London Police Seek To Install CCTV In Pubs 293
JCWDenton writes "The Met Police got a short sharp rap over the knuckles yesterday, as the Office of the Information Commissioner questioned what looks very much like a blanket
policy to force CCTV onto public houses in certain parts of London. The story begins with a letter to the Guardian last week, from Nick Gibson. He is currently renovating Islington pub The Drapers Arms, after its previous owners allowed it to go insolvent and then disappeared. In his letter, he argues that if he had merely taken over an existing licence, the police could not have imposed any additional conditions. However, because this was now a new licence, the police were able to make specific requests, including one particular request in respect of installing CCTV."
Follow the letter of their request... (Score:3, Interesting)
Install the camera, but switch off its power-supply, or spray-paint the lense, or...
You get the idea. As long as their wording is so vague as to simply stipulate "install... a camera" it seems pretty simple to me.
'Course its trickier if they're more specific about the camera's operation, data connections, power-supply, etc.
saw that done (Score:2, Interesting)
They did that to a pub in my town (UK) once. Granted it was a really dodgy pub that most people avoided.
The result though was not only did the known nasty types stop going there, no-one else wnet there either, because we knew there were cameras in it.
Its since closed and reoppened under new ownership, a gay bar I beleive, sans cameras. I suspect the change in customer focus is because even though its almost ten years later, its still remembered by most as the pub that had cctv everywhere.
Re:Follow the letter of their request... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is ... a good thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Total times CCTV coverage in the UK has been abused in some Orwellian circle-jerk fantasy like people are always warning it is:
Really? That's interesting because another forum I'm a member of happens to have someone who's likely to lose his job tomorrow because a store manager handed over CCTV footage in breach of the law.
Granted, what I'm saying is third-hand anecdotal evidence on a website like /. so it's probably not something you want to take as gospel truth - but perhaps if anyone else knows of similar examples it might illustrate that CCTV, like all tools, is open to abuse.
Re:saw that done (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not exactly unusual for pubs to have CCTV, like anonymous, I call BS.
you did post... (Score:4, Interesting)
The row comes a week after a House of Lords report stated that the steady expansion of the "surveillance society" risked undermining fundamental freedoms including the right to privacy.
Peers said that Britain, with an estimated 4m CCTV cameras in use, had constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world in the name of combating terrorism and crime and improving administrative efficiency.
However, the cross-party committee warned that "pervasive and routine" electronic surveillance was almost taken for granted adding that privacy is an "essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom".
Lord Goodlad, the former Conservative chief whip and committee chairman, said that there could be no justification for this gradual but incessant creep towards every detail about an individual being recorded and pored over by the state.
"The huge rise in surveillance and data collection by the state and other organisations risks undermining the long-standing traditions of privacy and individual freedom which are vital for democracy," he said.
Well, undeniably the UK has slowly let itself become dominated by the mentality that maintaining a grid of CCTV cameras is the answer to reducing 'crime' and 'terrorism', and constantly stoking those fears in the public to allow for this 'creep' against personal privacy.
Funny when one looks at the statistics, but being that so many, many more people die of preventable car accidents and of heart attacks from eating too much junk food, why is it that the same expenditures aren't lavished on those areas?
Simple.
Arguably, there are many who sense that it has little to do with protecting the lives of citizens, but rather far more to do with the government jealously guarding its symbol of 'authority' and not wanting to lose face... If the goverment's mission was to truly protect the constituency (rather than its own authority), I imagine a lot of things would be done differently.
There is such a thing as the amount of acceptable risk one takes by doing everyday things like going to a pub, walking in the street and such. It is very telling, however, that these sorts of ideas are constantly being floated by the police, as in the example of some UK clubs having to submit an application form in advance listing the names and addresses of the artists and performers scheduled to appear, as well as style of music, in order to be allowed to have dance music event without being shut down.
Death by a thousand paper cuts of bureaucracy, which in the end doesn't truly prevent anything, but most certainly sets an aura of hysteria around every aspect of everyday life.
Z.
Re:1984 (Score:1, Interesting)
Being able to stop them in the act (like putting police on the beat) is a good way to stop that sort of crime.
But that would involve taking money away from ethnic-minority-outreach days, women in policing events, vital paperwork and CCTV maintenance and operation! It would undermine the very basis of modern British policing.
