Britain is the World's Surveillance Leader 640
hax0r_par writes "It seems that in Britain, surveillance on the general public is happening and being recorded 24/7. They are playing the angle that this is allowing for criminal surveillance, which seems justified by the article. But it really is something to take into paranoid consideration now that we've got the technology to make this possible."
Seems to be part of the British Psyche (Score:1, Interesting)
I blame it on our repressed sexual desires, and thus our need to be voyeurs.
Sorry but Monaco has always been the champion (Score:4, Interesting)
I know that to keep the dialogue alarmist, they mention that ONLY the UK has been a victim of the 1984 school of thought (hey, Tony Blair's socialism is very social hey?! The Torries would have never been allowed this. Oh well, good one Tony.)
Welcome to the prison without bars (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And the best of it is (Score:1, Interesting)
No, but it helped catch them afterwards!
Cameras yes,but.... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you send an international fax or do an call, you can be sure it will be scanned. Yeah.
(btw Due to this practice, some american corps filed patends that had the same writing errors as internal documents of european corps, which were only faxed between company locations....)
Re:americanisation (Score:3, Interesting)
There used to be two types of larceny in English law Grand and Petit. These legal terms are no longer used, but the term "petty larceny" still pops up in conversation.
Good or bad ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this a good thing or not ? Thats the difficult question. There is such a fine line between civil liberties and fighting crime, if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you are supposed to have nothing to fear, but then you don't have to be breaking the law to want people to not find out where you are and what you are doing - it depends on who has access to the information and how it can be used
Personally, I think overall I like the CCTV cameras. They are quite popular here in Britain, mostly helped by big cases that attracted a lot of media attention that have been solved and people caught all thanks to CCTV, (Jamie Bulger etc). Do we have to sacrifice some smaller parts of freedom to live in a more secure society ? possibly, yes. It would be great if we could trust everyone, but unfortunately we can't. Don't forget what freedom really is, the freedom to vote for our political leaders, express our opionions freely, live wherever you like, travel wherever you like, set up business, trade, have children, not have children, cover ourselves in baby oil and rub up and down
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
With so many cameras, I doubt there is the manpower or the interest for someone to look at them all, only the ones that are really relevent - where a crime or suspicious behaviour has already been reported. After this the cameras are simply pointing out the facts of the situation, and are we really that afraid of facts and consequences of our actions (if those actions are illegal or suspicious)?
Yes, but someone is always looking at some of the cameras, and when they are, who's to say what they're looking at? Are they just leering at tits and ass (as one earlier NYT article reported) or stalking certain individuals just for the juvenile fun of it, or are they seriously ignoring everything else and just paying attention to violence and thievery?
And if the cameras aren't a bad thing, then why don't they put some webcams up with a view of the guys watching the cameras, so that interested persons (like all of those civil liberties groups) can take a look at them? If they can look at us to make sure that we're keeping in line and doing what we're supposed to, then why can't we make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to?
At the moment I feel that I trust the British government enough that this is an acceptable situation, look at the impact the congestion charges (and enforcement cameras) have had on London traffic for example.
Is it the cameras or just the expense? If there was a $9 toll at every entrance and exit to New York City, I'm sure that would cut down on their congestion problems, too. People in the neighboring states already complain about how much it costs just to get to New York City with all the local tolls along the way. If there was a $9 toll on top of that, they just wouldn't go.
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
You trust the government at the moment. Well, that's nice. What about the next government which you don't trust. I guess they'll just go and remove all the cameras then since you don't trust them.
And also, why do you cite the conjestion charges? They were implemented by Ken Livingston, who was voted in despite the Labour party rigging their internal elections so he wouldn't run under their name. He was in fact kicked out of the party as a result of running for (and becoming) tha Mayor (reinstated now, since it makes the Labour party look good to have a guarnteed winning candidate). So your example of a good government which you trust with speed cameras is actually something independend of the government set up by someone expelled from the ruling party.
Well, I'm glad you trust that. I don't.
Difficulty of securing a conviction (Score:4, Interesting)
The extremely pro-defendant legal system in the UK makes it _very_ hard to get a conviction for a violent crime such as assault without the use of these cameras. This is a very important factor. Even _with_ the cameras it is still probably harder to get rid of eg the local mugger in the UK than in the US.
