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Talking CCTV to Scold Offenders in UK
linumax writes "The most monitored nation of the world is getting an interesting new service. According to a BBC News story, "Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff."
'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'
A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and -- one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
All you'd have to do in America to make this tolerable is connect it to preventing terrorists, child molesters or promoting baby jebus.
1984 is/was taught in school so that kids would learn that things like that are bad, ie. a totalitarian system, government lies, etc. A big part of 1984 was how monitored people were, and one of the scariest moments for me was when the main character Smith had his own little secret corner of the room where none of the cameras could watch him, and he had his privacy albeit momentarily. The whole point was that this system was horrible!!!
Yet, somehow, this has morphed into a seemingly-large group of people believe that this is a GOOD thing. A doubleplus good thing. WTF went wrong??? Don't they realize they have become the EXACT thing that George Orwell was warning about??? What happened to the 60 years of knowledge that this book brought us about what life would be like living in a society like this?
No.. what you should be afraid of is when people comply with the orders issued from these cameras instead of throwing rocks at them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
For once, I'd like to see news of a protest in Britain about all those friggin cameras.
From what I can tell, of the few people from Britain that I regularly talk to, is that they really don't care.
There is sort of an epidemic -- perceived or actual, I don't know, and it hardly matters -- of obnoxious, petty crime, mostly committed by youths, in many British cities. There's the whole "happy slapping" thing, but that's just really the tip of the iceberg, it's just a lot of vandalism, shoplifting, street crime, etc. It's the kind of thing that just really gets to people, because it directly degrades the quality of life when you walk around.
In some ways, I think it sort of mirrors feelings that people in the U.S. had back around 10-15 years ago, at the height of the violent crime wave in the inner cities, except in Britain it doesn't seem to really be violent crime. (In fact it seems to be the kind of shit that would probably get you shot by one of the more serious criminals here in America -- maybe we have some sort of natural selection in the ghettos here that keeps this stuff to a minimum? Or maybe everyone with the means to in the U.S. abandoned the inner cities so long ago that we just don't notice.)
But at any rate, the people who have influence -- mostly white, middle income and up -- aren't too bothered, because they're looking rather desperately for any way to knock the "yobs," "chavs," and other varieties of scum in line. There's a sort of (and again, this is just based on the people I've talked with) "well, nothing else has worked, so what the hell" attitude.
To be honest I can't really blame them. Here in the U.S., there were a lot of Generally Bad Ideas being tossed around back in the 90s before the crime wave crested and began to recede (and I don't think even now there's a clear consensus on why that happened -- some people, the authors of Freakonomics in particular, argue that it was actually the echo of Roe v. Wade from a generation earlier reducing the number of potential criminals; feel free to posit your own theory). If the tide hadn't turned when it did, we'd probably be looking at things like this all over the place right now.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The scary thing is not having cameras in public places. The scary thing is people getting used to cameras and to a Voice From Above telling them what to do.
In 2015, someone will say: well, but what about the crimes that are committed at homes by cruel parents? What about terrorists making their bombs? Let's have homes monitored!
There will be an outrage. People will gather in the streets, screaming "Give our rights back". The cameras in those streets will tell them in a firm voice, "Stop yelling and go away". People will stop yelling and go away. So will their freedom.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
That's absolute bollocks. Magna Carta in 1215 placed major limits on the crown, and effectively established the rights of men to self-determination (well, the land-owning ones anyway). Don't forget, we had a civil war a few hundred years later that killed off the power of the crown for good.
You also forget the European constitution on human rights is now UK law; it is effectively a bill of rights. The UK might have a few priorities in law different, such as a few tighter limits on free speech such as libel and hate speech, but we have broadly the same rights as US citizens. We're certainly not all chattels (or slaves) of the Crown!
Out of interest, how has the vaunted US system protected habeas corpus? How much good is freedom of the press when all the presses are owned by a few barons in league with the government? A piece of paper is only as powerful as the will of the people to hold their government accountable to it.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
The cameras are in town/city centres, not pointing at peoples' homes. I don't know if you've been to the UK, but there's a culture where people get out of their tiny minds on alcohol and drugs and then beat the crap out of each other and innocent passers by. The cameras help to catch and prosecute the idiots engaged in this kind of behaviour. I'm not saying the implications aren't scary, but there are valid reasons for the cameras.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.