Slashdot Mirror
UK Uses CCTV, Terrorism Laws, Against Pooping Dogs
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that it seems the UK is trying make up for their judicious use of surveillance cameras that, according to recent research, do not actually deter crime, by using the surveillance network to prosecute petty crimes. "Conjuring up the bogeymen of terrorists, online pedophiles and cybercriminals, the U.K. passed a comprehensive surveillance law, The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, in 2000. The law allows 'the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance, and the use of covert human intelligence sources' to help prevent crime, including terrorism. Recent reports in the U.K. media indicate that the laws are being used for everything but terrorism investigations."
NOW do you believe us?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I hate it when dogs piss and poop right in the middle of the sidewalk.
By the way, the summary is wrong - that study the other day did not say the crimes didn't deter crime... only that they don't help much in SOLVING street robberies. Big difference, that.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wasn't 1984 set in London? This seems awfully scary to me.
If it stop inconsiderate bastards leaving their dog's shit on the pavement, I'm all for it.
Evil people are out to get you.
Anyone who is surprised by this doesn't understand either the police, or politics.
I think "pervasive" is the word. "Judicious" is a word you use to imply a good thing, not the mark of a police state.
I, for one, don't consider allowing your dog to shit without cleaning it up, to be a petty crime... Have you seen the size of some of those reeking piles??...
Until I read this article, I thought that Hot Fuzz was a comedy.
-Peter
It's one thing to argue that the new laws were unnecessary, but are you really saying it's a bad thing to use them to solve other crimes? Yes, they may be trivial crimes listed, but they are still crimes. If the ability is there to solve them, why shouldn't they? I don't want to dodge dog shit every time I walk down the street, and if there was a camera pointed at the area, I think police should look at the footage to see who is doing it.
blind allegiance to BP
John McCain - The Next War-Monger President of the United Gulags of America
North Vietnam would have done U.S. democracy a favor had they shipped this blathering blob of protoplasm to the Soviet Union for PERMANENT residence.
Cordially,
K.
of the anonymous flaming dog shit bags!!!!!
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I hate to be the one to say it, but CCTV has been shown to reduce the severity of crime - reducing the police response time to muggings, for example, leading to less severe injuries to the victim. CCTV has also been invaluable in tracking perpetrators of serious attacks after the attacks have occurred - David Copeland and the 7/7 bombers being two prominent examples. The bottom line is that CCTV, like any tool, has some good uses, and some bad. The issue isn't as black and white (hoho) as people make out.
Actually I'm all for executing* people who don't clear their dog poop :-) As a dog owner I'm fed up of being tarred with the same brush..
*For those with a sense of humour failure, this is a "joke" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke
When I could sit in front of my computer and feel smug when this happened in other countries.
Hopefully when Bush and his cronies are out of office we can repair the damage and I can once again feel a smug attitude about my country.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thank got they got their dog poop crime spree under control.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Cameras in public, recording what anyone standing on the street would see, have nothing whatsoever to do with privacy.
These cameras are recording what people choose to do in full public view. If you break the law in public, any witness could report it and testify. At trial you have the right to confront your accuser and cross examine any witnesses. Recorded evidence from these cameras is used in essentially the same way. Where's the assumption of guilt?
Big Brother looked right into people's homes. There's a tremendous difference.
prevent. Have you ever slipped on a grassy slope that's just been, er, lubircated by a K-9? Not nice.
It is thought that punishment of petty crimes deters the more violent and dangerous crimes. The reason is that if people see that they can get away with small stuff, they will push the boundaries and see all what else they can get away with. If small crimes are prosecuted, they won't dare try to commit a serious crime. This has been studied with strict treatment of graffiti artists in NY during the 1980s and 1990s. See this book for more information: http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html
Available at http://www.noliberties.com/
and if you're a UK view, for free here,
http://www.channel4.com/video/true-stories-taking-liberties/catchup.html
(WMP11 unfortunately)
For anyone who's studied the UK constitution, and in particular, Lord Nicholls' dicta in Belmarsh, it is frightening to see so obviously what one Government has done to the UK in a way that will effectively bind successive governments: not for want of power, but for want of justification should they revoke popularist statues that give the illusion of service.