Why do I feel like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Our countries agenda seems to mostly be simple, business at all cost, with a good dose of racism (terrorists!), protectivism (teh fearz!) and homophobia, masqueraded naturally as Gods will (OMG! they wantz deh pinux!).
It's almost like you're over there trying to make me feel better, but I know enough to know you're as intelligent and concerned about your rights as we are.
Re:1984 (Score:1, Interesting)
How, exactly, does having cameras cure drunkenness or stop violence criminal damage resulting from it? So they've got video of the acts. BFD unless they apprehend the people. And even if they do, the violence has already occurred.
Wouldn't it be better to, you know, attack the source of the actual problems by requiring pubs to stop serving customers before they get so drunk (and putting them up on charges and/or revoking their license if they serve them anyway), and to put more police on the street on Friday or Saturday nights after midnight?
Cameras are a cheap way to give people a false sense of security and to move the crimes somewhere there aren't cameras. What does that solve?
1984 - True nature of power... (Score:2, Interesting)
"1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale NOT an instruction manual!"
1984 was a cautionary tale about the true nature of power. Most people don't seek power, so its a cautionary tale for most people. But for the minority of people who are so driven to seek power over other people; they don't need an instruction manual. Their core psychological behavior defines why they behave the way the do. People who seek power over others, almost by definition seek to control other people, so they seek to remove choices from the people they gain power over. They tell us its for our own good to help us. But its not, its to help them. They personally gain at the expense of others as they gain ever more control.
The people who seek power are seeking to become the political elite ruling over all others. Their goal is power and all that power brings them. But what they tell us is very different. The never ending myth and sales pitch of the political elite is that we can vote out anyone we don't like. Which on the surface appears true but it hides a problem. While we can remove anyone we feel is treating others unfairly, the problem is everyone who seeks political power is seeking power over others, so seeking to remove power from others for their own gain and so they are all behaving the same. All driven by the same underlying psychological behavior.
The 1984 book takes this underlying psychological behavior and shows how bad it can get, if no one stands in opposition to the desires of the people who seek power over other people. That is exactly what is happening now. The desire to seek power over others undermines Democracy. That is why every generation has to defend the ideals of Democracy otherwise we loose true democracy as the personal gain of the minority in power reduces the majority they rule over into a subjugated way of life. Which is exactly what is happening now.
Political parties move and behave like slime molds where the members of the slime mold don't know the actions of all the others members, but they all share something in common, which makes them move together. They move in a mass towards anything they desire. A slime mold desires food but what feeds political parties is any way that gives them more power.
Re:1984 (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you seriously believe this? citation [dailymail.co.uk]
to be made available to them upon request (Score:2, Interesting)
The important thing here is "to be made available to them upon request".
Recommending the pub install CCTV is sensible advice from the police. Many pubs here use CCTV for their own (valid) reasons, including protecting staff. To some extent literally, as a deterrent, but also to be able to prove what happened in the event of legal dispute - who punched first, the customer or the doorman?
However doing this via the licensing application is not a method of giving advice. It is where formal requirements go. Licensing boards are extremely powerful, it is extremely difficult to fight them, and for a sole proprietor rejection can lead to bankruptcy.
But still, requiring the premises to use CCTV isn't that terrible. It is reasonable to require a security policy and while the policy should be considered as a whole, if you're going to take shortcuts, CCTV is a very common component of a security policy.
But what is disturbing is adding the requirement that the CCTV be made available to the police on request, effectively creating a contractual obligation that bypasses the legal protections such as requiring a warrant. It would be interesting to consider what the situation is regarding this kind of information: is the need for a warrant a restriction placed on police (i.e. they can ONLY demand it with a warrant, hence trying to contract the obligation on the landlord is an illegal term and hence void) or is the warrant worded as a police power (in which case any contractual obligation would be valid and binding).
The situation is entirely different depending on whether the police are able to demand the information, or whether they require the approval of another person of trust to that information (i.e. the landlord or judge).
The Information Commissioner makes some good comments in the article however I think he should spend more of his time emphasising that anyone collecting information is a custodian of that information and hence responsible for it. If some company loses my credit card details, why are they not sued for negligence when my card is abused? Why should the store suffer when they were presented with perfectly valid information by a criminal, so had no reason to suspect foul play?
