George Orwell Was Right — Security Cameras Get an Upgrade

Jamie stopped to mention that Bloomberg is reporting on a recent addition of speakers to public security cameras in Middlesbrough, England. From the article: "`People are shocked when they hear the cameras talk, but when they see everyone else looking at them, they feel a twinge of conscience and comply,' said Mike Clark, a spokesman for Middlesbrough Council who recounted the incident. The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight outside bars."

V says...

"People sould not fear their governments, governments should fear their people."

Re:V says...

Good movie, but credit where it's due, they're paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson. "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. "

Re:V says...

If you live in a democratic state, I'd say they are.

I smell a cliché clueless american.

Re:V says...

And maybe that's why the video cameras will be going down !

The bigger question is...

Will people who flip the bird at the cameras and keep walking be regarded as individuals or traitors to the state?

Re:The bigger question is...

I'm pretty sure the biggest question has already been asked, namely: "WTF is up with Britain becoming a surveillance state?"

Once the barriers to surveillance are being eroded, everything else - while not besides the point - pretty much follows by matter of course.

People act differently when they're being watched. How can it be a free state if they are being watched, then?

Re:The bigger question is...

I can tell you WTF. Britain is marching full steam ahead into a big recession and the only thing that has prevented it from doing it this year was influx of cheap Polish labour. Unfortunately this only delays the inevitable as it does not change the underlying overheated housing market, phenomenal internal debt and other major economical metrics.

Blair's government knows this. It also knows what happened in the recession after the previous housing market crash under their predecessors. It is scared shitless of countrywide poll tax and "Camden" style riots organised via the Internet and mobile networks the way the fuel protesters organised themselves 6 years ago. So it is putting as much effort as it can into a massive surveilance effort to be able to squash these before they go out of control.

Genuinely stupid move which is bound to fail. Until the underlying economical conditions are fixed (even by shock therapy if necessary) the recession and the riots are bound to happen. Cameras can help in a policeable situation. They are useless when the whole population stops giving a flying fuck.

Re:The bigger question is...

I'd be fascinated to know how a mere 500,000 people saved all 60 million of us from recession. Where are you getting this from?

My guess

Well, given the use of those neat little ASBOs the Brits are so fond of (which basically allow the courts to arbitrarily criminalize ANY "anti-social" behavior), it's safe to say that any flagrant display of disrespect can be grounds for imprisonment (thou

correction

Actually, I just realized you *could* be arrested after only one "anti-social" sign of disrespect. Apparently, the courts issued a pre-emptive ASBO for the entire town of Skegness, allowing the police to imprison anyone (for up to six months) whom they de

Re:

> Well, given the use of those neat little ASBOs the Brits are so fond of (which basically allow the courts to
> arbitrarily criminalize ANY "anti-social" behavior), it's safe to say that any flagrant display of disrespect can
> be grounds for impri

Re:My guess

> The problem is, those watchers are normal people - they're going to be stupid, irrational, selfish, bad-tempered,
> uneducated, unreasonable, bigoted, sexist. They're going to be paid minimum wage for doing a really dull job. These
> people are the people who are *setting and enforcing* the standards by which you will live.

And the particular problem with this, to state it explicitly, is that if you give an average person power and they're not being monitored or checked for how behave, they abuse that power. People are basically shit. I've had enough problems with getting first line technical support staff to behave decently - imagine how it would be if those people were watching you and could get you in front of a court?

(And pretty soon - another five years? = you couldn't just run away from the camera, because you'd have your mobile with you, and if you'd "committed a crime" then the law enforcement agencies would access the mobile provider's data to find out which mobile was where, and figure out who you are.)

next up

Lasers added to cameras with speakers to deal with those who don't obey

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"ATTENTION CITIZEN, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WALK AWAY!"
"aw, fuck off ya pig"
*pew pew*

ARGH!!!!

too many caps too many caps too many caps

Re:next up

Come on folks! That's funny, even if just for the "pew pew"....