Matt
I just wanted to point out that the editors could have inserted several more commas into the title given to this submission, if they'd really tried.
#DeleteChrome
How's the koolaid these days?
Since when is suspending habeas corpus, destroying congressional oversight, and wiretapping phones without permission from any legal authority constitute freedom?
Or is this the crazy part of American culture where abortion is murder and war is heroic?
It will keep them off my damn lawn!
Sig this!
It's interesting how attitudes differ. People (including in the UK) seem to think the CCTV there is a terrible violation of privacy and the justifications for it, even if true, would be weak. In South Africa, CCTV is profligating faster than that and our tech is actually MORE advanced now. Here, it has gotten nothing but praise. People just don't care about privacy. There is a twofold reason for that I think. The first is that just a generation ago we were living under what was little less than a military dictatorship. A dictatorship that had propaganda SO effective that some people to this day yearn for their rule ! What's worse, people here seem to chaos and order as a black/white thing. Either everybody does what they are told all the time, nothing more, nothing less- or you have complete chaos. The idea of a free society in between those extremes, where the individual's rights matter is basically non-existent. Throw in a massive crime wave, and putting up CCTV will get you hailed as heroes, with nobody wondering if it may be abused. It is scary to see the same thing happening in the UK though - because it removes from the rest of us yet another example of liberty being respected - if the UK with their relatively small crime problems lose it... how will we with a crime wave possibly convince people that the little extra security you may or may not get out of CCTV may not be worth the incredible price we are paying ? We already live in a country where it is now a crime for teenagers under the age of 16 to HUG OR KISS. How long before we have teenagers arrested for making out - and CCTV used to find them/as evidence ? It's no less of a minor crime than dogpoop (of course, the kissing should never have been a crime at all but at least it's classified as minor). The biggest irony of all is, even in South Africa the camera's have not actually had a real positive effect, the criminals simply moved to other neighbourhoods. So the cycle ends up with every street everywhere being under surveillance in the end. 1984 Was not so far fetched.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Cool; I hope everyone else gets your refreshing attitude Mr. Troll. Because then you'll sure step in it. EVERYWHERE. You don't like it? Great, but I don't care what the fuck you like.
FOR ME TO POOP ON! Thank you Triumph for your contribution to society.
The only difference between the UK and USA is the UK has the decency to get the police to lock you up, in the USA any major corporation has the power to spy on you and attack you so harshly you have no come back. Welcome to the Digital Millenium Gentlemen.
The submitter should familiarise themselves with (off the top of my head) three ongoing terrorist trials where CCTV evidence is important to gaining a possible conviction. One in particular, that of the prosecution of associates of the 7th of July London bombers who travelled with them to London in advance to case targets, relies heavily on CCTV to link these people to the bombers, and will help obtain convictions (should that be what the jury decides).
That is just an ongoing trial, and is publicly known, "terrorism investigations" covers a multitude of unknown (to the public) current investigations - monitoring people who have warranted the attention of the intelligence community.
But god forbid the truth should get in the way of a hyperactive slashdot submission - desperate for 500 comments of "1984", "slippery slope" and every other cliché under the sun. There may be (and indeed I would personally say, are) valid criticisms of CCTV and how people are monitored in public places - but that debate is entirely short circuited and debased with juvenile submissions like this that are not interested in facts, only hyperbole.
Remember, remember
the 5th of November.
The gunpowder, treason, and plot.
I know of no reason
why the gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Dog Fouling is in fact listed in the article. It's not just a creative Slashdot title. This has been a public service announcement.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
Don't you think that they would have said so, rather than say it was used in 3% of convictions?
Yes, and its the people who ignore these smaller impediments to liberties that allow the larger ones to happen.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
We need a new word for something that's ironic because it is designed to seem ironic but really isn't.
The meta-irony here comes through in the point that terrorists aren't really a danger to normal people (statistically speaking), and in fact are probably less of a hazard than slipping on dog poop on the sidewalk. But you can get CCTVs pushed through based on the former and not the latter because almost all people have extraordinarily poor risk assessment skills.
Should not it go to "dog's rights online" section?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Hello,
I, like many, have a problem if cameras are used as surveillance tools, i.e. watching in real time what people are doing, either automatically or in a supervised fashion.
