Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors

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.'"

Its cut price police - again

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

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

Re:Its cut price police - again

Really? I thought it was Brainless Womble

Re:Its cut price police - again

I like 'improper copper'.

Re:Its cut price police - again

"Hobby Bobby", although that's more often used for a "Special Constable"

Re:Its cut price police - again

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.

Re:Its cut price police - again

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.

Re:Its cut price police - again

"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.

Re:Its cut price police - again

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.

hm

Reminds me of the kids in 1984 spying on their parents and reporting on the poor Parsons.

Whats so special?

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?

Growing things in pots is a transgression in Michigan?

Re:Whats so special?

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.

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...

Re:Whats so special?

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.

Re:Whats so special?

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.

Re:Whats so special?

The Land of the Free

Errrm.. You mean Land of the Fee.

Re:Whats so special?

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.

And this won't be missused...

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...

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.

Re:And this won't be missused...

I'm from Romania and I remember the way it was before the 1989 revolution, during the communism years. The biggest differences are that the people that would spy on you were getting paid for that and you'd get burned if anyone heard you say anything about the regime. FTFA, criticizing the current regime won't get your ass in jail and these people aren't getting paid to spy on you; other than that it's just the way it was pre-1989 Romania. - Anonymous Coward for a good reason.

Police don't do anything

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

It will fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society

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.

already happening

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..

"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.

Re:Sad

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.