Next step

The next step is to add a "non-lethal" weapon to these cameras, something to cause pain "when neccessary". Something like Active Denial System [wikipedia.org]. Yes, we need these. Just think about all the children this will save.

The worst is yet to come

Is it too late for Britain to reverse its course? People get used to cameras because they provide security. Then the authorities add speakers to provide more security. In 10 years, cameras will have face recognition systems. This happens so gradually that citizens become accustomed to Big Brother's constant presence and don't question the next move.

50 years from now, I think historians will look at 9/11 (and the Madrid bombings, etc.) as the beginning of the end of privacy standards that literally took centuries to establish. We have to stop this now before it's too late.

Orwell was a man ahead of his time...

Re:The worst is yet to come

Evil Empires usually don't last that long once they're in full swing. The lust for power usually overrides common sense and more is taken from the people at an increasing rate until one of the following things happen:

1) Other nations capitalize on the situation and invade (war)
2) The citizens get fed up and revolt (civil war)
3) The military gets fed up (now you're really fucked)

Re:The worst is yet to come

Is it too late for Britain to reverse its course?

Agreed. But consider this. I grew up in the UK (been living in the US for many years). If Al Qaeda is responsible for taking away American liberties, because the government uses terrorism as a blanket excuse to invade our privacy, then in the UK it's the yobs and hooligans who are to blame for the surveillance state.

It might be difficult for Americans to understand but, whereas here in the US there's usually a reason/motive for crime (e.g. robbery), in the UK a lot of it is just plain senseless. British high streets have gotten so bad due to mindless binge drinkers and general idiots it seems to necessitate the need for constant monitoring. If the UK has become a nanny state, perhaps it's because a large portion of its citizenry are infants.

Re:The worst is yet to come

Too true, only it isn't a matter of guns. The plain fact is under American law, if you present what a reasonable person would interpret as a credible threat of inflicting grevious bodily harm, anyone on the scene can just plain kill you, using whatever he might have, be it a gun, a knife, or his bare hands. I live in Boston and walk through crowds of obnoxious drunks all the time, and sometimes they even go so far as to vandalize large amounts of property (Kenmore Square when the Red Sox win big - blekh). So it's not that we have fewer overgrown apes in our town centers. It's that our jerks know, even when they're dead drunk, that the moment they cross a certain line, They Can Die.

I walk through the bar districts around Boston all the time, and that line just doesn't get crossed. Wish the same could be said of Britain.

It's very tiresome...

...that the only thing anybody knows about 1984 is that it's about a government that spies on its people. If that was the only thing the book was about, it would have been forgotten long ago — there are hundreds of stories like that. This particular story is interesting because it goes insides the minds of the people who make a totalitarian society work. If people actually read 1984, they might not be so quick to refer to it. Because if they did read it, they'd probably see themselves in it — and not as a brave defender of liberty, but as one of the faceless minions of Big Brother.

Re:It's very tiresome...

Only too true. Unless those cameras installed themselves, maintain themselves, and write their own software, a moderate of army of techies with zero for ethics has prostituted their talents to install such a system.

Perhaps some are reading this post now. I ask: Why do you do it? I fail to see how any professional engineer could consider deployment of such wide-scale serveilence as an ethical and appropriate use of government power, outside of the four walls of a prison.

Re:

Why do you do it? I fail to see how any professional engineer could consider deployment of such wide-scale serveilence as an ethical and appropriate use of government power, outside of the four walls of a prison.

A) Install it
B) Lose job

Which choice do you

Re:What's the ethical problem exactly?

So the problem is the camera operator makes a mistake or calls you nigger or whatever. A cop on the scene has a badge and knows he can be identified. The fact is that anonymous people in power invariably abuse that power. It is a trade off. Yes maybe you can lower crime, but you also VASTLY increase the power of the state to abuse, and also you train citizens to obey a "faceless" master, making it easier in the event of abuse of power to control citizens.

We in the English speaking west have some fantasy going that ONLY Nazi Germany or ONLY Russia can invoke vast state abuse.