However I have fewer problems with cameras being used in a forensic context, i.e their data is analysed if a crime was committed and we want to catch the culprits, given the existence of a criminal investigation and strict guidelines being followed.
Now I absolutely hate people who illegally let their dog poop in the middle of the street, but I don't think these cameras who were installed for a loftier purpose should be used to catch them.
Dogs poop. It happens.
Stray dogs poop. Slave dogs poop. Why should it matter if the dog has a home ? Pick up the turd and toss it out! If you don't like keeping your property clean, then don't be a property owner!
Having an officer issue fines over stray poop is yet more proof that society has failed.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the author of this article was Chris Soghoian of boarding pass hacking fame. Good to see that he is keeping active.
http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2006/11/good-news-and-bad-news.html
between expecting that no one will see you when you go into town (totally unreasonable) and not wanting every move you make to be permanently stored in a searchable video database. Unless you do something to attract someone's attention, they're going to forget about you. In about three seconds. Whereas with the increasing amounts of computing power and the decreasing costs of storage, if this kind of footage isn't being stored, permanently, it soon will be.
Phonic Poo!!
People who let their animals crap on the pavement or in public parks and don't clear it up should be made to lick up the mess. Curb your animal or let it crap on your own land.
No, I am not joking.
If they use CCTV to prosecute people for crimes, why is that a bad thing? That's kinda why it's there.
If you don't want to be prosecuted then here's an idea, don't break the law.
I work in the CCTV industry in London and was involved in some of the high-profile terrorist investigations in the last few years so I feel I have to comment.
There seems to be a media campaign against CCTV which has been amplified recently despite the many successes of which I hear on a daily basis. The reports that I've being reading in the media strike me as being sensationalist and far from what I've been seeing "on the ground".
The 3 percent figure which was touted the other day is utter rubbish. Maybe 3% of crimes were proven by CCTV, but the vast majority of those were likely to be violent crimes, in which case the police actually bother to obtain the footage. In many other cases CCTV is an enabling factor. For example, if there is a brawl outside a pub in a town or city centre, it is likely to be spotted on camera and the police can respond quickly. When the police arrive, they see the fight, and their visual accounts are sufficient for a prosecution - no need to obtain the footage in many cases. Doesn't mean the CCTV had no input.
Most of these stories regarding policy are referring to "city centre CCTV" yet they always quote numbers of cameras in total, i.e. including private premises, shops, facilities, etc... In a lot of shops, the cameras are used to settle customer disputes ("I gave you 20 not 10", "Ok sir, let's check the camera and sort it out"), and most importantly, theft by staff. There is certainly a lot of crime committed within private organisations which gets settled behind the scenes, i.e. theiving employee gets fired. I'm sure that doesn't get accounted in the 3 percent figure.
As just mentioned, these stories focus on city centres. It's not all-pervasive, it's more like: If your dog craps in the high-street or outside the shopping centre (mall to you guys!) you stand the risk of getting punished. The same thing applies to smoking weed and other minor offences. They don't monitor anything except the busy areas where families are out going about their business. If you want a cheeky smoke or underage drink, find somewhere quiet, nobody cares, just don't do it in the main high street. The bottom line is, if it didn't work, the authorities wouldn't keep spending money on it.
I am an antichrist
I am an anarchist
Dont know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by cos I
I wanna be anarchy !
No dogs body
Anarchy for the u.k its coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time stop a trafic line
Your future dream is a shopping scheme cos I
I wanna be anarchy !
In the city
How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the enemy I use anarchy cos I
I wanna be anarchy !
The only way to be !
Is this the m.p.l.a
Or is this the u.d.a
Or is this the i.r.a
I thought it was the u.k or just
Another country
Another council tenancy
I wanna be an anarchist
Oh what a name
Get pissed destroy !
Why do people keep saying this and then stating the opposite (in this case, linking to a story that says the opposite); to quote the referenced story :
"
the fact remains that CCTVs only help with 3% of all street robberies"
Hello people!!!! 3% is not equal to 0%!!!!
Max.
.., prosecuted them, and just because it's a minor law, the world is up in arms? Surely the fact that these people have been caught for doing illegal things is enough?
Otherwise, do we have to decide quite how bad something must be before we're willing to catch it on CCTV and prosecute someone?