So, we see here how a liberal law (making it hard for the police to convict someone for 'just being a scumbag') actually leads to an authoritarian situation when the need comes to make the system actually work.
Not that I particularly object to the cameras, compared to some other Blair-era changes to the UK system...
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
As in most things, there are two sides to this issue.
Side 1. More cameras don't bother me. When will people realize that what they do in public is in the public domain? It is merely the fact that a person isn't physically there viewing you, but viewing you through a remote connection. What is the difference between that, and if the person were physically there?
To put it another way, if you're on a public beach reading a book, would you feel as if your privacy was being invaded because others might look at that book and know what you're reading? In order that your privacy be maintained, does the beach really have to be empty? Conversely, if the beach is crowded is your privacy more compromised somehow than if it were empty, because more people can see what you like to read?
Of course not...read a book in public, the public will know what you're reading. If you don't want people to know what you're doing, don't do it in public.
If you think cameras mounted around town is the worst "invasion" technology has to offer...just wait. We already have cameras so small they fit in a pair of eyeglasses--in the next hundred years I wouldn't be surprised to see people having devices such as cameras and phones implanted in their bodies. A camera embedded in the eye with a terabyte flash drive could record a lot of video--all day, every day. That means, if I have such an implanted device and I stroll into the men's locker room at the local health club, I could record what I see and open a peep show porno site. Anyone could.
Our ideas will undoubtedly change about privacy. If there's another person around, in the not-too-far-off future, I believe you will have to acquiesce that what they see the world may potentially see.
Side 2. More cameras create a power imbalance. While it is true that the purpose of the cameras is for good, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. One must be wary of keeping a proper power balance so that, should someone on the power side decide to misuse their access, they would still be limited to the realm of the reasonable.
For instance, does our Constitution favor the individual over the government, or the other way around? Does the Bill of Rights protect the rights of government and guarantee certain powers and inalienable rights to the government? Do criminals have to prove their innocence, or even show a preponderance of the evidence? (The answer to that last one is: neither--the state has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a much higher standard than a simple preponderance of the evidence.)
Why is there an inherent mistrust of government and authority built into our founding document? It is because the Founding Fathers were wise in knowing that nameless, faceless organizations take what they can get and use it to the full extent possible. This is not to place a value judgment on such behavior, it is simply a fact of life because governments, like all organizations consisting of people, include lots of different people with lots of different views on what is and what is not ok. Agreement must be, to some extent, forced upon them when it comes to the invariants of the social contract.
Do cameras everywhere rise to the level of creating a significant power imbalance between the individual and the state? I'm not sure...I see the usefulness of cameras used by private business (banks, convenient stores) and I do not yet feel they've invaded my privacy. Then again, private businesses are owned by individuals, which are usually not organizations that can extend the reach of a government.
Your mobile phone is watching you (Score:4, Interesting)
Have a look, for instance, at ChildLocate.co.uk [childlocate.co.uk]
Some more links:3 96,00.html [timesonline.co.uk]
0 3,1101683,00.html [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-859
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,69
http://www.followus.co.uk/ [followus.co.uk]
The cameras aren't necessarily the right way (Score:5, Interesting)
I chased him about 600 meters but he ran into a dark council estate and was not that stupid, the guy still had a knife/friends and I had neither.
The police came. Lots of them. Ordinary bobbies and 5 pairs of CID. I retraced the route. There were 10 CCTV camera along the route that I chased him, and NONE of them were pointing the right way to capture this guy, over 600m. The only footage was from a Sainsburies private CCTV that he ran in front of. The police say Camden is one of the most surveilled areas in London.
Just not that bit.
Re:Actually there are checks in GB (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that, if you do that, the authorities state that you are not cooperating. They automatically deny a settlement, and you have to go before a police judge. Unless you supply overwhelming evidence - you are considered guilty by default, and you have to prove you're not - you will receive a much steeper fine and a criminal record.
So you have the right to get the records, but you are paying dearly if you exercize it.
All rights in theory, none in practice.
