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Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 01, 2008 08:44 AM
from the this-sounds-familiar dept.
from the this-sounds-familiar dept.
Several readers have written to tell us that a recent move in the UK has councils relying on info from "Citizen Snoopers" to report the transgressions of their neighbors. Currently only implemented as "environment volunteers" designed to keep watch on things like litter, dog habits, and improper trash sorting, there is a certain amount of trepidation that this could grow into something more sinister. "It will fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office is extending some police powers to council staff and private security guards. Critics said the latest scheme could easily be abused and encourage a culture of bin spies and curtain twitchers. Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Snooping on your neighbors to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook.'"
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Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Insightful)
I know its fashionable to see the UK government as a bunch of closet dictators , but really this is more about money - or lack of. Rather than it being the beginning of the UKs version of the Stasi its simply a case of the government not wanting to cough up cash for real police so they hope they can fob us off with cut price gimmicks like this. They've already given us the Community Support Officer (the plastic police) which is effectively a policeman with limited powers - and crucially a lower salary , but by getting the curtain twitcher types to report on people they don't have to pay any salary.
Of course what will happen to a private civilian with no backup or weapons of any sort trying to stop or ticket some 250lb drunk lout with attitude chucking his beer can over a fence is anyones guess...
Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
They've already given us the Community Support Officer (the plastic police) which is effectively a policeman with limited powers - and crucially a lower salary
Sorry I have to beg to differ, The phrase is Glorified Traffic Warden
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I thought it was Brainless Womble
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
I like 'improper copper'.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:4)
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
"Hobby Bobby", although that's more often used for a "Special Constable"
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Informative)
Reaction to the same activity in Budapest was a major tipping point in the uprising of the late 1950's.
While it became an anti-USSR movement the initial disorder was the sometimes violent reaction to local block monitors by fed-up citizens, according to some of my friends who were there.
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Traffic Wardens? Trouble? (Score:5, Funny)
It's so people don't park on their heads.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Insightful)
It does seem to have become a Slashdot theme of late.
Something I've noticed though is that the vast majority of the "horrific loss of privacy in Britain" stories refer to proposed ideas, often by people low down in their government whose job it is to think up new ideas (whether good or - as is most often the case - bad) but few of which have yet shown any real signs of actually being implemented.
Here, Bush prefers doing these sort of things in secret and using every dirty trick in the book to keep it secret. I'd prefer to have my government announcing plans which will infringe on my privacy before they are implemented rather than them being uncovered by reporters several years in.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Informative)
"I've never understood the objections to that kind of thing. How the hell are the council supposed to do their job if they can't do something as trivial as check to see if what they say is true? Should they simply believe everything they are told?"
There are many ways that people can prove where they live without spying being a necessity. For something as trivial as a school place a utility bill, bank statement, tenancy contract etc etc should suffice.
"We're not talking about bugging people's homes or rifling though their possessions while they're out - it's watching someone in public, on the street."
Not in all cases it's not, there have been cases where the camera have been used to look into people's houses. Even so I don't like that people with no special powers or training at the council can track individuals' movements over something so trivial.
Yes, I can be seen in public by anyone. OTOH, tracking me is considered stalking when anyone else does it.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait.. Let me get this straight, your upset over people getting access to all of the camera feeds and not the fact that your life is basically the Truman show [imdb.com] because of all of the surveillance implemented in the UK now?
Here is a hint. When ever government claims something will only be used on the bad guys, eventually you become the bad guy. And if your not the bad guy, prove it by letting the government do their thing because you shouldn't have a problem with it unless you have something to hide. That is why everyone cries fowl in American. Of course it is fun to blame everything on Bush, but that only takes the focus off the congresses that enable him. And no, I don't support the if you have nothing to hide argument. I'm simply saying it gets used all to often to paint you into giving up.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right!
I was recently sent a survey from the police. It asked if I'd seen any policemen walking round recently, which I had. They wanted to know if I felt much safer, a little safer, or no safer. I crossed that out and wrote that I felt less safe -- I'd wondered what was going on that required police to be walking past my house.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Interesting)
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Surveys (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily true. A proper study design will *always* allow for this sort of input. At the very least, someone will collate any such write-ins that they get and account for them. Afterwards there's a chance that the analysts may then go ahead and decide that it's noise and disregard it, but they can only do that AFTER tallying up this and any other write-ins. IF they get a significant number of write-in answers, particularly a significant number with the same or very similar answer, the database will have to be altered to account for them, and in the report it will have to be noted that there was this unexpected response, which was statistically significant, and which might likely have been even more significant had it not required a write-in to record. The next iteration of the survey should then have that response available without a write-in.
