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.
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??...
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
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?
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.
Are you sure about this theory of yours? Because although I have smoked marijuana in the past, some 20 years ago, and gotten away with it; I haven't really felt the need to kill or rape anyone so far...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
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.
People just don't care about privacy.
Nonsense. People care a great deal about privacy. The reason why you don't see this come into conflict with CCTV is because there really is no conflict. You are deeply confused about what privacy is. You don't have privacy when you are walking down the street in a public place. Everybody can see you. People can follow you around and watch what you do if they wish. Cameras don't take away anything, you never had privacy in a public place to begin with.
Privacy is NOT a black and white, either you have it or you don't, sort of thing. There are many gradations of privacy - where being in your home with the lights off and no one else around is one extreme and the other extreme is having every movement you make recorded, archived and cataloged in a database for anyone with enough power, money or general sneakiness to peruse at will.
Until recently the scale never really went past a sort of middling-grey. Out in public anyone could see you and you could see them. If someone wanted a record of your movements, they had to put at least one other person on the job of tailing you. Nowadays we are about 70-80% of the way to total privacy loss - automated systems mean no more chance for you to see someone who sees you and everyone is now recorded regardless of any current interest in their movements or not.
We are rapidly approaching a 100% loss of privacy with all of your 'public' information recorded and correlated in new and fascinating ways to dig up and expose your 'private' information too - like the fact that you started buying condoms a few weeks ago being used by your health insurance to raise your rates because if you are buying condoms you are probably having sex and now have both a higher risk of STDs and of having children - both costs for a insurance company.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No, you are deeply confused about what privacy is.
No, really it's you. Your first hint should be the fact that you want privacy in public. They are antonyms FFS! Your second hint should be the dictionary. OED defines privacy as "The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention, as a matter of choice or right; seclusion; freedom from interference or intrusion.". Let's see:
What you are talking about is not privacy. It's something along the lines of anonymity, or the right to control information about you.
I'm actually a strong privacy advocate, and people like you make the rest of us look like nuts when you start ranting about the right to privacy in a public place. Please stop.
>>I don't think these cameras who were installed for a loftier purpose should be used to catch them.
That's like saying, "The 20 new police officers who were hired to help reduce drunk driving should not be used to catch burglars even if they happen to be the closest officer at the time."
If your job was traffic law enforcer, and you saw a murder, would you just ignore it? What are you trying to say, that you believe that millions of taxpayer euros should be thrown away to prove some kind of point purely out of spite?
Why do you think that a crime isn't a crime anymore if it is discovered using unorthodox methods?
-b
(oh and for good measure, "Why do you hate Jesus?")
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
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.
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