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CCTVs Don't Work in the UK
ShakaUVM writes "People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither, the saying goes. But what happens when people give up so much liberty their entire country resembles an Orweillean dystopia — but the pervasive monitoring doesn't help to solve any crimes? That's what is happening in the United Kingdom today. While the Guardian tries to put a good spin on the entire fiasco, the fact remains that CCTVs only help with 3% of all street robberies, the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting.
Should England finally move to eliminate its troubling state surveillance program?"
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Orwellian dystopia? I spend a few months over there earlier this year and must have missed that bit...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
That all those cameras you see are mostly funny. They can't actually do anything when they see it and anybody committing a crime knows that and also knows that a camera is easily fooled.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes.
I mean, is there really any doubt in anyone's mind? Continually infringing upon the privacy of the innocent does nothing to prevent the crimes of the guilty.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
The purpose it so be able to track political opposition. "Terrorism" and then crime were excuses.
CCTV was deployed to prevent street crime ?
I'd rather thought about thoughtcrime.
Better than only using cameras.
It seems most people think there is this huge government-funded network of cameras watching every move of every person in the UK - this just isn't the case. The vast majority (~80%) of this camera network are the ones in shops, on transport (buses, trains), on ATM's, etc. etc. In other words, they're privately owned and run for the benefit of the business owner, not for the police.
Of the remainder, the vast majority of them are traffic-cameras at junctions, in speed-cameras (yes, these count, for some reason), etc. What's left are the police-owned ones which watch people in high-crime areas or (usually in partnership with the businesses) high-people-traffic areas (eg: Regent St., Oxford St. in London).
I lived in London for ~15 years before moving to CA. I don't feel any less "observed" here than I did in London. I'm on-camera in CA if I get money from an ATM; if I drive across a junction (try looking up once in a while); if I get on the BART; if I get on Caltrain; if I go to a bank;
I really wish people would stop pandering to the tabloid press trying to sell copy. Sure, there are cameras. Everywhere(*). Deal.
Simon
(*)Well, every country I've been to, anyway.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Sure, they work on homes or parking lots where the crook can just walk down the block to a non-camera lot but it's not like the crooks in the UK are going to boat over to the next island that doesn't have mass CCTV, is it?
My work here is dung.
Obviously if the CCTV cameras we have today only help prevent 3% of crimes, then we need about 33x more cameras!
All hail our great overseers!
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
In fact, the thought that they could help if I were to be in a tight-spot is actually reassuring. People think twice about doing stupid things if they know there's an eye in the sky watching them.
I have however had one objection; I caught one blatantly checking me and one ex-girlfriend "making out" (let's say) in a park once. The dirty bastard on the end even nodded the camera at me in recognition I'd caught him watching it all.
throw new NoSignatureException();
...just use more. Sort of like code, explosives, alcohol, etc. I doubt they'll dismantle something they spent so much money building, though I think it's a step in the right direction. And coming from someone who works in the intelligence community, I think that's saying a lot.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Funnily enough, they have different names because they mean different things. I think the mention of "England" at the end of the article should have matched the title.
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Don't compare the opression Benjamin Franklin and our other founding fathers lived through with a few cameras in public areas. These monitor the same things that any police officer can without a warrant.
Surveillance isn't really an impediment on freedom though, it's just a way to help you get caught when you break the law (mug people and that kinda stuff). Closed borders impedes freedom, but not people recording public areas.
Ummm lets do that 1984 Checklist
1) Government declares an unwinable war against a changing opponent and people listen - Nope, most brits were against Iraq and almost everyone (even some in government) think it was the wrong target in retrospect.
2) Government demonstrates effective control over people - nope they can't even hold onto CDs
3) Government enforces complete control of society and the media - Nope, they get slated everywhere
4) Abandonment of the rule of law when they choose - nope they can't even get the detention extension they want
Ahh but there are CCTV cameras which catch bugger all information. Maybe the CCTV cameras should go but lets be clear this isn't about liberty and security its purely a cost control mechanism, its a free market decision in otherwords.
Go and read 1984 before talking about dystopia and ask yourself where you can find a country that actively spys on its citizens and where senior people state they are above the rule of law.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I mean, really, say it aint so!! A company sold you something with the promise it could do everything now and it didn't? I'm shocked.
Like so many overly ambitious projects involving technology, it sounds like they've gotten mired in having too many agencies, technology which doesn't work, and front-line people who find the system cumbersome. The fact that police offices find it "too much trouble" to use the system and find images is quite telling.
Sad to hear they've spent so much money and aren't getting return out of it. Somewhat amused to know that the surveillance society isn't working for them.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are the cameras in Scotland, Wales, or the other parts of the United Kingdom any better at helping to solve street crime?
Sorry for being pedantic, it seems to me that the cameras work, they just don't help solve much crime.
Couldn't resist.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The idea behind CCTVs is deterrence, right? We disincentivize street crime by raising the chances that the criminal will get caught. Except, when has getting caught bothered a criminal? The CCTV system assumes a set of motivations that the average well-off, law-abiding citizen has. But most robbers are not robbing for sport; either they're dirt-poor, or they're addicts. Getting out of heroin withdrawal is such a strong desire that the threat of jail becomes abstract in comparison. So what if the cameras see me?
The point put forward in TFA is that the risk of being on camera is a preventive measure. The 3% figure is a meaningless figure when it comes to measuring the preventive effect in my opinion. When measuring efficiency, one would like to know the relative frequency of street robberies before and after a CCTV introduction.
I'm skeptical that the system brings benefits to outweigh the cost, but we should at least argue honestly about the system's alleged efficiency.
If the cameras don't work, then how much harm could they have possibly done to liberty? The police state Chicken Littles aren't rational and can be ignored.
