UK Police Now Double As CCTV Cameras 161
First time accepted submitter Voxol writes "From the international capital of CCTV cameras now comes the latest innovation: always-on police-mounted night-vision capable cameras. 'I can't imagine that there is any downside to having such an invaluable piece of kit like this on hand' say police."
Meanwhile In Soviet Russia (Score:4, Interesting)
All russian police cars got equipped with cameras.
Aimed inwards.
(At least there is an insight in, and admission of police corruption there)
EASY steps (Score:3, Interesting)
This is worth repeating, there are easy steps to reducing surveillance of your personal life:
I've moved my stuff off Google,Hotmail and Yahoo. I never used Facebook or the others on the list. You should too. It's the simplest easiest way of removing PRISM rights from the NSA.
To take yourself off the phone graph, use multiple prepay phones (not just cards), use one for home/private use one for work/business use one for girlfriend etc. Don't mix them up and don't use them repeatedly in the same location. Leave each phone is a single location is the easiest method of breaking the location test. Have a dodgy friend whose always spouting anger at [anything]? Best avoid talking too much to him on the phone.
The Internet surveillance is far more problematic. Watch what you say online, what for words that can be used against you. Be aware of people who try to take language to the extreme, they're no different than agent-provocateurs planting drugs on protestors. By adding extreme comments to this forum, they gave the NSA the right to dig into every Slashdot users mail as a potential terrorist. Be aware of that game and avoid joining in.
Re:Oops - wire must have come loose. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it still leaves room for doubt, doubt that previously was much harder to place. If we assume the police are deliberately using (for example) scheduled maintenance windows to commit brutality, and the suspect is not aware the camera is disabled, then due to Bayesian reasoning we can say with certainty that the officer is more likely to be lying even when there's a legitimate technical failure. (Although we have no way of knowing how much more likely without a lot of data that has not yet been made and, anyway, wouldn't be obtainable.)
Obviously there are other factors at work like judgement of character, but the mere fact that the officer would be more confident in being able to get away with brutality should make even legitimate reasons cause a heightened suspicion.
Re:Oops - wire must have come loose. (Score:3, Interesting)
Which would lead one to wonder, are there really fewer assaults on officers, or is the BS charge of assaulting an officer no longer an option for dealing with "contempt of cop".
Not new, police have had similar cameras for years (Score:4, Interesting)
The only news here is that they've started using them in Melton (a medium size town in the Midlands) and presumably the tech has improved.
Re:Oops - wire must have come loose. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure about that. Judging by Hillsborough, De Menezes and Tomlinson, the courts never confuse suspicion with evidence, and are happy to accept almost any account, provided enough police officers deliver an identical version of it (even down to the punctuation, which just shows how well they're trained). Where the absence of video is concerned, the simultaneous and comprehensive failure of CCTV cameras in a given radius (which may, in London, be a few dozen) has become so commonplace in cases where police misconduct is alleged that it's hardly grounds for suspicion.
In any case, the courts rarely get involved until years later, if at all. In England and Wales, we have an Independent Police Complaints Commission, which deals with all such cases, and which is firmly on the side of justice. Where upsetting incidents occur, the IPCC's job is to issue a press release, an hour or so before any complaint, setting out the results of their inquiry. If an investigation is, despite that, still needed, they usually outsource it to the police force in question, who are better placed to know exactly what they want to have happened. This not only produces quicker results, but insures against the further waste of public money in the courts. It is a system that, bar a few high-profile cases pursued by especially persistent mobs of bereaved troublemakers, has served them all very well for many years.