Slashdot Mirror
Spy Drones Take to the Sky in the UK
Novotny writes to tell us The Guardian is reporting that the UK's has launched a new breed of police 'spy drone'. Originally used in military applications, these drones are being put into use as a senior police officer warns the surveillance society in the UK is eroding civil liberties. In the UK, there are an estimated 4.2 million surveillance cameras already, and you are on average photographed 300 times a day going about your business. Is there any evidence to suggest that this increasingly Orwellian society is actually any safer?"
It seems any safety increase s dubious at best. I know for a fact it would not make me feel safer, it would give me that creepy feeling, the Bugs Bunny "Ever got the feeling yous was being... watched?" (minus the looney part of it) feeling.
I think there should seriously be a council or something that actually looks into whether technologies that are slated for implementation will actually have the desired effect, or if it is not true.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Read anything by Theodore Dalrymple - he's published in "City Journal", and has a number of books out (e.g., "Life at the Bottom").
His observation is that dysfunction grows to consume all the money made available to combat it. Filming people isn't going to fix anything. Holding them accountable will.
Oh and also, the last time I was in the UK, I was struck by all the kids wearing hoodies.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Yeah, law enforcement aren't looking for ways to better do their jobs...it's all about a much higher level plot - one that might not even be known by the front line or even higher ranking police officials - to "control society".
;-)
And I know the connotation in which you meant that, but that's exactly what law enforcement is, in case you hadn't noticed: the control of society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau explained in the 1762 The Social Contract Or Principles Of Political Right that "laws" are "the rules the members of a society create to balance the right of the individual to self-determination with the needs of society as a whole". Laws are "rules that mandate or prohibit certain behavior in society."
Since law enforcement is mandated to do what its name implies, is it any surprise that tools, whether they be telephones, computers, the internet, databases, night vision optical equipment, cameras, planes, helicopters, cars, trucks, weapons, office buildings, recording devices, radios, and so on are all adopted by this community?
Technology is a force multiplier for law enforcement just as it is for the general populace or an individual. No, a group of citizens is not likely to operate drone aircraft. Nor are they likely to maintain vehicle fleets or any manner of other things accepted for the execution of law enforcement.
Come on, spun.
The police have even learnt a good trick to assault you based on these cameras. I had one WPC ask me what was going on after a disturbance that I was not part of. I explained. She said 'pardon?'. So, naturally, I lean in a bit closer so she can hear. Wham ! She lays into me. On camera, it looks like I'm about to attack her by leaning in. *sigh*.
Cameras are solely in the UK to allow police to avoid doing real police work and provide a deterring presence, and to allow them to employ nefarious tactics against the criminal public. Don't ever be under the illusion that they are there for you, the taxpayer.
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
We never voted for those cameras in the UK, they were installed by default, without public agreement.
... you'd be begging for being tagged with a label of "terrorist" or "anarchist" here, favourite words of those in Parliament, and of course happily supported by the media.
... it'll be branded "terrorist action", guaranteed.
All the major UK parties have "Law and Order" as a plank of their manifestos, so it's not as if we ever had a choice of any kind that would allow even an implicit anti-surveillance vote to be made. What's more, not voting at all will always return one of these parties to power given the way that the voting system is rigged, so democracy is really just a figment of the imagination here in that respect.
And just try challanging it
I'm not sure where all this is leading, but a civil war in a few decades' time wouldn't surprise me at all. It won't be labelled as civil unrest though
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
In the 7 minute walk from home to the tube station down the road, I've counted about 20 cameras that I walk through. So thats already 40 caputures a day accounted for in just 14 minutes of my daily life.
I live in London, where there are probably more cameras than most cities, but I certainly find the number of camera alarming and unsettling - it's never clear who runs the cameras, for what purpose and where the data ends up and for how long. I've also seen some pretty bad behaviour in front of CCTV cameras; I always think that if I were attacked, the grainy CCTV pictures shown on Crime Watch or in the paper would be of little comfort.
What is law really for, who does it really protect, and who pays the cost? I'm sure you know the quote, "The law, in it's majestic fairness, forbids the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under a bridge." The law exists to serve the rich. A stable society serves the status quo. Property laws do not help those who own no property.
I'm not blaming law enforcement. It's the wealthy that are implementing these policies, law enforcement are only trying to do their job, just as you say. Their job is to protect the rights of the rich, and incidentally (and only so long as it also serves the interests of the rich), the rest of us.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Whoa, who modded me informative, I was just being sarcastic and trying to spark some debate into how the number of photographs or times a camera sees you can be accurately quantified. What does "300 photographs" mean? Walk past 300 individual running video cameras or actually get your photo snapped 300 times? Can you be accurately identified from each of these "photographs"?