What articles like this make me think, is "how can I make these cameras work to fight crime better?"
Being in London feels like being in a high security prison. Cameras pointing at you all the time.
But this is not the first time your government does what _it_ likes for _your_ best. Right?
The constant pounding from panels telling you you will be persecuted if you do this or that only makes it worse.
Three people approached me to propose drugs within 5mn so the system is obviously not working. (If they were not cops that is)
The strange thing is that all this surveillance just make me feel that I'm in a very insecure environment not the opposite!
That depends on your definition of freedom.
Americans are really big on the right to privacy, so being recorded as soon as you step outside your house is a huge loss of freedom for us.
Europeans are more used to government control, with mandatory registration of your residence and mandatory IDs.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Orwell's dystopia was hardest on office workers. Of course everyone suffered grinding poverty, ignorance, cruelty and lack of freedom but only the more educated members of the state knew better. Anyone from the working class that did notice would be drafted into the continuous and intentionally wasteful war of the day. Office workers lived under a constant purge. The nastiest part about a real dystopia is that people believe with all of their might, effort and 2 minutes hate that nothing could be better. "Ordinary" life goes on for the vast majority.
Things are not that bad yet but the apparatus is incomplete. Journalist and bloggers are harassed for their opinions today. With just a little less freedom, as in Russia, they will be murdered. The US NeoCons are building red light cameras in the US and praying for another false flag operation like 9/11. They already have ChoicePoint and other databases to track opposition but they don't quite have public support for it or more. Free flowing information on the internet has prevented that, so look for broadcast media to become more insane and more to be done to kill the internet.
Please show where this system has been used to oppress the populace.
Please show where this system has been used to violate the rights and liberty of the populace?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
When the government consists of other people who make the decisions -- even if they are elected -- there is tremendous cause for concern, because those people may not act in your interests.
If the government is actually a government of, by, and for the people, then there is no need to fear.
Everyone knows that the cameras are not in place to catch crime while it is happening (though that made for a good cover story). The fact is that they are looking for a specific blue police box, a man named "The Doctor", and his traveling companion(s).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I can't find the article, but, I remember reading/hearing about "Protest Vandalism" of speed camera in France. Destroying and/or disabling speed cameras as a form of protest against them.
I wonder if the poor rate is due to English "Protest Vandals" doing the same.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
If it weren't for the cameras, the pigs would've denied everything.
The debate, once again, should not be around a particular method of law-enforcement, but whether 100% effective law-enforcement is desirable...
It means, you can not exceed speed-limit by 1 mile/h, nor drop a candy-wrap on the street, nor ask for money on subway. You will also not be beaten by a cop, nor will they be able to treat fire-hydrants as special parking spots reserved for "the force". Etcaetera...
Do we want the laws obeyed and enforced 100%, or do we want to live some "wriggle-room" for the dystopian future, when it will be needed to fight some kind of oppression?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If they don't work to stop street crimes, do they also not work to spy on regular people? Not that having a camera on you is not creepy enough, but at least know that they're probably not doing a good job in spying on you and controlling your mind either!
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
No, Americans' big problem with being recorded has nothing to do with liberty and freedom. It has everything to do with being a record of their stupidity, bad behavior, and criminality. And, even then, most people only care about it if it impacts them negatively.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You could gut the cameras and leave the housings in place. Remove the lens glass and viola!--you have nice little bird houses everywhere in the city. Someone get the environmental lobby on this angle, stat!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
The introduction on CCTV (as well as new stadium improvements and regulations recommended in the Taylor Report) are credited with ending mainstream hooliganism in England. CCTV was used to find those responsible for acts of unruly and destructive behaviour associated with football matches and punish them. For me this is enough reason to support CCTV.
... after all it is in public.
But then again I don't really have a problem with being filmed while in public
At Heathrow, my laptop needed re-charging. So, I found a power socket, and sat down and started inserting my power converter/adapter into it. The thing looks like an ordinary wall-mounted brick adapter.
Within 5 minutes, I was surrounded by three guys in uniform asking me what I was doing.
I said I am just trying to charge my laptop.
They looked at the adapter, then at the laptop, then at my face. They just stood there looking confused not saying anything. I picked up my stuff, said thanks and just walked away. They didnt follow me or anything.
Weird.
Having surveillance is fine but having smarter people who know how to analyze what they see is even more important.
Now pardon me, but sitting in chair, watching TV - and it's too hard?
That could go along way towards explaining why the crime clear-up rate is so low that most people don't even bother reporting crimes, since they know no-one will turn up.
Of course, not having people reporting crimes helps the govt. statistics: "look the crime rate is going down", so in that way it's all having the desired effect.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Political opposition can be tracked easily - cctv is a success and that's why cities in the US are installing traffic cameras as fast as the feds can pay for it.
I don't care for CCTV. But I care for ignorant, arrogant, loudmouthed foreigners who run my country down without knowing a thing about it even less.
Resistance is futile. You will be enslaved. Any resistence will be noted (anonymous? how sure are you?) and met with corrective action. You have already lost. The remaining veneer of freedom will be allowed to exist for as long as it is expedient.
Yours Truly.
Your Faceless Masters
People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither, the saying goes.
Yes, and it's a silly saying that is very over-used. The simple fact is that we make this trade every day of our lives. We don't have the liberty of attacking whoever we please, we've outlawed it. In return, we get a bit of security from others who would attack us. Does that mean we don't deserve either? Of course not.
But what happens when people give up so much liberty their entire country resembles an Orweillean dystopia -- but the pervasive monitoring doesn't help to solve any crimes? That's what is happening in the United Kingdom today.