When does littering become fly-tipping and when should you prosecute me for it? Throwing a chocolate wrapper on the floor or dumping my TV in a child's playground?
When does leaving my pet's faeces become something you'll prosecute me for? Allowing my dog to poop on the pavement or allowing my horse to shit in our local pond?
More importantly, how seriously do I have to sexually assault someone before it becomes something that becomes worthy of prosecution by CCTV? Grabbing a random girl's ass or raping her?
Bunch of people got caught for breaking the law. Bunch of people were investigated in case they were.
Big whoops. Stop breaking the law and you'll be fine.
--- Band: Joey Ultra
I( find it incredible that Britain, where I was born, has turned so far down Orwell's road. I really think it's time for a technical solution.
There are devices that can spot lenses and an appropriately applied medium power laser can fry the CCD. I'd make a game out of it with prizes for most killed cams. Hell we can set this up as an MMORPG with the proper infrastructure.
Or do this clever four minutes YouTube music video, from The Get Out Clause, an unsigned Manchester band who could not afford a camera crew for their video. Its members performed in front of a load of closed circuit television/CCTV cameras, requested the footages from the camera operators under the Data Protection Act, and stitched the results together for their music video.
Seen on Boing Boing.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Please mod parent "+1 Best Unintentionally Eloquent Misuse Of An Obscure Adjective."
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I don't know if anything analogous exists in UK law, but in the US, there's a real right or two involved. Spending so much money to see enforcement gains for such a minor crime at least probably violates the principle of cruel and unusual punishment. It's not the cruel part, mind you, but if in effect, one rather trivial crime suddenly has a much higher enforcement effort devoted to it, the state is punishing in an unusual way.
Note: recent supreme court rulings, that class some punishing things such as appearing on public offender lists as not actually punishments, mean the U.S. government probably wouldn't agree with this interpretation. That said, does anybody in the US want the UK to resort to the same sort of 'loop-hole'ease interpretations that seem to reflect us at our worst?
By itself, spending a whole heap of money in an ineffectual manner isn't a rights issue, but you could also ask, since these cameras have been 'justified' to the tax-payer by the claim that they have some sort of anti-terrorist function, does the same tax-payer get real figures on how the initiative has failed, so that they can vote the incompetent idiots which wasted their funds out of office?
Because it seems to me that those same cameras just might discourage political speech against the people who wasted the money. I'm not even a UK citizen, just some yobbo who's sticking his nose in, but on the other hand, I haven't wasted millions of the people's pounds either, so my opinion that there's a chilling effect might be worth more than all the officials conveniently self-serving opinions that there is no such chilling effect put together.
Who is John Cabal?
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act does no 'regulation', it just hands a wadge of new powers over to anyone with any slight claim to be 'in authority' to use without any meaningful oversight. (Council officials can perform surveillance on individuals with authorisation from a mid-level civil servant in their own department.)
Councils do not, ever, investigate terrorism - there was no need for them to be assigned any powers in an act designed to combat terrorism.
RIPA is also the means by which the police can demand encryption keys, and allows for the 2 year sentence for not handing them over to be increased to 5 years on a 'balance of probabilities' basis.
And what will be done about it? Nothing. The British people learned long ago that their politicians do not listen to them between elections. I'm going to trot the tired old Iraq thing out:
over 1million people went to London to protest against the war. Now, applying the usual metric that for every person who can be bothered to get up and physically go somehere to make their views known, there are 100 more people who hold the same view, 100million people in UK were opposed to the war. That's 40million more people than live in the country - even allowing for some non-UK protestors, that's still a incredible strength of public feeling.
By any standards that's as big a protest as could ever be hoped to be achieved given the population and geography of the UK, and it was simply brushed aside, and some new laws were brought in to stop future protests getting within 1km of parliament.
By this stage, there really is nothing that can be done to influence the government of this country.
And now to end with some cliche:
"But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.' " - George Orwell, 1984
I only clicked the link because I saw the "pooping" tag.
And while we're at it, a British dog would never be so crass as to poop. Shit crap, defecate, but never poop!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...it makes sense... Where there's dog poop, there's terror!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Policeman have quotas... so do salesman.
Think about that.
Yes someone may have complained, but really if you take a close look at the criminal justice system in America it really does resemble a business.