This is the proper way to do it. I'm not saying there arent fly-by-night survey outfits that cut corners, and I'm not saying it's impossible that some of them cut this particular corner - but to do otherwise is disreputable and scientifically unsound.
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Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Informative)
Well, except stand by and watch kids drown [guardian.co.uk].
Except they didn't stand by and watch him drown, and a lot of newspapers printed apologies for saying they had. When they arrived they couldn't see the boy (http://www.septicisle.info/labels/Peaches%20Geldof.html [septicisle.info], http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1066157.ece [thesun.co.uk]). So: jump in and swim where exactly, if they can't see where he is?
Of course, "CSPO's are rubbish" makes for better sensationalism than "CSPO's do just the right thing", so you can be forgiven for missing the reporting of the fact that the original story was bogus.
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hm (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats so special? (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Michigan we also do this. If your neighbor wont cut his grass in a timely manner there is usually a municipal number you can call. The city agents will come out and issue a fine. This applies to more than grass though. Animals, noise, etc. If there it is a "private" neighborhood then you can have other things written into the charter or whatever its called for that area.
Its really only concerned with property related things though. If you see your neighbor growing pot plants, you'd have to find another number to call...
Pot Plants? (Score:5, Funny)
Growing things in pots is a transgression in Michigan?
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Get off YOUR lawn (Score:4, Informative)
Welcome to The 'Burb's [imdb.com].
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, the US does seem to have a much stronger sense of 'keep your local suburb/community respectable looking' than other countries I've lived in. (Lived in Australia, US, UK and Japan for various periods in my life)
I'm Australian by birth and the lawns here (Canberra) are mostly awful. Full of weeds, some are never mowed, most are dying because of the drought anyway.
In the US though (or at least in suburban Wisconsin and Illinois where I have been), everyone's lawn is immaculate. It's sorta freaky actually ... house after house of perfectly cut, beautifully lush green grass. First time I went there I actually said "omg, I thought it only looked like this in movies - it's actually like this??".
Whereas in Australia you can guarantee every 3rd or so house is a complete dump, old rusting cars parked out the front and piles of weeds and dirt.
This responsibility to your community extends into winter. I was interested to learn that homeowners have a ~legal obligation~ to clear snow from the sidewalk in front of their house within x hours of a snowfall, in the US. That kind of law would never, ever exist in Australia. Half of us just don't care about our yard or what it looks like.
But interestingly, in every other respect though, Australia is WAY more regulated than the US. Americans just love their lawns, I guess (and they have the climate to support growing a great one).
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why you put lawn care and snow clearing in the same category.
Lawn care is pure eye candy. It hurts nobody to let your lawn go to hell, except that it looks bad and poor weak-brained people can't withstand that.
Snow clearing is important to allow the sidewalks to remain open and functional. It's no fun to have to wade through deep snow to get to where you're going. You essentially have charge of a public pedestrian road, so it's your responsibility to keep it passable.
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Funny)
Ehm, if you fail to cut your 'grass' you get a fine, but you're suspicious when you grow pot plants?
I must say I fail to see the logic.....
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Land of the Free, where the allowable length of the grass in your yard is regulated. But as long as you don't have free public healthcare like we have here in the evil socialist countries, I guess it's okay.
I wonder if some libertarian will reply and rave about the evils of socialized healthcare while ignoring the grass-trimming regulations...
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Land of the Free, where the allowable length of the grass in your yard is regulated. But as long as you don't have free public healthcare like we have here in the evil socialist countries, I guess it's okay.
I support public healthcare, but calling it "free" is disingenuous.
And yes, the grass thing is stupid.
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Insightful)
I support public healthcare, but calling it "free" is disingenuous.
No, it's not - when people say free health care, they mean free to use, like your local library or an interstate highway.
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Funny)
Errrm.. You mean Land of the Fee.
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny?
That's bloody insightful.
Americans have a pretty bizarre idea of freedom (not to mention, a complete lack of awareness and/or understanding of the world around them)
Even the libertarians seem to have absolutely no problem outlawing abortion, regulating marriage, or giving state and local governments as much power as they please.