Wrong on both counts. Firstly, the point about the surveillance in Nineteen Eighty-Four was the eradication of privacy. The UK doesn't even remotely resemble that. Want privacy? Go home. Unlike Nineteen Eighty-Four, you aren't legally obliged to have any telescreens monitoring you in there. You have no right to privacy in a public place. And look - you can converse to your heart's content in private places about all kinds of subversive things without the government listening in.
While the Guardian tries to put a good spin on the entire fiasco, the fact remains that CCTVs only help with 3% of all street robberies, the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting.
And that lays your other claim to rest - it does actually help to solve some crimes. There's a debate to be had about cost-effectiveness, but it's certainly not the blanket failure you claimed.
Should England finally move to eliminate its troubling state surveillance program?"
England != UK. Confusing England with the UK is like confusing California with the USA. It's a basic mistake that shows complete unfamiliarity with the country.
With the prevailance of drunken violence in most UK city centres in the late evening, CCTV cameras are at least a reassuring thing to wave at when a drunken yob starts an unprovoked attack. It's rare that a passer by would intervene. As to other uses, I'm undecided.
But it's not mandatory that you get a driver's license, or voters registration. If you want to live on a farm with no contact to the outer world, you're free to do so. I don't even think you are legally required to have to have a SSN. Not so in most European countries, it's a misdemeanor to not be registered.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Why oh why?
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
surveillance never has proved to work. criminals typically find where they are getting monitored and exploit blind spots. crime doesn't change, it just moves and adapts. all in all, it costs money to monitor and maintain the system. if the presence is known, then money is getting thrown out the window. some countries tag the cost to prosecution just so they can tag on a penalty to justify their efforts. while it is absurd to the lengths people go, in a civil matter there should be reasonable limits governed by common sense. this is the real world though so all of that is usually thrown out the window when there is no public attention.
Okay, so the CC monitoring hasn't slashed violent/street crime, and it hasn't been a panacea for law enforcement/prosecution of crimes - but it has provided tons (tonnes?) of footage for "Wildest Police Video XXIV" and "FHV" . . .
Many average people "feel" safer, and that's an effect I'm sure that the government wants - the feeling of security. (Intellectuals and generally-educated people know that this is a farce, but Joe Six Pack doesn't know any better - he just feels better. "The cameras MUST work - they're still up.")
The same effect is felt with photo radar here in Arizona. A recent survey said that 7 out of 10 people "feel" safer with photo radar on the roads (I'm in the 30% minority), even though they don't really make drivers safer.
They are not there to solve crime. They are there to make people feel like they have no freedom. After a while it sinks in.
while getting various talking heads from the bodies that do the research say the main reason for the lack of crime solving with CCTV is simply because there are so many hours of content that the police find it hard to (be bothered to) scan it all, so a lot of it is unseen.
Also it isn't the police that decide where the cameras are put up, but the local councils. It is their money that is spent to put these things up.
Of course the police advise, but apparently so the reports go, there are more applications of Cameras that are rejected than approved by councils.
It seems that Mr and Mrs smith really do want their cameras up and about to make them feel safe.
you can listen to an interview here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today2_cctv_20080506.ram
(audio clip)
In first world countries, government is always the biggest impediment to freedom. Anything that makes a powerful government more powerful is an impediment to freedom.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
"Orwellian dystopia", is it?
There's a high concentration of cameras in areas where crime is most frequently committed, and businesses usually have them scattered around buildings - or land - that they own, but I'm not being video-taped from the moment I leave my house, and to suggest otherwise would prove that you've never visited the UK.
Do even the submitters read the articles here? Halfway down the article it says that in regions where they do things like actually watch the videos and look for the people they see committing crimes they are used to solve 15-20% of street crime. While public surveillance may or may not be morally acceptable, lying about its effectiveness doesn't do anyone any good.
I wonder how many street crimes don't occur at all because the cameras are present? Also, where precisely is the "liberty" to not be observed by a police officer in a public place defined? Until these questioned are answered, we can't proceed in our analysis.
"how can I make these cameras work to fight crime better?"
Try clubbing them with the cameras? Sell the cameras and use the money to do something useful?
Crime is a symptom, not a disease. Treating everyone like criminals - whether via surveillance or fencing in your neighbourhood - is a losing strategy because it discounts what you mean to preserve.
"the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting" Shouldn't they be preventing crimes?
Code like the wind, Bullseye!
in the cellphones and hands of every day citizens
(smacks forehead)
not very orwellian, this cameraphone in every hand on the street, is it? so how does that fact jive with orwell's vision of the future?
it doesn't!
BECAUSE IT WAS JUST A FAIRY TALE, NOT DEAD ACCURATE FORTUNE TELLING
so will some of you PLEASE lose your deathgrip on the dead, innaccurate foretelling of 1984 already?
people have the stereotypical orwellian view of big brother so firmly entrenched in their head, they completely miss out on the fact that what orwell wrote was a useful bit of science fiction, not prescient reality. and that reality, while hewing to some of the larger themes of what orwell wrote, is in fact fundamentally different and falls into a completely different reality:
little brother
that is, cameras everywhere, everywhere in the hands of people on the street, witnesses, not agents of an autocratic government. technology is something that is never the complete monopoly and dominance of the government. so i have two words for you:
rodney king
please, people, 1984 is a dead parable about our future. please stop using orwell and 1984 in how you form a vision of our future or our present. it simply isn't valid, isn't accurate, and isn't valuable in forming a useful understanding of your government and your reality. reality is a lot more complex, and fundamentally different than orwell's old fiction
i suppose we're going to split up into morlock and eloi too? to suppose so is the same kind of idiocy to extrapolate such presumed accuracy from a fairy tail like 1984. orwell wrote a nice story folks, not the damn magna carta. please understand that
1984=dead fiction. not the prescient future
really
get over big brother, i'm so sick of that dead, inaccurate vision
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In my part of the UK, the spy cameras were installed under the pretext of protecting the people, only the idiots bought that excuse, and they've been proved to be mostly useless for that proported use.