Trafficmaster (Score:3, Interesting)
This private company has erected thousands of cameras on blue poles on major roads around the UK. They scan the number plates of cars, and (allegedly) strip off the leading and trailing alpha-numeric, encrypt the result, and transmit it to a central computer. This can make an statistical analysis of the congestion based om the time for a car to pass two cameras.
How can one be sure that the system has not been compromised by the security services?
Re:Pity that the brits gave up their arms.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It Was The Mark Thomas Comedy Project (Score:1, Interesting)
- Did you see Mark Thomas last night?
- No, was it any good?
- Yeah, I videoed it if you want to borrow it.
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
During this years peace rally, for some reason the cameras in central london stopped workign for the duration...
this served 2 purposes IMHO..
1, makes it easier for the government to tell us only 500k attended (even police put it at over 1 million),
2, no footage to support any potential claims of police aggression.
Most people like them (Score:4, Interesting)
Now you can argue about whether the population is naive, or misled. But you also have to wonder about what democracy means.
Are the cameras worth anything ? (Score:5, Interesting)
There were two camera filming them. I also photographed them with my camera phone. I reported the problem to a station worker, who was not interested in dealing with it, so I reported it to British transport police (after 3 failed attempts, but that's another story about law enforcement in
After a week, they came back to me and said that they were unable to take any action as the footage from the CCTV wasn't clear enough to ensure that the people I took the picture of were actually the people throwing the bottle.
This is the second or third time I've seen CCTV fail miserably.
Re:Only when I'm in public (Score:3, Interesting)
I get the impression that the majority of people who vehemently oppose surveillance cameras live in nice, affluent suburbs lined with picket fences and friendly neighbours. How nice for you.
Tell you what, try living in an inner-city hell-hole, where you are in constant fear of being attacked. You think car bombs outside police stations are something that only happens in Iraq and not in the UK? Think again [icnetwork.co.uk]. You try living in an area where people think it's fun to throw hand-grenades [bbc.co.uk] through your windows. The fact is, survey after survey shows that people who live in high-crime areas in the UK welcome CCTV - it reassures them and makes them feel safer. Perhaps if you had to live here too, you might feel different?
The fact is, in Britain we don't have a history of being quite so paranoid about the government as our US cousins. We don't feel the need to carry guns or spend the weekend in militias training to overthrow the government. Most of us realise that the majority of CCTV cameras are not even watched (they merely record footage that can then be referenced in the event of a crime). We are not so ego-centric as to think that anyone would even be particularly interested in watching a pixelated image of us walking to the shop to buy a pint of milk. We have long reconciled ourselves to the fact that liberty and freedom are never absolute because if they we would live in a state of anarchy and mob rule. Oh, and we enjoy reading about the dumbasses caught on camera [bbc.co.uk], too :)
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was in high school, a teacher did an exercise with us. A person walked into the classroom screaming, and "hit" the teacher (a fake punch). The teacher fell down, and the guy ran out of the room. The teacher then stood up and said, "Now write down what you just saw, including a description of the other guy". There were 30 students in the classroom, and none of them wrote an accurate description of him. To prove the point, the guy came back in, and everyone read their descriptions of him to him.
Most people are terrible witnesses, unless they are focused on details rather than reacting to the situation. Almost nobody focuses on details of the person.
Re:Actually there are checks in GB (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, I've seen a lot of traffic james - when I lived in Clapham Junction, for example, in the mornings I'd regularly beat the bus walking to the station (10 minutes walk, give or take) even when starting out at exactly the same time (ie it was right there when I started walking), but my overall experience couldn't be more different than yours.
a toll that's really not that great compared to parking charges
That's a good point, and one I've not seen made before - parking fees in Central London are *insane*. You can easily pay 4 or 5 times the congestion charge to park for a day, depending on the area.
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
James
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
The masts are centered on trouble spots. My experience is that trouble actually doesn't tend to happen away from those spots (otherwise the other places would be the trouble spots!). About 6 months ago I was involved in a fight leaving a pub in my north-east England town. Just as I had managed to flip my attacker over and get on top of him a police car pulled up a few feet away and the fight quickly stopped. This was about 60 seconds after the fight started. Without CCTV that kind of response time would never have been possible, and I would've had the chance to sit on the guys chest and lay into him for a few minutes.