This is not so, any of us are capable of this.

First tell me how you are contraining this systems so that they are not open to abuse and then use. Not before.

Advertising consent.

I think there is a great oppertunity for advertising here.
If I can put billboard advertisments in areas where these cameras are pointed, I get a load of people constantly watching 24 hours a day.
The space will be really cheap too, as I could put the ad's in places where pedestrians would not see them, but the camera operators will.

Perhaps special placards could be attatched to the cameras, where I could affix full colour adverts for tasers, video recording systems and handcuffs.

There is always an oppertunity for someone to make money, and I am that man!!!

People of England, you have sold your souls.

I'm only mildly surprised that the government of a western democracy would propose such a system -- but I'm shocked that the people of any western democracy would allow it -- TFA says the camera:person ratio has reached 1:16 -- why are people putting up with this? It's time to storm parliment with flaming pitchforks. The U.K. has become an out-of-control police state -- and it is the *left* that is pushing for more cameras....

People of England, you have sold your souls.

Re:

Well, I doubt that the addition of speakers, or for that matter much of the British camera system, are democratic actions per-say. In Chicago, Mayor Daily instituted a camera system without any public meetings or any vote. He just did it. Perhaps part of t

dupe. from September

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/17/16 56258 [slashdot.org]

Nothing to see here

"Sir please close the raincoat and move along, you're scaring the pidgeons."

Speaking of tracking....

Anyone notice that when you click on a reply, when you get back to the main tree of posts, there's a checkmark noting you've looked at it.

"You, with the keyboard! Yes, you! Go back and mod that post up!"

Big Brother, good. Little Brother, better!

The only problem is that it does not go far enough. Put the feeds on the internet too, open up all the cameras, and install more in all government buildings (if you're a public servant the public should be able to monitor you while you're on the clock). If someone wants to track my movements with a camera I say go ahead.... but only if I get to know who's watching me and I have the ability to watch them back. An open and transparent society can make the world both safe and free. The only thing wrong with traditional surveillance is the imbalence of power between the watchers and the watched.

What about a slight change to the model...

Personal "diary" cameras that log everything we do, from our point of view. Everything is written to a bio-encoded storage device. The data on that device is considered to be part of ones person, and can NOT be taken or used against the owner under ANY circumstances unless it is surrendered by someone of sound mind.

Now we all record everything. And it's up to us if OUR data is used against us or someone else. If no one will turn over their video, then you have no case.

An added benefit of this model is it removes the known bias of witnesses. Now you have digital data.

Re:

The core issue here, I think, is that by and large, people learn, as they grow up, *why* they should do certain things and not do others; and then as adults, they voluntarily behave in socially acceptable ways.

The problem comes when this process fails, and

Re:

In some cases - extremes of which are in Algeria and Iraq - the police ARE the problem. Too much power is not necessarily a good thing.

Re:I, For One

The problem isn't so much the use you describe, but the potential misuses of the system.

At the lowest level, I know of one anecdotal story where couples having a quickie in a popular spot were unaware a camera had gone up; and the security guard watching was in fact recording their sex, compiling the events into tapes, and selling them.

At the higher level, we run into a problem where a society becomes ever more effective at imposing its value system upon the members of that society. As JSM said, "society executes its own mandates". What happens when these cameras are present in a area rife with racism and the viewers themselves are racist? I can imagine blacks being harshly treated, with intolerance, and whites being let off or lightly treated for the same acts.

At a higher level yet, the issue becomes that of concern about the ways in which this new capability will interact with other new capabilities - such as massive State databases. The State has always kept information on us, but in analog systems, which are inherently so slow to use that the practical uses of that data were sharply limited. When, however, access becomes effectively immediate, what you have isn't more of the same, what you have now is *new and different*. It's is a qualitative change, not a quantative change. In this vein, mixing massive video survelliance with massive databases and police monitoring, very real concerns begin to arise - in particular, that we are finally loosing *freedom*, for we are no longer free; we MUST do what society and State expects us to do.