April 2008, the law in the UK was changed by the government which now allows any official spy camera to be used for "traffic enforcement" (more easy money).
Lo and behold one week into this new scheme, in my local area a woman was attacked and sexually assaulted at a bus stop while waiting for a bus. What happened we'll never 100% know, because the camera operator was more interested in catching motorists going in a wrong lane, then to record video of tha assault and catch the guy that did the assault (what the camera was installed for in the first place).
The whole camera installation nationwide is for state surveillance of you, and it feels really uncomfortable knowing you are being filmed walking or driving around, whilst criminals remain untouchable and don't give a damn about the cameras.
Resist the cameras in your country, or suffer the surveillance fate of the UK.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
karma whore for the win. do we expect any of your other ten accounts to drop by and agree with you soon?
I have to say that I have 100%, total, unabashed faith that my government is not creating an "Orwellian dystopia".
... they're far too incompetent for that.
I accept I know nothing. Insulting my ignorance is wasted on me.
Red light camera have nothing to do with "neocons," whatever they are supposed to be. Take at look at this map and try to tell me that the majority of those cities are neocon bastions. I live near Philadelphia and I can guarantee that Mayor "the NRA should apologize for a murderer illegally using an illegally obtained weapon to kill a cop" Nutter is not a neocon.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither, the saying goes."
No, the quote is, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." It's something Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with saying.
Many of the words and phrases used in the article show that for all the effort and money put into this system, essentially it's almost totally useless. The key words show either failure or an astounding amount of untapped potential (which will no doubt require another infusion of an astounding amount of cash.).
"...failed to slash crime..."
"...billions of pounds spent..."
"Only 3% of street robberies solved..."
"utter fiasco"
"investigating whether it can use software..."
"...not as wonderful as they said it would be..."
"CCTV can play an important role..."
"If handled properly, it can be..."
They seem to be paying people to sit and look at monitors but are unable to do anything with it - except with the smallest fraction of information gathered. Actually, I suppose the US has it's equivalent - the TSA...
Here's a poser... If this system is supposed to be used to prevent crime, why in the world are the people in the picture wasting their time watching the Queen and the President? Maybe they're worried he'll snatch her handbag.
Yet another question. Why are there so many duplicate screens? Double coverage? Different spectrum?
No wonder they can't catch anyone...
Firstly, England != the UK. The United Kingdom is made of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England and Wales (the last two are separate countries, but they use the same laws).
Secondly, while I do think that the way CCTV has been deployed in the UK is nothing short of a sham, I believe they do actually work. The summary is misleading in that it conveniently omits any mention of the fact that CCTV footage is often useful for dealing with muggings, assaults, violent crime, and with numerous other crimes. The 3% figure is somewhat unrepresentative.
The fact also remains that if you're not doing anything illegal, you shouldn't have anything to worry about with reference to CCTV.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Americans are really big on the right to privacy, so being recorded as soon as you step outside your house is a huge loss of freedom for us.
Whereas in Europe, we're really big on personal safety, so having armed police pointing guns at you as soon as you step outside your house (like the Americans are forced to live with) would be a huge loss of freedom for *us*. It must be pretty horrible living in a country where the police can just grab you and execute you in the street like that.
You should know that "Mactrope" (who replied to you) is the same person as "gnutoo". They're both sockpuppet accounts of twitter. He uses multiple accounts to give the impression that people agree with him and game the moderation system.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Privacy is not freedom... Freedom as from Dictionary.com: exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc. Privacy as from Dictionary.com: the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs Talk about intrusion of privacy all you want, but cameras don't make you any less 'free' to say and do what you want. I will agree that CCTVs will reduce your freedom to mug people, but that's not usually a freedom that average people feel the need to protect as it's in direct opposition to your freedom to be safe from muggers (exemption from external control of the muggers).
I also meant to point out that it could be pretty addictive for some of our fellow citizens.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I dunno, increasing the percentage of solved violent crimes by 3% might well be considered "working" by many, in particular if they don't perceive any downsides.
1. we get an army of CCTV operators more than willing to ensure that any misdemeanour does not go unnoticed.
2. we keep the OAPs off the streets, and put them in a safe, warm environment
3. the investment in CCTVs pays off as every camera gets a dedicated viewer.
4. respect for pensioners increases as every young buck would know that to insult an OAP would have them on the lookout for him.
Obviously this would be good for society and keep the pensioners happy as they love nothing better than sitting around watching what's going on.
But will it?
And when it doesn't abandon this exercise in demonstrably worthless tyranny, what crimes will we have seen the government has committed in public?
--
make install -not war
When we record ourselves, we're exercising our freedom of "speech" (in a fashion) and choosing to share it with others. A few people have camera rigs that record their entire day, but I don't know of any who share the entire day. You get to select what is shared, and if you happen to show up in the background of somebody else's recording, that's just something you live with because nobody will care. It's a little different when centralized organizations are recording everything everywhere throughout an entire city; would you like somebody being able to tell you "We went back and looked, and it appears that you left home at 8:12 a.m. on January 17 2007, walked to the bakery, bought a bagel with cream cheese, and then went to Ms. Smith's house for the next 4 hours--does your wife know, by the way?--before returning home, stopping by Gamestop on the way to pick up a copy of Quake 4"?
