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.
Anyone who is surprised by this doesn't understand either the police, or politics.
Then they came for the dog owners,
And I didn't speak up because I was not a dog owner.
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.
of the anonymous flaming dog shit bags!!!!!
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I guess it depends on where you feel public resources should be allocated. Dog poop certainly annoys me, but I do not want millions of taxpayers dollars to be used dealing with that problem. I'd rather they spend it on free breakfasts for schoolchildren or going after drunk drivers.
The point is, there are finite dollars to throw at a relatively large number of potential issues, and every dollar spent enforcing dog poop laws is one less dollar that will be spent on some other public good.
Oh, and using terrorism to justify spending any large amount of money is also annoying. But that is another issue.
Its not about dog poo. its about private citizens being spied on with the assumption they are guilty and the loss of reasonable privacy.
I bet you buy the 'its for the children' nonsence too.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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
I, good sir, refuse to sell my liberty for a shit-free sidewalk.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Please send me all of your important info including passport, etc so that I might make sure that you are safe and nothing bad happens. I promise not to abuse it.
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.
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
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'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 *
Man, civil rights sure do go cheap these days.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Pavement
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.
I got pulled over in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago for not fully stopping at a stop sign. They had two motorcycle police officers monitoring the intersection.
.. the next time you think police have something better to do, the answer is yes. And if everyone would obey the 'not important' laws, like speeding or stopping at stop signs or not letting their dogs poop on the sidewalk, maybe they would have more time to do it.
... shut up, pick up your poop, and let the police officers get back to important work instead of having to babysit your ass.
Some may think 'what a waste of tax payer money, pulling people over for not making a complete stop at the stop sign'. But I decided instead of whining to talk to the police officer. Know what I found out??
They were there BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD COMPLAINED PEOPLE WERE SPEEDING DOWN THE STREET. In other words, they were doing exactly what the citizens who pay taxes asked for. Just not the ones that were speeding down the street.
Why did I not stop fully?? Because there were several kids hanging around the street and I was paying more attention to them than the stop sign. My fault, I paid the ticket.
But the police were hoping to slow people down so that none of these kids get hit because some moron is speeding down the street.
So
All laws have to be enforced (or eliminated), otherwise people learn very quickly which ones they can get away with. When people learn they don't get stopped for speeding, they start to go faster. When they learn they can let their dogs poop anywhere, they will do that to.
So
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
NO! It is the BAD kind of puppy!
:)
So, are you gonna clean that shit up, or sit around here whingeing about commas?
I agree. I'm not a dog owner currently but I have nothing against dogs and if I did own one I would up my dog's shit because it pisses me off to no end as well.
But I still believe in due process and privacy and small government and limiting government's power over people's lives. I'm not a doom sayer conspiracy theorist who thinks that the British or Canadian government turning into Nazi Germany in my life time is a likely scenario (sorry for the Godwin) but there are still a lot of bullshit laws that IMO do more harm than good and democracy has this one downside where the majority (some times a rather large group of people which was demonstrated in the last 2 US presidential elections) gets consistently screwed over.
Government is force even when they are democratic and are doing their job and serving the will of the people. They exist solely for the purpose of exercising force. They can take away your freedom, your property. They can send you to your death. The control and moderate and arbitrate. They are force and authority by it's very definition. So while CCTV has some positive uses I don't favour it because I don't like giving force more force. I don't like the idea of living in a world where everyone is considerate just because they're afraid. I don't like being afraid of being caught on camera walking into an adult bookstore. I don't trust the government to keep data safe and I realize the same can be said about passports and census data etc. but the way I see it the less there is to be abused or breached the better.
While you have no reasonable expectation of privacy while in public I think that you *should*. To a much lesser extent then on your private property obviously but people need to know that they're not being followed and recorded everywhere they go and having everything they do stored to some hard drive that can be accessed later and used against them.
I'm not crying Orwell or Hitler and I'm not even saying "slippery slope". I just don't want video footage of me when I'm out and going about my personal affairs. I'm a private person who doesn't even like his picture being taken in family portraits. My worst nightmare would be for me to be a celebrity. Video surveillance makes me feel like one.
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.
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.
It was so nice of the 7th of July London bombers to blow themselves up on a date that we could all agree on.