The terrible mind-trap here is people going "well, that only means not doing things which are bad, so what's the problem?"

Re:I, For One

The real question our philosophers and ethicists are yet to answer, is: Is 100% effective law-enforcement desirable?

The security cameras allow us to place a (virtual) police officer on every corner and between — a single real officer can have eyes and ears of 5 or 10, while working in a comfortable environment. That's a dramatic boom to law-enforcement. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on the answer to the above question...

And before you reach for the "Reply" link to type: "It depends on the laws," — yes, thank you, I know. It depends on a number of other things too, and even the obvious dependency on the laws is not as straightforward... For example, rogue law-makers would not exist either...

Re:I, For One

Right now, if the law enforcement agencies were so inclined they could find charges for everyone of us. There are so many laws, we are all criminals.

Re:I, For One

At the higher level, we run into a problem where a society becomes ever more effective at imposing its value system upon the members of that society. [...] What happens when these cameras are present in a area rife with racism and the viewers themselves are racist? I can imagine blacks being harshly treated, with intolerance, and whites being let off or lightly treated for the same acts.

Without addressing the main issue in your post, I have to say something about this often-heard argument. Put more bluntly, what is claimed here is that incompetence is the safeguard of freedom: if government(/society) is bumbling enough, it won't be able to enforce unfair policies.

Yet, maintaining freedom by government incompetence is a dangerous route, because (1) it may be impotent to act when it is needed, (2) incompetence as a government policy may very well lead to corruption and waste ("it's good that I'm an inefficient government clerk; I'm maintaining freedom for the populace!"), and (3) people now need to know not just what is legal, but what is 'effectively legal', i.e. not legal but what government incompetence makes legal because no-one is prosecuted for it, which can also lead to (4) selective, discriminatory enforcement by the government ("we can't prosecute all who break this law, so we do what we can" - but those that are prosecuted just 'happen' to belong to some particular group or minority - note that this is the exact same argument as appears in the quoted paragraph above, but arguing the opposite claim).

But there is indeed an intuition that an 'overly-efficient' government is a danger. I think the underlying issue is that, in some situations, there may be a disparity between what the people want and what the people they elect want (e.g. where I live at least, the majority of the population are in favor of legalizing pot, or at least indifferent; but lawmakers are strongly against it). And the simplest way to solve the problem stemming from that disparity seems to be to just make government inefficient (if the cops don't do their job and arrest potheads, then pot is effectively free, just as if it were legally free).

But the 'simplest way' is often a very poor solution. The 'right' solution would be to protest, to fight for the causes people care about, so that lawmakers are in tune with the public; perhaps also to implement a more direct democracy. Government incompetence as a way to maintain freedom is an ugly hack, in programmer's terms; problem is, people are too lazy to do things the correct way.

Re:I, For One

You're right about this myth of our safety from tyranny through government incompetence.

As long as government is competent enough to lock you up, give you a lethal injection, start a war or tap a phone, we have to be ever-diligent.

In fact, sometimes the leaders who appear the most incompetent, like this (and I mean this with all due respect) piece of shit currently in the White House, are the ones you have to watch the closest.

Don't take it from me, read the writings of those famous liberals who started this great nation. And take a look at On Liberty and The Rights of Man.

Re:that's not all there is

> I dunno though, I thought liberty would only die to the sound of thunderous applause.

Liberty is dying to the sound of a billion people watching TV.

(Watching - oh, the irony - watching Big Brother.)

Re:that's not all there is

The irony grows ever deeper - my post has been modded +1 Funny.

Huxley was right; we're laughing, and we've forgotton why.

Re:I, For One

It's simple. A free society must tolerate some lawlessness or it is no longer free. Nope, it isn't right to litter or burgle or murder or rape. But it also isn't right to keep adding powers and new surveillance technology to police forces until they are as omniscient as God.

Re:I, For One

The problem is that it's Britain we're talking about. "Nuisance" crimes committed by youths seem to be more prevalent there due to the oft cited "yob" or "chav" culture. In Britain, there is an underclass of people (most of whom are white) who have absolutely no respect for the law or for other citizens.