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
IP based video surveillance hardware and software I think I can say with some expertise that the only CCTV systems that work are the ones where local participants are involved and invested in their success. Companies with dedicate employees, neighborhood watches, personal property when monitored by those with something personal at stake work best. Street crime doesn't effect those on the other end of the cameras and they are to far removed from the action. If on the other hand the CCTV where handed over to a neighborhood watch group it would undoubtedly be more effect and more dangerous to civil liberties!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Of course, the true effectiveness (if any) has to be measured by a metric that simply can't be quantified: How many street robberies didn't happen at all because of the CCTVs? Oh sure, you could try to compare numbers of street robberies before CCTVs and after, and infer that CCTVs either contributed to the difference, or made no difference, but of course, one would also have to assume that CCTVs were the ONLY difference. If that were true, then you wouldn't see any difference in crime rates for the same period in areas where CCTVs were never installed -- something I think would be very unlikely.
You'd think easy access to drugs and prostitutes would be a selling point.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...instead of a black box running Windows CE. As it is, the most effective use of the modern "ballot box" may be to simply drop it from a great height on the head of the politician you wish to defeat.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
This "story" is another perfect example of a troll/flame post. You'd think that this non-story would have been rejected based solely on tone.
so you are saying its a kindwouldacoulda scenario, but still, we should all be filled with deathly fear about it, and use that irrational fear to inform our ability to percieve our modern world
no
how about this: how about we enjoy 1984 as a dystopian vision, and then utterly discard it when we talk about REALITY
how's that sound to you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Should England finally move to eliminate its troubling state surveillance program?
Unfortunately the kind of people that would install cameras to spy on their neighbors are also the kind of people who tend to be so paranoid that they will not let this be removed without a fight (possibly even turning violent).
Who cares about security? I thought it was installed to mass-produce cheap amateur pr0n flicks!
If you say that the effectiveness is only 3%, they will use this to argue that the program needs to be expanded by a factor of 33.3, with a bar over it.
The Colonists rebelled because they were being taxed at a two percent rate.
When Madison needed to raise taxes to fund the War of 1812, he asked Jefferson by how much. Jefferson said, "I wouldn't go over one percent, otherwise the people would rebel."
BTW, this is why when Brokaw called the WW2 generation "The Greatest Generation", he is spouting nonsense.
Well, when the house kitty-corner to the one you just bought gets blown to pieces by bikers with explosives the day after you move in, and women flirt with you on the street to find out how much money you've got so their boyfriends who are standing a block away can mug you for it... it's not so much fun then...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Yes, those people you capture on your cameraphone are choosing to share their actions with others when you put it on YouTube.
Your argument fails because you assume that people are only putting up video of themselves doing things. You forget about the people who film others and about those who film themselves doing things to others and put the video on the internet without those others' consent.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
that's NO news to anyone with 2 working brain cells. The whole thing is a total scam. The real question here is: Do ANY of is have any real power left to get ANy of our governments that are so drunk on power to stop all this spying and instead concentrate on the REAL problems?
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
Bah, Slashdot is so late with everything these days...
http://www.nostate.com/12/britains-cctv-paranoia-boondoggle/
The saying actually goes...
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/quotable/quote04.htm
can I get a copy of the footage?
Ah, no. THAT'S private!
So people are out there recording us each and every day. Pictures of little girls. Maybe when they fall over or kiss the little boys, that copy gets archived for later perusal.
And we'd never know.
Parent is one of the best posts I've seen in a long time (complete with links) outling how much closer to 1984 we're getting and how few people are noticing. More chilling, it also outlines how much less relevant it is that we are noticing--little can be done about the concentrations of power we're seeing. Million person marches on Washington used to have an effect. Now the march sizes are dwindling and those in power simply leave town for the day. They no longer care what we know and object to. They don't need to. They have the media and they can feed any disinformation they want into it, thereby fooling most of the people most of the time. (e.g. "Obama is an elitist who hates America", etc.)
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
From the linked article:
"In districts where the Viido scheme is working, CCTV is now helping police in 15-20% of street robberies."
15-20% is much more than 3%.
I'm more interested in how many crimes are prevented by the presence of CCTV. This is much harder to monitor, but deterrence is better than the post-crime investigation that the summary seems to be focussed on. I remember standing in many's a chip shop late at night and seeing potential fights diffused because the drunken potential fighters knew they were on camera. Also, I don't know why so many people on this thread have gone off into the weeds talking about 1984. Last time I checked, there was no Ministry of Truth in the UK, the media (particularly the BBC) give the government a grilling on a daily basis that would horrify the average American politician, and there is NOT a camera in everyone's bedroom.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Because in America, using a video recording device on a police officer will get you hauled into jail and the police will find something on you (even if it's resisting arrest).
Here in the UK, that only happens in airport security and you can also have your equipment impounded or maybe wiped and returned if you're an MP.
As I understand it the problem with the cameras is not that the crimes are not getting recorded, but it takes so long to trawl through the footage to get at the evidence.
I suspect the solution will be to employ low payed civvies or dodgy face recognition to trawl the footage for evidence ... which will end well :-(
How about "no, because it's not troubling and most of it isn't state surveillance"?
Even if the government/local councils do run some of the cameras then what the hell liberties do we lose through them monitoring the town/city centres? None.
Can they track where I go? Yes, but they need to rotate the cameras, which means they lose track of other people, and they need to follow a person between screens, which means it needs far better monitoring than we're likely to have through computerised methods, so it isn't remotely efficient to do for anyone except criminals.
Can they tell who I am? Only if they've got the photo in front of them, which is going to be because I'm a wanted criminal who they're actively tracking.
CCTV in city centres is for the tracking of criminals and criminal behaviour after it happens so that the police can follow where the person went and apprehend him. The whole "Orwellian state" is nothing but paranoid drivel.
As a Brit who has also lived in Northern Ireland, give me all of the CCTV cameras in Manchester, London, Birmingham and our other big cities as a way of tracking crime over allowing any idiot to carry a deadly weapon that he's generally probably not capable of using correctly.