It depends on your point of view whether you think CCTV was a good thing in this case, but it did break the fight up quickly causing minimum damage to both parties and involving no hospitals or courts, which is much more convenient for society.
Re:Not Cutting Violent Crime (Score:3, Interesting)
They _could_ be, perhaps. But, in reality, they're either sitting in control rooms eating donuts, or standing by the side of the road with laser speed guns or cameras looking for expired road tax.
Every year we have more cameras, yet the crime rates keep on going up. Cameras are just 'security theater' for the proles... the odd thing is that the lefties support them when they'll be used to round up all political opponents as soon as a truly fascist government arises here (my guess is within 20 years, the way things are going).
Re:Most people like them (Score:2, Interesting)
Ask anyone in the UK whether they would rather have a local bobby or a CCTV camera and the bobby would win every time.
Yes, it's a bad thing! (Score:5, Interesting)
And of course, when the government controls all the cameras, they can conveniently be switched off for maintenance when, say, a few hundred people are illegally held for several hours by the police on May Day. Then again, this is the government who brought you Iraq's WMD and the "Speed Kills" compaign, and which now wants to set up a national database of terrorist suspec^W^Wbiometric identity information, so of course we should trust them.
In some specific cases, cameras do work well. The congestion charging example wasn't bad, although even in that case, there have already been some quite spectacular abuses. I'd say the cameras in police traffic cars are a better example.
However, those advocating widespread use of cameras should really check the facts. We also have town centre cameras that just push crime into harder-to-police outlying distracts, without actually lowering it. We have speed cameras, which have a far from conclusive track record in increasing road safety but have raised a fortune for government and taken hundreds of thousands off the roads, with numerous local authority idiots cynically repeating the party line in spite of all the informed criticism. We have people being convicted on CCTV "camera evidence" where you can barely even see their faces. Hell, we have a small but significant number of camera operators who turn the CCTV units around to watch girls getting changed in their bedrooms.
The problem with surveillance cameras, like big national databases, is that the system is never perfect. Somehow it never quite brings the benefits it ought to, and yet the abuses (or genuine mistakes) are often widespread, and there is rarely an adequate mechanism in place to protect you if you are unfortunate enough to become a victim. All the while it costs the tax-payer a fortune and runs all the usual civil liberties risks. If Big Brother is watching us, it's about time Big Mother and Father gave him a spanking and told him to behave like a mature adult.
Some local experience (Score:2, Interesting)
That does not help the family of the old lady and crackheads' needs are so extreme that they are difficult to defer. But: there is some sense of justice; and generally the street at least *feels* safer now. There are still thefts from cars - I guess it takes something violent before the tapes are used.
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
CCTV is also frequently of such exceptionally poor quality that facial recognition is all but impossible. Typically we're shown a grainy black and white and asked if we know anyone who was wearing a dark top with a white stripe across it.
My main problem with the CCTV thing however is that most of them are staffed by private companies which are not under direct governmental control.
of courese, this does nothing to prevent crime.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Considering that the UK government will not provide (no, provide is the wrong word, release, it's our damn money) funding for adequate numbers of Police, Nurses, Dentists, Doctors, etc, then there is no chance at all of a politically unglamorous initiative like this getting the people that it needs to make it useful.
The example cited in the article has a clear lesson in it - footage from security cameras allowed the courts to successfully prosecute the criminals in this case. However, I imagine that is small comfort to the family of Mr Mittendele, as the cameras did nothing whatsoever to prevent his murder.
Think about it - airports have had dozens of security camera all over them for many years. All very useful after the fact, but they didn't do the World Trade Centre much good, did they?
Of course, we must also consider who will be holding the data from these cameras.. If the UK government's IT policies are any indicator, it will be given to EDS, Fujitsu or Capita, and so whatever system we get will be late, overbudget and largely ineffective...
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are 10,000 gun related crimes in the UK - there are 500,000 in the USA where you say "Personal ownership of fire arms is a much easier and, in my opinion, much more effective way of preventing crime".
The UK has a fifth the population of the USA yet has 50 times less gun crime.
So.. yes you are talking out of your ass.
