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UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTV
metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"
I wouldn't worry about it too much. As an englishman living in england, I can tell you these newspapers are rubbish. Page 3 probably has "Elvis is alive and working as a roadsweeper".
There are about 50 million people in the uk, so it only takes a *tiny* fraction of the population to have enough idiots to write this rubbish and the remainder to buy newspapers printing it..
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Look; I know that this is a touchy subject, but after working for 5 years (in Australia - things aren't quite as bad here as they are in the UK or the US) as a teacher with kids from the rough side of town, I can tell you there are some seriously fscked up families out there. That warrant some kind of intervention, yet too often the departments responsible for this sort of thing are too fearful of being seen as some Orwellian over-lords. Often it comes down to an issue of human rights, particularly with children involved. Why bother having laws against child abuse if you don't police them? Democracy isn't "do whatever the hell you want" - it involves responsibilities to our fellow people, and people who don't want to undertake those responsibilities need to be handled in some way. Putting cameras in their homes might be better than sending them to jail.
I'm not for a surveillance sort of a state, but when everyone complains of governments becoming "nanny states", I see a lot of people that need a nanny.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
The second issue is putting cameras in the homes of people who are basically criminals. Look at the numbers involved. They are doing this in 20,000 homes out of 25 million. That works out to 0.08% of the population. If you add this to the percentage of the population in prison, you get 0.228%. Compare that to the 0.756% in prison in the USA. Would you rather that we just put the parents in prison and the offspring in foster care or orphanages?
[1] They took a busy commercial London street and counted the number of CCTV cameras along a mile of it, including (as the majority were) privately-owned cameras covering businesses. They then multiplied this number by the number of miles of road in the UK and printed this in their headline. I've been in the USA quite a few times, and seen a lot more CCTV cameras in US cities than I do back home.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
According to the governments documentation on these schemes (which makes no mention of cameras, by the way) the 24 hour supervision is used when the parents are indeed one step away from having the kids taken away from them. Having the kids taken is the stick used to try and improve their behavior.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: "This is all much too little, much too late."
Between the lines:
much too little : Expect more from the next government.
much too late : Expect it soon.
>>>welfare state created them that is total bullshit.
Is it?
I am currently being paid the equivalent of $14 an hour to sit on my butt doing nothing, and that unemployment benefit will last one-and-a-half years. Basically the State is "encouraging" me to be a slothful bum.
Fortunately I would rather be working which is why I'm still actively looking (plus it pays about three times more money), but it would be very very easy to just sit back, do nothing, and collect my $14/hour checks from my Democrat President and Congress.
The welfare states *does* create the lifestyle.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Two words tell you everything you need to know about this story:
Sunday Express.
Move on. Nothing to see here. And, Slashdot, for God's sake... please check your sources in future rather than the random cranks.
For those who don't know, imagine that bit in Men in Black where Tommy Lee Jones checks the papers for "information"... one of those would be the Sunday Express.
It looks like violent crimes are down over the last 15 years:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/10/it_is_an_almighty_embarrassmen.html
But, the 10 years before that seem to have seen a huge climb, such that it is only back down to roughly the original levels of ~|25 years ago:
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/security/key_facts.asp
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No it isn't. Chavs are chavs because of how they act. Just admit it, you live in Islington, you've only ever seen them on TV.
That internet mind reading device you bought - did you keep the receipt?
Except they have. To be considered for this scheme they need to be last chance cases.
You might also read some of the things I posted about the G8 protests & the arrest of the power station proters near Nottingham. After that you can apologise or shut up.
Odd definition of basement - the view seems rather too good. Want to accuse me of going to Eton, just to be completely wrong? Nonce.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."