Lawmakers = Marketing
Police = Salesman
Judges = Accounting/Invoicing
Poverty is the number one source of crime. Period. Poverty will not be able to pay for the criminal justice system. So they need to generate revenue to pay for the court houses, jails, etc... this comes from...YOU with your speeding ticket.
Taxes only pay for so much, but how do you know your money is spent effectively in combating crime? YOU DON'T. More people are going to jail and prison everyday, and the truth of the matter is that the streets are not safer, but indeed getting worse.
The individual policeman...it's not his fault he's just part of the system. But really it is the system that is messed up.
Lady Justice wears a blindfold not because justice is equal, but to conceal the tears of a failed system.
I was never on the side of increased surveillance, all the cameras going up was a sign of the screws tightening on the freedom of the public.
However ...
I have recently come to a new understanding and belief.
The only reason why CCTV is bad is because it is one sided, the govt. and the police have all the fun, while the average person is merely the subject. Well maybe it is time to turn that around.
I think that if everybody had their own method of recording everything they see and do, then the balance of power gets shifted back towards the centre. Very similar to the rise of education and then the internet. Originally, books were things that were owned and could only be read by an elite. Then Gutenburg gave us the printing press, and gradually education became an option then a necessity for all.
Originally, access to vast amounts of diverse information was limited to those with supercomputers and the cash and staff to use them efficiently. Then came the pc and the internet. Now almost everyone can get access to vast amounts of information at very little cost.
So, maybe we should start to balance the surveillance inequities.
If we all use cameras to record every activity that we engage in, and every activity that occurs within range, then we reach a point where the pervasiveness of cameras is no more threatening than having people walking past your house, or being observed by people in the street whilst out shopping. It becomes a normal state of affairs, and the feelings of paranoia regarding the govt. and police will subside.
Being in public means being open to observation. The way we all think society used to work (ie. less crime because you know people in the neigbourhood will act together to catch/stop you doing it) will return because you can no longer rely on the fear factor preventing people taking action against you. If you wanted to take retribution (as a criminal) then the number of people to catch up with would be vastly increased.
I have already started going down the path of universal surveillance by installing a bullet cam and recorder in my truck, which records everything that happens on the road during my working day. I have plans to make this footage public, and from there to encourage others to participate. Much like the old days where people were placed in the stocks for public humiliation, I hope we can start to humiliate those members of the public who routinely shit all over others while driving, often causing fatal accidents just to save a few seconds on their way to a shitty job.
This change of direction gave me relief from the 1984 syndrome, and I think it's truly the way to go. And much like the printing press, the pc and the handheld gadget, these devices will become cheaper and so more ubiquitous very quickly.
Maybe I'm insane, but then again, I remember being the only person with a mobile phone in my local pub back in the early '90s. Then suddenly the place was full of them. I remember being called the "computer guy" because I had a pc and internet access back in the mid '90s - now almost everyone has, or wants the same. Maybe I like to ride the wave rather than be drowned by it ...
The summary is completely wrong and the blog isn't that much better. I can summarise it with:
- Complaining that CCTV is being used to witness crimes (yes, littering and fouling are crimes)
- Complaining that the crimes that CCTV is being used to witness aren't important enough
- Complaining that a law which specifically states that surveillance can be used to solve crimes is being cited when people want to use surveillance to solve crimes
Of course, the submitter takes an incident where CCTV was used to witness littering, and a case where RIPA was invoked to monitor someone suspected of fraud, and manage to blur the line to "ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS USED ON DOGSHIT".
Yawn.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
I can kinda understand why they didn't get involved. In the best case scenario, the kids would have found them later and beaten the crap out of them or killed them.
In this country, the difference between a 'have a go hero' as the press calls them and an evil monster is whether you survive or not. Take on a gang of teens and die, you're a hero. Give one of them a clip about the earhole, and you're an evil monster.
Secondly, the worst case scenario is that you would have had to get involved with the cops. I recently reported someone stealing drain covers. The drain covers go missing around here every 6 - 9 months, and it takes forever to get them replaced. It makes riding my bike a little challenging while they're gone.