Well CCTV has certainly worked here: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Couple-spotted-having-sex-in.4056453.jp
Other issues, did the rate go down? According to TFA, no.
So more crimes despite there being CCTV and 3% were spotted by camera and the footage used to convict.
a) did the conviction need the footage?
b) if it had been a beat copper, would the crime have taken place?
c) if it had been a beat copper, would the increased force cause 3% more convictions?
This paraphrasing garbage is for the birds.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
A better statement on the subject I've never found, and one that is just as apt today (if not more so) than it was during Franklin's day.
As for what they experienced, Franklin and the founding fathers didn't go through anything on the level of the invasiveness of modern society. At most they were confronted with fixed forms of blatant intrusion, such as the boarding of troops without agreement. If they'd foreseen what we have in place now (constant exposure and monitoring of all forms of individual action, unwarranted monitoring and search and siezure under the guise of public safety) they would have been DISMAYED to say the least.
Basically Franklin was speaking as broadly as he could to the idea that, at a base level, a lack of security is the price one accepts for the pleasures and benefits of an open and democratic society. He believed that the benefits of such a system (free discourse and exchange of ideas, freedom to pursue one's life unimpeded and unadulterated) were actually THE core things that needed to be protected in our society.
This was in contrast to the oppressive landed gentry systems leveraged by various monarchies at the time.
Anyway, cameras now, paramilitary gestapo tomorrow. If you want to prevent people you know just disappearing off the street you'd best read some history.
-rt
Cameras don't prevent crime, they help capture criminals.
Because once the state grabs power and deprives the citizenry (subjects, in this case)of some right it will never let go. Like another failed theory, gun control, "it doesn't work, we need more". Z_B
The question is: will these paranoid people realise that their violence will be recorded? :-)
Insert
Is there no form of tax associated with the farm? Or are you suggesting someone else lets you live on their property for free? I don't how you are going to pay rent or property taxes without income and income earned by a US citizen is taxed by the federal government hence the need for a SSN and you have to file a tax return where you have enter your address. So to be free of telling them your address you must make no money and own no property. Because this seems, like a highly unlikely set of circumstances. Is there something I am missing?
Naturally this isn't something practical :).
But, in our hypothetical case, if the farm belongs to your dad, and you're not paid, you can legally fly under the radar.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
They tracket the perps in several locations with their deadly backpacks.
The second sentence entirely disagrees with itself. Nobody has given up any liberty and nobody cares about the camera because everybody is well aware that they don't work. When they were first introduced it was almost instantly reported that crime just moved elsewhere. The only thing the cameras are good for is monitoring for "weirdness" before a person is involved. Anyone who thinks Britain resembles an "Orweillian dystopia" has not read the former and does not understand the latter. As for "state surveillance", don't make me laugh: different organisations, private and public, have their own cameras - as the police complain in the article, getting access to the cameras is part of their problem.
Well done on using "United Kingdom", pity you spoiled it by using "England" later.
drug-dealers and prostitutes != biker-vandals and muggers
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
But from a general 'usefulness' point of view, I beg to differ with their findings. I work for a force that shall remain nameless, and while the spontaneous discovery rate is relatively low (I'd agree with the 3% figure here), the evidence it does capture when responding to an incident is extremely useful when a case comes to court - or indeed before court, to see what actually happens prior to us arriving. CCTV was designed to deter and detect; While the public deterrence factor is no longer there it still fulfills its detection role when used properly.
As a member of the public I really object to CCTV, but when sitting on the other side of the fence it's a very valuable tool indeed.
We didn't vote for it, it's a stealth operation. If you think you've got a good way of combating a 145 camera on every lamp post, we'd be glad to hear it !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No, but there's also a non-zero correlation.
The statistics in The Fine Article are useless. What we would want to know is 1) what percentage of *otherwise unsolved* street crimes are solved by CCTV, and 2) how much (if any) street crime has fallen simply due to the presence of the CCTV cameras.
I am one of the percentage that got assaulted in view of a CCTV camera (Hackney, London, Summer 2002), and nothing got solved as a result. When the police came to review the footage after I reported my attack. they told me "sorry the image quality is too poor, we can't make out who it was".
Great. So speaking from painful experience (plus a ruined suit), CCTV doesn't work. Maybe 20 years ago thugs might have worried about being caught on camera but now they all know the image quality is so crap they won't get caught so it doesn't bother them.
I don't believe in CCTV (philosophically as well as practically) and I am annoyed I pay my taxes for this waste of money.
What's your experience?
This is one of those studies where I read it and go "DUH!"
Kinda like the one on the Australian Gun Ban that shows ten years out that violent crime comitted with firearms has INCREASED 300% since the ban.
Laws like this do absolutely nothing to protect you from criminals, and as I've always suspected (and time has proven), have the exact opposite effect.
Unfortunately the solution is really simple: issue concealed carry permits to anyone that can pass a background check, and just have stiff penalties for misuse of them.
This would work much better.
If only to serve as an example to the United States that Orwellian Surveillance does not accomplish the desired goal of good honest people.
For the same reason Canada should leave its National Medical Plan in place, the medical plan that has rich Canadian flocking across the border for life saving procedures and medications, while the poor remain to die for want of a simple kidney dialysis or chemotherapy
Having not read TFA, I don't know which way round they got it wrong, but mixing up the UK and England in the intro really only shows why some in the other countries that make up the UK want out... Leaving aside the explosion of CCTV use.
I guess this depends on how accurate the BBC cop show "The Bill" is.
Strangely, the show tends to support these numbers, while showing how they may be misleading.
