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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?"
Fine, don't use 1984, but lets look at a list of grievances that were determined sufficient to start a war:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. - suspension of Habeus Corpus (sp?), citing Executive privilege at every turn
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. - Federal funding is threatened any time a State considers a law counter to the federal agenda
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. - Well the White house is not keeping the email records as ordered to by the Legislature and the Courts
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. - Not so much Judges this time, but attorneys int he office of the Attorney General.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. - he has appointed to offices incompetent people who were irresponsible, or shills for the administration.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has definitely deployed troops with out a declaration of war.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: while not murder, he has obstructed justice for his shill, Carl Rove?
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: - Gitmo
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: - well the opposite is true. Conspiring with other nations to arrest and detain citizens in order to prevent them from re-entering their country.
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own L
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Did you know that in the US, because it's legal for people to walk around with guns...
Not for much longer, if various legislative asshats and the loudmouthed morons who push them have anything to say about it. If you want to carry a gun, better move to Montana or some other state that still has a clue. Washington, my home state, is pretty good too but Seattle is a really bad influence on freedom to carry.
See my sig.Drill baby drill - on Mars