It's ok though, all the moderaters have to do is mod my last comment up +5 funny, and then this one +5 informative. Yes I get oodles of karma but it's the integrity of the discussion on slashdot that matters.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
In order to back up that statement you have to prove to me that they are indeed being used to perform the jobs that they are charged with as opposed to engaging in their own forms of spying, and that they are more effective.
In the former case I would point out that the jobs of governments and police officers is to serve the citizens in their community. All too often however that has been twisted to the point where said individuals are, in fact, using their powers to pursue private agendas against the very citizens they claim to protect. Here in the U.S. for example during World War I laws were passed making it a crime to criticize the president "for our protection". During World War II the massive information compiled as part of the Census was used to hunt down American Citizens of Japanese descent and throw them into prison "for their own protection". During the Kennedy years the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover used the powers of his office to spy on politicians he disproved of and to subvert both the anti-war and civil rights movements including the well-documented blackmailing of Martin Luther King. During the 60's Nixon used the tools available to spy on his political rivals. In more recent years 'anti-terror' tools have been used to spy on anti-war groups (because how dare we oppose the Iraq war) and execute increasingly harsh surveillance of "problem communities" (aka black neighborhoods) in the War On Drugs.
In each case the claim was that they were serving their constituents. Nixon himself said that he "thought it would be bad for the country if the president lost an election". And despite claims that it "won't happen again" we can see even modern U.S. Congressmen claiming that it is a good idea:
Similar comments have been made about the recent attempts to spy on American's internet use and telephone traffic "for our own good".
Which brings me to my second point. There is, indeed little to no evidence that the modern tools (e.g. large scale databases or CCTV networks) actually help prevent crime which is, after all the goal. With repsect to "big name" items like the terror suspect lists and the internet surveillance their effectiveness is difficult to judge as they are largely secretive (too secretive) and the evidence that they obtain will never be used in a court of law. While the Justice department likes to point to high-name cases like Jose Padilla and the rest of us like to point out that Padilla is a) being charged in a carefully rigged situation, b) being charged for a small fraction of what they claimed they could prove but did not, and c) is himself surrounded by many many cases which seem likely to never reach trial because nothing at all really happened.
If you want a better arguing point we should look at the large-scale sweeps that were done in New York shortly after 9/11. While these netted a few illegal aliens (at least one of whom died under highly questionable circumstances) and pissed off a large segment of an otherwise legitimate population it failed to net anything useful. But this too might be considered "exceptional".
So let us turn to the daily street crime scenario. While some noise has been made about Chicago's heavy use of surveillance cameras and databases there is little scientific evidence that the cameras "did the trick". While Chicago's rate of cri
Its not about making their jobs easier or harder. Its about whether these devices remove people's right to privacy. Without that right, free speech doesn't exist, protection from unwarranted searches is removed, and many other rights are moot or oppressed.
Should we stop something because it makes the job of law enforcement easier? no.
Should we stop something because it removes the basic rights of law abiding citizens? Yes.
Should we stop something because it makes harassment easier? Yes.
Telephones, computers (in general), vehicles, helecopters, and remote controlled robots (depending on their application) don't infringe on people's rights. Cameras on every corner with the ability and threat of watching you even in your home do. No matter what the laws are in this, the threat of being watched in your home is always there and will always be in the backs of people's minds, influencing their actions. In this case with the drones, I will give you, its a little more gray, both in the benefits gained and the threats to privacy.
Clones are people two.
Who claimed that these technologies have made the police better at their jobs?
The police and the press.
And who claimed that "the public" tells the police what to do?
The police and the press.
Although you're photographed 300 times a day, the cameras will help catch a lone serial killer once every few years and that's all you'll ever hear about them.
According to BBC Radio 4 these things are helicopter type devices with 7 cameras on board, their key benefit is the fact that they are rapidly deployable. However they have a range of... 500 meters, oh and they are categorised as "toys". (they are apparently lighter than a bag of sugar too, although the size of the bag in question was not mentioned)
So its not a Predator type UAV sitting for hours 500 miles from the launch site, with a tangle of sensors and weapons attached, more of an instant CCTV camera, maybe useful for crowd control or events... (or just for propaganda value).
Saying that I a not terribly comfortable with the direction this is taking, I close to a city centre (with a really low crime rate - except with regard to burglaries...), and it bothers me that in 5-10 years there may be stealthy drones airborne over my house or garden without my knowledge, taking pictures.
I wish we could get back to having a few more Police officers knocking about, on foot, talking to people.
Exactly. The "death of privacy" scenario has far less to do with your government that it has to do with your fellow citizens. Individuals have just as much ability to leverage cheap technology as governments do. I know the day is coming when I will be recorded almost constantly in public, but it won't be by government cameras alone. It'll be by the cameras installed outside every home and business, and carried by every person I pass on the street.