Very few cases that they portray are actually solved by CCTV footage. But leads gained from examining CCTV are often shown as being crucial to investigations - Putting (or not putting) a person of interest at a certain place, or showing that the statements given were in fact incorrect, leading them to question further. In few of these cases would CCTV evidence actually show up in court.
Of course, the show could be propaganda in the hands of those who want to retain or expand the CCTV network. But in the past "The Bill" has been regarded well by those who are involved in police forces around the world.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
You must be new here, or just not appreciate subtlety. Nobody RTFAs! :)
which is totally what she said
Well, next time...don't buy a house in the "hood"
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think the most troubling thing is the relative ease with which those from the UK- and I think you know who I'm talking about- are able to post random comments on forums such as these. One can only imagine the terrorist plots these people have been hatching in plain sight, yet we continue to "protect" their right to free speech. Rubbish! Its time for action, if it is not yet too late.
Well I am going to break a bit with Slashdot tradition here but I think as a Brit living in London who values both security and liberty (liberty much more than security), I probably have some opinions and perspectives here that might contribute to the debate on the use of CCTV in our country (even if it is to stir up a hornet's nest of antipathetic disagreement!)
:-)
I am often a little bit bemused by the reaction of some of our Atlantic cousins to the CCTV we have over here. I often think, given some of the reaction and comments made on that side of the pond that they must think that every single one of us has cameras pointing into our bedrooms 24 hours a day like some kind of city-wide Big Brother TV show. Sometimes I think that is the only thing that could explain such strong reactions. I have read enough articles by freedom-loving American commentators deploring the insufferable intrusions we experience on a daily basis into our private and personal lives and I just can't relate to it. Let me assure you that the experience for most of us here is far from the picture that is often painted. I will try to explain why, and why I think this reaction is, while well-meaning, unnecessary. I am sure many people will disagree with my assessment (particular given the political leanings of most Slashdot readers), some of them British as well and I am glad to hear of other people's perspectives. I am just writing here of my current thoughts and feelings on this matter and I, of course, reserve the right to change my opinion if someone convinces me that I have it all wrong
My experience relates mostly to the CCTV in London which is supposedly the worst offender of civil liberties in most people's eyes, particularly as far as CCTV is concerned. To understand why I disagree with the controversy surrounding CCTV in London (most of it anyway) and why most Londoners are just not really bothered by CCTV you have to first have some understanding London's infrastructure and architecture (and, indeed, many other cities in the UK). I am not completely sure how different they are from American cities and towns (I've never been to the US) but I suspect, from some of the movies and documentaries I have seen of American cities, there are some differencesâ"at least when comparing the major cities.
For starters, where I live--which resembles areas most average Londoners live in--one could walk around for miles and never see a CCTV camera anywhere; in my area, which is edging on suburbia, this could be in any direction, with perhaps the exception of one. If I walk in one particular direction for about a third of a mile I will eventually come across what we call the "high street" that serves my local areaâ"basically a street that contains most, if not all, of the shops, banks and business that serve the local area. This is quite typical of most London regions -- a couple of miles in any direction and you pass through only residential areas. Each residential area has one (or maybe two) of these streets. Usually they are less than half a mile long and have few or no residential dwellings in them apart from single- or double-floored residential apartments above some shops (many of these are just owned and used by the shops below for whatever purposes they see fit). There are usually CCTV cameras pointing up and down the high streets where no one really lives but none at all in the residential areas. These cameras are placed here primarily because the chavs, youths, drunks tend to congregate in the high streets (if the area has such people). In many places these cameras have resulted in a reduction in crime and antisocial behaviour (yeah I suppose they have just gone elsewhere but there is a reason why they congregated in these places in the first place so if it makes it harder for these people to get up to mischief it's a bonus in my book; and the high street is where most decent people like to go too so there's good reason for getting antisocial crime away from that area). Most law-abiding people kno
The 'ring of steel' - a collective name for the omnipresent CCTV and a series of traffic checkpoints around the centre of London - did its job.
It was instigated after the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing (Incidentally, the PIRA fucking schooled al-qaeda on asymmetric warfare. £1 billion damage for a £3000 operation, and their bombers all survived) and prevented a bombing on that scale happening right up until the completion of the peace process. So, it kinda worked.
But then it didn't end. It was scaled back a little, probably for the sake of expediency and a quick tax cut than for the sake of liberty, but it is still present. Of course, given recent events it has started to expand its scope again - but comparing the ferocious ANFO truck bomb the PIRA used in 1993 (which blew out windows 500m from the centre of the blast) to the almost comically failed 'explosives' that feature in most al-qaeda attacks suggests that we aren't facing nearly the same level of threat, so why a similar level of response?
It certainly doesn't justify shredding 800 years of civil liberties, as Blair and co have done.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The truth of the matter is, that there aren't all that many cameras - it isn't as if the whole place is covered wall to wall in lenses. And in the areas where there are any, such as London City, they do have an effect, mostly as a deterrent. So of course they don't do much to solve crimes - it isn't really the main purpose. This is part of what I think is a rather sympathetic world view we have in Europe: We don't go for secret surveillance. In fact, in most countries it is illegal even for shop owners to put up surveillance cameras without also putting up a clear warning that there are cameras. Or take speed cameras: We have quite a lot of them, but they are not only clearly signposted and painted brightly yellow - you can even find them online. Here's an example from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/travel/speedcameras/speed_cameras.shtml.
The main purpose of cameras, CCTV and speed, is prevention, not 'catching offenders'. I mean, obviously, if you go around contemplating some crime, you don't want to be caught on camera, so you don't go to the places where they are; and therefore the cameras have no effect on solving the crimes that are committed.
