cameras, and in general are overwhelming in favour of them, to the extent that many (a) petition police to install more survelliance equipment and (b) install cameras on their own property. The only concern with camera are speed cameras, which annoy motoring rights groups, and with any suggestion that cameras are replacing the physical presence of police officers.
Seriously, the arguments about 'public privacy' you've seen in the rest of the thread are not very persuasive to an UK public used to things like 'Crimewatch', where CCTV footage is published to aid criminal investigations. As far as the UK public is concerned, the system is transparent and gives real benefits, and no more intrusive than having a real police officer on patrol there in the first place.
As it stands, cameras are easy to forget about in day-to-day life, but hearing the voice of authority booming down from on high is sure to raise some alarm. Hopefully we will finally see some kind of backlash!
No, it would be better if your government were taking cameras down, not spending money on making them more effective. Once you have lost and the loudspeakers are up, you need to find a way to prove they are invasive and abused. Having a voice "on high" might help you in creating an incident if you are creative enough, but it will probably work against you.
The way forward is to expose the invasiveness and uselessness. Studies have already shown they don't fight crime. Print the results and tack them up at busy intersections. People live and die in front of government spies. You need to find ways of making very private events public. The victim has already lost their dignity and privacy, so you won't actually make it worse for them. Mostly, you need a whistle blower like the US has for wire taps. The extent to which the system is being used to monitor and harass political groups, students and other innocents should be published. You will have to infiltrate the system to see it, but it requires so many people that should be easy. Sooner or later, someone on the inside will turn against this monstrosity. Good luck.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I work in a Marina in London which has CCTV for security. The area is fairly smart but but has an estate ( projects to Americans ) down the road housing a number of lowlifes. Crime is not endemic but happens fairly often. Two Women were mugged 50 yards from the Marina office a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately not where we have cameras.
I've seen that cameras combined with loudspeakers can be very effective in crime prevention
There is a lifting road bridge controlled by the Marina which has a loudspeaker to warn when the road barriers are to be closed. Late at night this can be very effective for crime prevention. The startled reaction and swift exit I've seen from thieves attempting to break into a car when a very loud voice from 30 ft up and only 40 ft away announces "Smile, you're on camera" is highly amusing. I call it " The Voice of God ".(Though I'm agnostic.)
I am as worried as anyone about government snooping. But cameras are put up by local authorities and organisations to prevent crime so why not blame the criminals for the invasion of our privacy?
You're right. I saw this some years back in the US. San Francisco's water supply comes from the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite. The western terminus is at the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County. At the end of the pipeline, there's something called the Pulgas Water Temple, which is a kinda nice, Grecian-looking structure. http://www.barakyedidia.com/Architecture/Images/Wa terTemple/index.htm The water from the pipeline comes roaring into the structure and flows down through a conduit to the lake below. The whole business is run by the SFWD, which has hydraulic control gear in a bunker hidden within a berm a hundred yards or so away.
Anyway, back to the topic. You used to be able to park nearby. Then they closed the place for a few years due to construction. When it reopened, you couldn't park on the grounds -- nearest parking was about a mile away. I walked to the place one day and was wandering around. A couple of kids (about twelve years old) showed up on bikes and left the bikes at the gate. When they entered the grounds a short distance from me, they naturally started throwing pine cones and such at each other. Suddenly the Voice of God came from a nearby clump of trees, telling the kids to quit fooling around or leave the property before cops were called. Totally creepy. Not exactly a site for some impromptu lovemaking. Though I doubt you'd hear the VoG before you were both lying back having a cigarette afterward.
Coupled with that is the English (British? I don't know how much it applies to the other home nations) attitude to complaining: we complain a lot about many things to our friends, but not to the people responsible who could effect change. In a sub-standard restaurant, for example, we'll moan together about the quality but when the waiter asks, "Is everything alright?" there will be uniform consensus that everything's fine. (As an aside, if you want good insight into the English nation, read "Watching the English" by the anthropologist Kate Fox).
Finally, there's the issue of priorities. I'm probably more politically active than 99% of the population, and I cannot keep pace with the rubbish legislation which the government is pushing through. I write to my MP about and participate in consultations for various areas, but CCTV is a long way down my priority list.
I live about 15 minutes away from Middlesbrough and work there. Let me describe the area I live in to give you an idea of how bad it's getting and by all accounts Middlesbrough is worse.
The immediate area is surrounded by heavy industrial works, they stretch out to the horizon. On one side is what used to be British Steel, the other ICI(C&P whatever). Cooling towers and flame stacks dot the scenery. Sulphur and worse smells drift past regularly, air raid sirens sound occasionally when the plants test the you're all gonna die alarm (or occasionally they sound for real). Keeping the outside of your house clean is a battle easier surrendered than fought. The vents around my windows have a black smudge running off them (on the inside) if I don't wipe them off once or twice a week. At night it's not uncommon to be able to read in my garden by the light of the columns of flame from ICI flare stacks, not that I'd want to be caught reading you understand, people might get the wrong idea.
You know the nice pans across the city in Bladerunner? That's what my backyard looks like at night. Ridley Scott is a local lad.
There have been, er, "travellers" camped nearby. From the smell of it they cook over burning tires.
I no longer regard the people that live nearby as human, it's easier to think of them as some sort of ape-men. They could be human if they tried but can't be arsed. Their children/babboon creatures run free in the streets, light fires not 100m from their own homes, attack people unafraid of being punished. When I say children I mean as young as 5.
Public transport is sort of safe to use, unless you drive it. Recently I saw a driver get hit in the face with spit from a kid, maybe 12yrs old, he did this on his way off the bus. Rocks and other missiles get hurled at the windows. God forbid you have to get on a bus at school letting out time.
Unlicensed vehicles, usually trail bikes or quads are driven on public footpaths. Groups of children will walk in the middle of roads slowing traffic and harrasing drivers. They'll lurk around local shops, not practising their urban fucking folkways and having break dancing/rap competitions as you might expect but getting pissed on cheap booze and menacing/attacking actual humans. Or, in a interesting recent development, getting high on heroin(or speedballs as the local radio informed me recently. Heroin+crack=JOY!).
On the grangetown estate cameras were installed to keep down local crime and anti social behaviour. They stole the cameras.
You can enjoy the nightlife, if running the risk of getting stabbed is your thing. I find it adds spice to the night.
You may have heard the expression, it's grim up north, they weren't fucking kidding. We think this state of affairs is normal.
These subhumans are not disadvantaged, your address does not dictate the schooling you will receive, the welfare state takes reasonable care of it's citizens in the UK (A 2 parent family with one child will pull in excess of £200pw in benefits), segregation of the haves and have nots is just not practical here. We have 1/5th your population in an area less than half the size of Texas.
Bring on the cameras, lay on more speed cameras too. Try children as adults and bring back the fucking birch. Blame the parents, the government and the schools. The whole rotten mess is getting worse day by day.
Excuse the incoherent rambling above, it's late and I'm depressed.