Re:1984 (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that we have really strong cannabis here.
Hah, the cannabis in the UK is potentially the same strength as cannabis in any other country (with equivalent climates), though most of the cannabis on the black market is often weaker than it could be due to the actions of law enforcement and the consequences of cannabis being illegal.
You are just parroting the bollocks that the prohibitionists speak. Fuck knows what idiot modded you up!
Due to cannabis having been the illegal for about 2 generations now, there have been selectively bred strains of cannabis developed which are indeed much stronger than naturally occurring cannabis, that are adapted for growth indoors, etc..
The line that the cannabis available nowadays is much stronger in the 60s is bollocks. In the 60s and 70s the vast majority of cannabis available in the UK was hashish, Moroccan, Lebanese etc.. Hashish is made by collecting the resins from the surface of the female cannabis flowers, and pure hashish can be maybe 80% or 90% THC, the active ingredient.
As time went on, hashish got cut more and more with adulterants, lowering the strength and making it much more profitable for people selling it (remember it is illegal - no enforceable quality controls). In the UK now you rarely can get real hashish, and the stuff solid as resin is usually known as soapbar - the general consensus is that it contains ground up cannabis plants (flowers, leaves, stems and all), something to dye it dark like henna or coffee, and an oily product like turpentine to give it a bit of a sheen. There are lots of rumours of other stuff that goes into it too to bulk up the weight, such as tyres or dog shit! Soapbar is maybe 5% THC at the very most, but more like 1 or 2%.
As a consequence of hashish turning to shit and law enforcement crack downs on smuggling people in the UK looked more and more at growing here, and herbal cannabis became much more popular. Basically people started to smoke the whole flowers of the female cannabis plant (with tobacco, as is customary in most of Europe) rather than products made from the flowers. Skunk simply refers to any variety or cannabis that has been selectively bred for strength, as they very often are much smellier than natural cannabis varieties. Killer skunk is a myth made up to sell newspapers and to get politicians and law enforcement power. The percentage of THC in even the strongest strains of skunk is only up to 15% or so, significantly less than what was available on the black market in the past.
As time has gone on, the quality of herbal cannabis has gone down too - look up gritweed. Also the major black market suppliers focus on growing the plants with the biggest amounts of saleable bud, not on strength. They choose varieties that produce the largest amounts of plant matter, and as it is a black market quality counts for very little. 70+ years of cannabis prohibition means that most cannabis users are grossly under-informed about what is good or bad weed.
Someone high on that can be very dangerous. I tell you what, you come over here and ask the gang of youths at the back of the bus to turn their mobile phone MP3 players off and stop stinking up the bus with their joints and see how quickly the situation turns ugly.
Now you just sound like an old man. "Kids with their music, smelly skunk.... I'm going to write to the Daily Mail".
Maybe if you approached them with the right attitude it wouldn't be a problem? More than likely they are just twats who would give you shit no matter what state they are in though, but stoned (only) people tend to not actually be very hostile.
I can assure you that the kind of kids that sit on buses smoking will also have been drinking too, maybe have had a line as well or are buzzing from some amphetamine, or have been chugging redbull all day too.
There are problems in society, but don't just blame cannabis. You sound seriously ignorant when you do so.
Re:Cameras don't help catch people (Score:4, Interesting)
My hunch is that the cameras serve more as Orwellian ever-seeing eye. If people believe the CCTVs can actually track them, then it's irrelevant whether, technically, they can or not. Remember, not even in 1984 could the State really watch everyone all the time, but as long as everyone believed that at any moment the State could look in on them, that was enough.
Rather ironic that modern British government is so inspired by one of its greatest writer's greatest fears about where the world could go. What's more ironic is that so few Britons seem to even see that irony.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Interesting)
This "strong cannabis" argument is fucking retarded. Do you think drunk drivers who stick to beer are less dangerous ?
I'm sure it's true that cannabis today is stronger than in the 60s/70s but so what ? People will carry on taking a drug until they obtain the effect they are looking for, so back then they probably sat around smoking joint after joint until they were properly fucked up. Now they only need a few tokes to get properly fucked up - the main difference is they are causing less damage to their lungs.
Re:Follow the letter of their request... (Score:2, Interesting)