I've been waiting for some manufacturer to offer an inexpensive CMOS image sensor and microphone unit that plugs into an iPod and records compressed digital video. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. You clip the unit to the front of your shirt, plug it into your iPod, and you're good to go for hours. In a few more years iPods will have the capacity to record days of continuous video as long as the battery holds out. I worry far less what the government will do with the images made of me; the goverment can at least be changed or influenced by votes, legislation, and protests. I have no influence whatsoever over the hundreds of individuals who'll also be keeping me under surveillance.
BRITS: "1984" was supposed to be a warning, not a gorram instruction manual!
When London got bombed you guys had wonderful surveillance footage of the bombers.
To watch after it had all happened. On the BBC.
One poster who said they were from London said that they counted twenty cameras during a seven minute walk. The area seemed to be one with high surveilance.
Do it twice a day and you have forty camera photo ops. If you go home for lunch, that ups it to eighty.
Now add shopping, socializing and other activities and you might hit two or three times that, especially if you are doing them in high surveilance areas.
Then add in the factor that many people may spend longer periods out in public, increasing the odds of encountering a photo op. Using the same figures, a twenty minute walk might mean encountering sixty cameras each way.
Of course, this is all conjecture. It would be interesting if the group that came up with the 300 photo count provided the data and statistics they used to derive the number. Then we could argue methods.
Going slightly tangental -
The thing about surveilance cameras is that it's impossible to surveil them all.
Think about it - you could have ubiquitous surveilance, but you're never going to be able to monitor each camera. The more you add, the larger the problem gets.
The data arguably only becomes relevant and useful when a crime has been reported / caught / noticed - digging the data stream becomes useful.
Until such a time when each and every camera can read your mind, or you KNOW it's being watched, odds are with you that what you do will be unnoticed, nefarious or otherwise.
"...In public, you have no right to privacy..."
Largely true, but remember that this was established in an age when in order to be observed or be subject to surveillance, an actual person had to be located in your sight and pretty close to you.
This of course meant that you, in turn, could observe them right back and if you felt like it, go up to them and ask them what their fucking problem was.
With the onset of the ubiquitous camera, you may or may not be under observation, but probably best to act as though you are, all the time, too. With the cameras, the balance of power has shifted completely - you may be watched by no-one or you may be being watched by dozens, and being recorded to boot - you simply don't know.
Political language
For the cameras to exert social control, the perception of surveillance is what counts. This is good to the extent that it deters criminals from commiting crimes. The main criticism of these cameras, however, is that they change the behavior of everybody. People behave differently when they believe they believe they are being watched. They act in accordance with how they believe their behavior will be perceived. This perception therefore acts as a powerful form of control, one which is internalized by those under surveillance. See Foucault's characterization of the Panopticon.
Surely you have known people who "put on a face" in public. Perhaps they conceal their intelligence or hide their beliefs or suppress their individuality. If our response to surveillance is to suppress the unique or unusual dimensions of our character, it also gives us permission to exhibit other behaviors. This happens all the time with bullies - witness the recent British phenomenon of happy slapping; it seems perhaps relevant that this is happening in a heavily-surveilled society. Similarly, crimes like those of the Nazis or of Rwanda could probably not have happened without surveillance.
Surveillance can eliminate difference and diversity, while also suppressing morality. All that matters is the perception - there need not be anyone recording or watching the cameras. That is the great danger, and those who make the argument are hardly "idiots".
Bob Shaw had an interesting take on the surveillance society back in 1972.
Basically, a scientist creates 'slow glass' - glass through which light passes much more slowly than regular glass. Many of the inter-connected short stories are about specific applications - a detective waits for the image to come through on a piece of 5-year glass to prove that the man who'd been executed for murder was the right one; a murderer uses a piece of slow glass in his car windscreen to make it appear another man is driving his truck.
The end of the book is the scientist who created slow glass (Retardite TM) realising that the governments of the world are using it for espionage and worse, dusting the entire world with microscopic crystals that will capture images of everything, everywhere.
"From now on, came the silent scream inside his head, anybody, any agency, with the right equipment can find out anything about ANYBODY! This planet is one huge unblinking eye watching everything that moves on its surface. We're all encased in glass, asphyxiating, like bugs dropped into a entomologist's killing bottle."
But less than a page from this realisation comes a short epilogue which contains this sentence:
"In later decades, men were to come to accept the universal presence of Retardite eyes, and they learned to live without subterfuge or shame as they had done in a distant past when it was known that the eyes of God could see everywhere."
Maybe universal surveillance is a good thing, as long as it's genuinely universal. Maybe if the politicians and lawmen knew they were being watched 24/7 along with everyone else, they'd have to behave properly as well.
The cameras are certainly not detterents to crimes; they are IMMENSELY useful investigatively.
With sufficient cameras, what's to stop the police from tracing a criminal in a crime scene backwards through camera footage and discover his arms dealer and associates?