Re:Only when I'm in public (Score:3, Interesting)
I get the impression that the majority of people who vehemently oppose surveillance cameras live in nice, affluent suburbs lined with picket fences and friendly neighbours
...so you're going to generalise. Speaking for myself, I live in inner-city Glasgow (15 years), I've previously posted in this thread about my father-in-law (lives in a Coatbridge scheme), and, for the record, prior to living in Glasgow I lived in central and North London (Hackney - you may have heard of it).
My opposition to ubiquitous CCTV is that it doesn't work. Did the police catch the car bombers you mentioned? Do cameras prevent or deter hand-grenandes being thrown through windows?
Additionally, I really don't care if my pixellated face is seen by Joe Q Security Guard. I do object to same security guard zooming in on my partner "because she's a babe", and currently I have no assurances that this doesn't happen. Who watches the watchers? I have no idea - no one will tell me.
Not been abused badly (Score:3, Interesting)
I prefer that cameras are about the place. But there is a deeper underlying social problem about why the cameras have proved so popular. People feel safer now that the cameras are there because at the end of the day they have proved to be one of the best ways to secure a proper guilty verdict for a crime that they commited. So justice is properly served.
The underlying problem comes from 2 different directions. The first comes from the problem of that spread by political correctness. The public and the police have to be so careful when dealing with yobs because the way their rights and laws are written you can hardly lay a finger on them. The best you "legally" do is to try and talking them down.
So the "legal" choice for the average member of the public is to be nice to them and understanding. Off course they can stab your guts, rip off your head and skull fuck you. Its got to the point where social services are recommending to judges [bbc.co.uk] that prison sentences should not be handed down for violent murder but given community service or fines.
If I tried to defend myself then I run the risk of being sent to prison, having my career runined and sued for endless damages. Personally I no longer care about those consequences because if someone is going to try and kill me then I will kill them straight back. I like to do deal with people based on how they treat other people.
This leads into the second problem which is the profession that was supposed to be law has turned itself into a hippocritcal mob. Basically the law profession has forgotten a mere concept called "The spirit of the law". That is to use the laws that have been passed for the intention for which they were past.
Or more the point that I am making about lawyers is that the law should be there to protect and support the vicitm. Not to be used as an excuse to take the vicitim to court and try destroy his/her life.
Now the specifics of the arguement above are a symptom of a deeper social problem more flowing from political correctness than doing what is actually right. So I come full circle back to the cameras. Politians don't mind this state of play because by using cameras the goverment are seen to be protecting people. They also like political correctness because they don't go offending anyone. So given that they encourage the apathy of the public and that in "protecting" their citizens they are sliping in an Orwellian society.
There is one comforting fact though. If anyone is caught abusing this power they will experience the social equivalent of being hung-drawn and quatered. The tabloid press in this country can be a nice balancing force at times because the people with the power still fear those wanting to publish a dirty story on them.
Re:Actually there are checks in GB (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the bulk of cameras in stores are not to catch thieving customers but to catch *employees*. There are decent gangs of shoplifters in the UK who operate by getting jobs in stores, with seemingly good qualifications, and then lifting from the till or waving accomplices through without taking payment for goods. With chain stores it's quite hard, but a lot of them are franchises, which are more easily invaded..
UK - pretty gunless (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Guns in Britain - I live here (Score:4, Interesting)
One household in a thousand had a license. The number of guns per license could be a lot larger than one, and usually was, especially amongst collectors.
"hand guns illegally smuggled in from the Carribean by drugslords"
You're thinking about miami vice; the handgun trade tends to come via the channel tunnel, it being a damn site easier to smuggle that way than 'the carribean'. Were you going to mention the 'Yardie scourge' next?
"The rise in gun crime is nearly all crimnal-on-criminal killing."
And pesky collateral damage, such as the extended shootout that took place in Aston a few months back, but you did fail to mention that holding a gun makes you a criminal under UK law. You could simply say 'human vs human' killing and still hit the same numbers.
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:UK - pretty gunless (Score:1, Interesting)
I saw FOUR armed police running across the Strand just yesterday lunchtime. If I were a terrorist I think I might dress up as a cop, strap on an Uzi and just charge right into my target - no-one would even THINK to stop you.