Given the ridiculous class divisions that still pervade that country, there are few prospects for them, and so they might as well be hooligans. In some ways they aren't the worst. The English middle class are absolutely insufferable.

I can't say that I like the idea of cameras, but Britain is such a pathetic and dysfunctional country (try organizing a fucking train ride next time you are there, or getting served in a store) that I don't have much pity. It has to be the least efficient country on the planet. Even though I'm entitled to, and it would probably make me more money, I will never go back there to live.

Re:I, For One

Hi!

What class divisions are there here (uk) that you don't get in every other country? I'm honestly asking - it can be hard to view your own country from the inside.

What do you mean by that the middle class are insufferable? You don't like their mannerisms?

Re:I, For One

NO, A free society allows people the freedom to choose to be lawless... that's a little different. YES, society should follow laws, but the people, not the government, should do that. Part of that is giving people the CHOICE to follow the law or not... people must BELIEVE in the laws they live under for society to remain strong and free. If most people don't, they you don't have a law abiding society anymore.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be punishments for breaking the laws... Of course you should do that, but the mark of a free, moral person is to do the RIGHT THING when nobody is looking, BECAUSE nobody but themselves will ever be disappointed by it!!!! IF you don't have a society that breeds that kind of self-respect and TRUST, your society's already collapsing!!!!

How much law is too much?

Lawlessness should never be tolerated. Or will you let someone kill one of your family members, since (as you say) "a free society must tolerate some lawnessness or it is no longer free"? Come on: sacrifice a loved one for the good of the nation, I dare you.

Well since we are taking things to extremes, lets follow your path to its logical end: a society of ants marching in lockstep from the cradle to the grave, a place for everything and everything in its place. The diametrical opposite, what you seem to fear, is of course a barbaric anarchy, every man for himself - do what you will shall be the whole of the law. Neither is practical, neither is representative of humanity.

We are a young race, really in biological and evolutionary terms we are just down from the trees. We are still floundering around trying to determine exactly what is "good" and "evil", the characteristics of right and wrong. Some are convinced we are simply meat machines, our whole lives determined by our genes, excusing and condemning failures in equal measure, others seek to put every foible into a neat box to be repaired or removed, like most of the psychology industry, while yet others make the sight of our own bodies an abomination, along with certain arbitrary words, generally to do with the pleasurable act of copulation. Our instinctive natures and animal passions come into conflict with our intellectual and social structures. The question really is, are those structures right or wrong, did we achieve all we have in spite of or because of our passions?

I'd say that we do not have enough facts to make any definitive decisions on that question yet. Worship of the rule of law is as dangerous as not caring about law at all; law is and always has been a sanctioned instrument of vengeance, from the earliest days to the present. Thats why prisons are not places of rehabilitation (PMITA is even a commonly understood acronym!), they are places of punishment, and that is not likely to change any time soon.

And yet by adjusting the laws to compensate for our inherently passionate nature, you begin a game of brinkmanship, where people with less regard for their fellow man try to keep criminal acts to the grey areas where they might be excused their actions. Structure is not neccesarily the best way to go; neither is a lack of structure. How and where the best compromise is to be found is a question yet to be answered.

Re:

But remember not to take your mobile phone with you, since that will be tied into your ID card and the cops will be able to see which phones were present at the right time as the smashed cameras and prosecute you.

This is part of what scares me about all th

Re:

not like that's a crime

...yet.

Re:

My bet is the guys on the monitors run an asshole of the month competition, I mean even without speakers it must already be a common occurence.

Re:A group needs laws

Even if the group is as small as two individuals, there still need to be laws.

Me and you. Give me half of your possession, because I declared myself a tax collector. It's been a law between us before you were born. Or I will jail you and torment you, because I am judge and enforcer before you. And do not ever tell me a society without consensus is a crime, or I'll kill you. You, ...anonymous coward!