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Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Informative)
Ron Paul did.
The Libertarian party in the US runs on a platform of "states rights" these days, rather than true small government. Their primary concern is downsizing the federal government, and giving more power to the states.
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And this won't be missused... (Score:5, Interesting)
Like fuck it won't.
I don't like my neighbour, the dog. Yup, the neighbour didn't clean up after their dog.
Yes, they are not sorting their recycling.
This sort of shit moves society away from an open society to a society of fear. I would have thought that getting people to work together and trust each other (and deserve that trust) would be much better then getting them to mistrust and fear their neighbours.
Same sort of shit where doctors for children and podiatrists are mistaken for "paedophiles".
Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:5, Interesting)
Face it, our society is broken. (I'm British).
The place is full of busybodies and curtain twitchers, people who think they know best, the "think of the children" pro-censorship crowd, the people who fully support the government's creeping "terror" legislation (yes they exist, in droves. Only bad people fall under suspicion, remember?), reactionary anti-europeans and nationalists (I agree the EU has problems, but the "they'll never take our pound!" crowd piss me off)...
That's coupled with a government who run the country by knee-jerk and grant themselves ever more power, money and manpower, bring in badly defined bans (extreme porn anyone?) and seem to get off on stripping us of rights.
The law is out of touch with reality and with society; though if it actually reflected the people we'd all be in trouble too, hanging would be back in a week. OTOH if the law was actually sensible and the government stopped their weekly crackdowns on freedom then more people might start to respect it and not just break the law and disregard everyone else. Currently the attitude seems to be "Everything's iullegal, so I'll just do what the hell I like when I think I have a chance not to be caught".
No politician has the balls to do what needs to be done though (legalise drugs, review speed limits, take away hundreds of little pieces of legislated social engineering, castrate and massively cull the public sector), so IMHO we're fucked.
Frankly I'm getting the hell out of here.
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Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember a time when I actually believed we lived in an enlightened time, a time where tolerance and liberal ideals were being enacted - equality for women and people of different ethnicities and gay people.
And I look around now and I see growing intolerace, authoritarianism.
Where once I saw a news report about North Korea where it seemed shocking that they couldn't use a public phone box without fear of being listened in on by their government, I see that now I live in a country that spies on my email contacts and who I'm in touch with over the phone and what websites I visit (and so technically what newspapers I may read and where my political sympathies may lie).
I wonder how long it'll be before we get the formation of the first Anti-Sex League?
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Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh for fuck's sake.
Just because something is broken doesn't mean it's the worst place on the planet. Did I say that? Did I say that it was worse than Somalia?
No. I didn't.
I said it was broken. Broken compared to how it could/should be and in some ways compared to how it used to be (though by all accounts the place has always had its curtain twitching busybodies).
"It's just an insult to the people living in countries that *are* broken to use this term for the UK."
Not in my opinion. I would use the term "totally fucked", or in the case of Somalia "not really a country".
What is an insult (to intelligence) is your arbitrary attempt on restriction of use of language based on an emotional response. You're exhibiting the same thinking that people use to justify or suppress discussion of torture of terror suspects "other people are worse". The word broken is perfectly appropriate, IMHO.
TBH the main reason I'm leaving is the weather anyway, but the government, the media and the populace are making it much easier.
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Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, "twitchers" are bird watching hobbyists.
However "curtain twitchers" are people that watch what their neighbours are doing. The term comes about because you know you're being watched when you turn around and see their curtain moving where they've seen you turning around to look in their direction and let it fall back in place to hide themselves.
Basically people with nothing better to do but gossip and watch other people to make sure they're behaving properly (and provide ammunition for further gossiping). Usually old people, watching out of a gap in the curtains.
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Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Police don't do anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't worry. I have a drug house in front of mine. That means we get a lot of vandalism, theft, noise, car crashes, and a loss of sleep at night. So I bought a top of the line camera ($2500) to catch the action and turn it into the police. They like the pretty pictures of the drugs and cash trading hands, but after a few months, the drug house is still going strong:
http://rs6.risingnet.net/~dattaway/shame [risingnet.net]
Here's the Axis network webcam for you to play with (you'll quickly find out I'm in the USA where bandwidth SUCKS!)
http://www.dattaway.net/ [dattaway.net]
Big Brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, perhaps some people need to read 1984 again. By the time people start "informing" on one another, Big Brother is already here. "Lurching"? More like "Arrived".