I had the misfortune to be home the day they went missing most recently and actually see the oiks lifting them. Over and above been told that I can't report the theft because it's not my property by the cops (http://blog.penguinpowered.org/2008/04/03/to-protect-my-free-time-and-serve-my-own-interests/), I've now lost over 13 hours of my life dealing with the outcome of this.
They caught the blokes with the truck with the registration I gave, with a load of drain covers in the back that they can't explain and it's has STILL taken 13 hours of my life in giving statements and back and forwards with the plod.
No good deed goes unpunished, so I don't plan to get involved any more either!
Those dogs were obviously terrierists
Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007
I've been tempted to set up a camera myself to catch those a**holes who leave their dog mess in front of my house.
As a UK citizen (sorry serf) let me say I am outraged, simply outraged.
How on Earth are we supposed to play "poo hockey" if they're going to crack down on the innocent puck makers ?
There's nothing better than a drunken game of "poo hockey" after the pubs have shut.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I can get the police to chuck you in jail. Even though I'm in a public place.
Although schools and the roads around them are public places and the children are in public view while playing, if I start hanging around the playground, I WILL be picked up, even though I'm in public and the children are too.
I prefer to think you were always a "liberal" and this post is a deceitful troll than that you were ever the kind of conservative you describe.
If the control rooms were taped and we could see those tapes (after all, we're paying for the damn things) *that* would make a difference, because abuse would be a little bit more visible (barring people working off copies and secondary feeds). Even if such data only became viewable with 24h or 48h delay (to protect ongoing surveillance of *real* criminals) or only on request, fine. But at least there IS then some oversight.
At the moment it's all nicely hidden from view, with lots of weasel word exit routes to stop you finding out what exactly they do. That has to change.
Insert
I'd recommend voting Lib Dem, if only because the introduction of proportional representation to Westminster is a condition for entering into a coalition with them (in the event of a hung parliament).
That's almost the only reason to vote Lib Dem these days, though, unless your local Lib Dem MP/candidate happens to be a good representative regardless of party affiliation. The problem is, the other parties with a credible chance of getting in aren't any better either. There just isn't a powerful party in the UK right now based on simple principles like fairness, freedom, responsibility, and balance, which means the entire political centre ground just votes for whichever of the big parties makes the most croud-pleasing sound-bites in the run up to election day and/or screwed fewest things up lately (or doesn't vote at all).
For what it's worth, I think Liberty do a good job of both drawing popular attention to the sorts of abuse we're discussing here and of providing practical support to those who wind up on the wrong side of it unjustly. They have quite a high profile, and it's pretty rare that I see one of their spokespeople saying something I don't strongly agree with. If you want to do a good deed for today, you could always send them some money. Actually, they have two parts, and if you give to the Civil Liberties Trust, you can even gift aid your donation, which has the amusing side effect that the government will give money back to Liberty and, if you are a higher-rate taxpayer, to you as well for supporting a cause they probably wouldn't like very much. The campaigners would probably prefer the money to be given to Liberty itself, though, since while that can't be gift-aided, it can be used to support things like political lobbying that the CLT can't because of the rules on charities. Anyway, there's a thought if, like me, you'd happily support opposition to the surveillance state but can't find a political party you actually want to vote for.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm actually delighted about this. I live in an area where there is a considerable problem with owners letting their dogs shit on the pavement and not clearing it up. It's right next to an infants' school and a narrow picturesque footpath (which becomes almost impossible to walk along without treading in shit).
The local council has put up warning notices about the fines available and the supposed policemen that check on the paths, but I've never seen any policemen lying in wait for dog owners -- realistically it's not a good use of police time to have someone physically patrolling for people letting their dogs shit on the pavement. However, if a machine can take the graft out of catching such people then I'm all for it.
Nobody has a problem with CCTV footage being used to solve murders. Murders are universally reckoned to be bad. Similarly, the problem of dog shit on the streets is universally reckoned to be bad (with the possible exception of a few selfish dog-owners who don't want to take responsibility for their animals' actions). So this seems like an efficient way of doing so and a good use of the technology. I don't see why someone would have a problem with this.
Where I do have a problem with such technology is where it's used to enforce hotly debated laws (some of the "anti-terror" laws restricting our right to protest, speed limits on main roads and motorways etc.) But those are more because of problems with the legislation itself, not the cameras used to enforce it.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.