Morpheus: "The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. "
-FL
At the risk of sounding sensible, it's not just about reducing crime, it's about reducing fear of crime. The study should have looked at that as well - do people feel more secure in an environment where there are more CCTV cameras? It's a bit illogical, because if CCTV doesn't help catch criminals, why should you feel safer? But then, does it reduce crime or deter potential criminals?
What the article says is that it is too much hassle for the police to check the CCTV in the event of a crime. Yes, it is an admittance of failure of the current situation - but the real point is that the police want extra funding for a national CCTV database and for automatic recognition of suspects via computer, so that they can do things like track muggers by the logos on their hoodies.
That was never the primary intention, just the sugar coating around the poison pill.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
...but the pervasive monitoring doesn't help to solve any crimes?Max.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Max.
From my point of view as a Brit, CCTV isn't invasive at all. I just ignore it, just like the criminals do.
There are so many cameras that only a tiny, tiny few could possibly ever be watched by anyone.
The only cameras that matter are the motoring cameras. I doubt speed cameras prevent accidents, but they certainly make me check my speed when driving through those particular areas. Were I to live in London, I'd probably care about the Congestion Zone cameras too, which enforce payment of the toll to drive into the city centre. Other than that... who cares?
I'm unlikely to ever want to do something illegal in view of a camera, but if I did, I could just wear a cheap disposable hooded sweatshirt, just like most teenagers do. CCTV must go down in history as the first security measure to prompt a fashion craze - the hoodie.
The point of CCTV is that it absorbs the excess money politicians and "concerned citizens" want to throw away trying to make themselves feel safe in areas that are already safe. If they didn't spend it on CCTV they'd spend it on something far more invasive, like vigilante-esque security guards. Personally I find CCTV to be far less invasive than a hobby-bobby on every street corner poking his nose into my business. If we actually paid for real people to prevent crime, imagine how inconvenient that would be for us law-abiding folk, constantly being stopped and asked where we were going or whatnot! Far better to spend it on technology that can be safely ignored by the sensible majority who are not fooled by the culture of fear and security theatre, whilst providing a living wage for the families of legions of factory workers, installation engineers and callcentre staff to manufacture, maintain and support them.
CCTV is wonderful. The bigots get something concrete they can point at to stop their misguided fearful moaning, and the rest of us can safely ignore it. Everybody wins!
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I'm as libertarian as the next person, let people do what they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone. Unfortunately, *in public*, where you can't expect privacy, people still do things that hurt other people and society. Let the record it. I'm sure the people involved in those 3% of robberies it helped, are grateful for the system. And what percentage of street crime was solved before the cameras? 0%? 1%?
I've had my house robbed twice, and I now have 24/7 video surveillance of the house/street, so if it happens again, I'll have something on tape. I'd have nothing against street cameras that would have helped the last two times.
Last week my neighbor mysteriously died in a field next door in a grass fire. He was a volunteer fire fighter. They don't know what happened, who started it, why he couldn't get out, and so forth. There are rumours of kids starting the grass fire (like the losers tend to do in this town). But this will probably go unsolved. I wish my camera had covered the area in question, and it might have caught any culprits, or at least solved the mystery for his poor family...
If you want to smoke pot, have orgies, whatever, there's lots of room for privacy away from the public streets.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
So they help 3% of all street robberies.. How about just last week there was an episode on TV of the police catching a Russian dude walking down the street with blood on his shirt and carrying two butchers knifes. It looked like something out of manhunt, that's not included in your "statistic".
The fact remands, without the cameras they wouldn't know he was there and he could have killed more people before anyone reported it.
I'm sure there are WAY more examples but this just goes to show the illogic of slashdot mindthink, since it only stops 3% of the statistic I pulled out my ass we need to get rid of it, while ignoring all the other things it prevents.
Thanks but I'd rather keep the cameras, they're useful even if it helps with only 1% of crimes because I'd hate for it to be me the one time I get assaulted in the street and there's no proof of the guy that did it. Likewise if I am convicted of murder and there's no CCTV evidence to prove I wasn't in the area.
In fact I wished they'd put a camera where I cross the road and punish those tards that almost hit me in their flashy sports cars while doing 80mph past the pedestrian crossing. Of course then slashtards would be complaining about the "money maker" cameras, yeah whatever keep complaining you rich old farts..
There is no right to anonymity in the public space. The UK should identify the problem then look for a solution. Why are CCTV's not as effective as they could be?
Police in the UK won't give you a hard time if you're drunk as long as you're harmless appearing and not doing anything particularly offensive or abusive to others. If you're a bit out of order they'll have a quiet word with you and suggest you go home or calm down, if you're a danger to yourself or others they will probably take further action. In the first instance this probably means giving you an official warning and then they'll arrest you if you don't sort yourself out. Arresting you means anything from a small fine to a serious criminal charge depending on what you were doing at the time (being an idiot and not listening to what the police tells you to do=small fine and probably a night in the cells, being aggressive, fighting, damaging people or property - could be jail time). There's definitely some town centre public drunkeness in the UK. Americans between 18 and 21 tend to go a bit crazy when they visit here as well, I think they get very excited about a> being able to drink, often without showing ID (we are more relaxed about that here, if you look old enough the bar staff won't ask you for ID) and b> the beer's stronger.
Police in UK certainly won't tolerate you carrying a gun though like in that BBC news story, and will definitely call in heavy support if you try to drill a hole in your wall using one. Pretty well nobody is allowed a gun over here, you have to have a very, very good reason to get permission for one (e.g. farmer who needs to kill vermin, gamekeepers for shooting deer). If the police here discovered you were carrying a gun they'd probably get the heck out of there and call in armed response to pin you down - and shoot holes in you if you didn't put the gun down immediately.
"Solve the IRA problem by replacing it with a problem in the middle east".
Ah, is there anything outsourcing can't fix?