Britain is lost behind an iron curtain of it's own making.
Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's sad when people can't behave responsibly without being snooped upon, whether it's the police or neighbours.
Re:Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
i think it's sad that there are legions of people willing to report each other to the authorities over pretty much nothing.
And laws? We have too many, and the more the petty laws are enforced on normal people (especially with most in the UK seem to think the police are woefully inadequate at dealing with "real" crime) the more people will get pissed off and start to ignore the law completely.
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already happening (Score:5, Interesting)
I purchased a car a few months ago.
It didn't have any tax when I got it.
I had it parked on the side of the road for 2 days whilst I was waiting for my insurance documents to come through so that I can get tax (it's impossible to get tax without insurance).
I was in a catch 22 situation, it was impossible for me to get tax.
Anyhow, one of my neighbours dutifully phoned up the DVLA (a government agency) who promptly clamped my car and gave me a £200 fine which I payed promptly.
A few weeks later I received another letter from the DVLA this time threatening to fine me £83 for not licensing my vehicle or they were going to take me to court.
I'm going to go to court as I hope that the judge will see that they put me in an impossible situation (but I expect I'll probably end up having to pay an even larger fine)
How a journalist can spin something.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"In Hampshire, Eastleigh council wants locals to 'monitor local environmental quality' and report 'issues' involving recycling and waste."
If you take the single quotes out and read it without your tin foil hat on there's nothing to object to. It's just the council asking for people to report problems which they'll then look into. Surely every local government in the world does that.
In Communist Britain? (Score:4, Interesting)
My parents recently returned from a trip that included visiting Croatia and Serbia. One of the things that touched them the most was the tall, gray, nondescript cement block apartment buildings that stretched for miles and miles, built by the fascist communist government. In these dreary buildings, the interior walls were intentionally built thinner than usual. It was not only for cost reasons, however... it is said that over 50% of people eavesdropped on and informed on their neighbors to the communist government, and the paper-thin walls made it so that people had to constantly whisper for fear of being overheard.
Re:In Communist Britain? (Score:4, Interesting)
it is said that over 50% of people eavesdropped on and informed on their neighbors to the communist government, and the paper-thin walls made it so that people had to constantly whisper for fear of being overheard.
My parents were from that generation. Despite the fact that they had moved to a new continent and that Tito was long dead, politics, even American politics, was always discussed in hushed tones. And then, never over the telephone.
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Fabulous prizes to be won! (Score:4, Funny)
Only for the proles (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no duty to recycle (Score:4, Insightful)
The core of the problem is there is no duty to recycle. No one sees a problem with neighbor reporting a murder, yet you seem to see a problem with neighbor reporting failure to recycle.
The problem is not with the denunciation per se, but the fact that the law is unjust, and the sole result of a coercive monopoly on trash collection, aided by an ecological agenda undermining individual freedom.
You should have screamed when recycling became mandatory, you should have screamed at the monopoly on roads and trash collection.
Obviously the danger with these schemes is that the government will push more unjust law, and use its own citizens to report on other's violations.
The only way this works is because people have a false reverence towards the state, they believe that by making law, it has the power to make just what is unjust, and unjust what is just.
From experience, most people on Slashdot have a good intuition, nevertheless when pressed a little they fall back on a positivist view of law, giving governments the authority to define what is and is not a crime for example. Sad.
Re:There is no duty to recycle (Score:4, Insightful)
Why shouldn't there be a duty to recycle? Have two bins and take the extra minute a week to bring it out, throw your cans and bottles in there.
I'm all for less government intervention, but as things go this is pretty tame. And that's without going into the benefit of recycling.
And you have a logical fallacy; there's no 'obviously' about using citizens to report on other's violations. That's intellectually dishonest to suggest.
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Switzerland (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Unpaid volunteers (Score:4, Interesting)
No. In many cases volunteers are paid expenses and, perhaps, a small stipend. (Depending on the organisation, job, etc.)
Not to mention, if you're in a volunteer army, presumably you are being paid (just don't volunteer for anything else, you'll get paid the same rate, and you'll face more danger).
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Re:Unpaid volunteers (Score:4, Funny)
A lot of people would actually pay for the opportunity to legally harass their neigbours, so I think the councils aren't even close to what they could have done, after all, they'll need a lot of money to staff their soon to be overwhelmed homicide divisions.
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