Spy Drones Take to the Sky in the UK 529
Novotny writes to tell us The Guardian is reporting that the UK's has launched a new breed of police 'spy drone'. Originally used in military applications, these drones are being put into use as a senior police officer warns the surveillance society in the UK is eroding civil liberties. In the UK, there are an estimated 4.2 million surveillance cameras already, and you are on average photographed 300 times a day going about your business. Is there any evidence to suggest that this increasingly Orwellian society is actually any safer?"
Wait... (Score:3, Funny)
And that governments, law enforcement entities, and municipalities have increasing access to and leverage technologies to become more effective at the jobs with which they are charged by the public?
O, the humanity.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several degrees of separation between the public and control of the police, and that vast gulf is no good for society, on the whole.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
That depends which "technologies" you are talking about. Radar (anotehr ex-military technology) has certainly helped the police enforce speed limits more effectively (god darn it!). DNA / Fingerprints have certainly been used in A LOT of criminal prosecutions, as have CCTV cameras. So yes I think most people would claim they have made the police better at their jobs.
Now, doughnut shops on the other hand...
"And who claimed that "the public" tells the police what to do?"
Umm, most people do, with the possible exception of Will Smith and those nutters who wear tin-foil hats. The government, i.e. the "public authority" employ and therefore command the police. At least that is the way every western democracy works, if however you are in fact Chinese or posting through a inter dimensional time-portal from 1950's USSR then your question is probably valid.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Funny)
It's all the downsides to transfat. Everyone knows the finest doughnuts make ample use of shortening.
Where is our military technology now that can't make a tasty doughnut that won't take 3 weeks off my life each?
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Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
(All of that said, my comment was in reference to the fact that the story submitter actually questioned the usefulness in police work of these advance, which was ignored in the ggpp)
I don't disagree that in most English-speaking countries the police are generally and technically responsible to publically elected officials. I just think the actual amount of democratic oversight and transparency is far less than it ought to be. Given the amount of local power the police wield, skepticism seems the only reasonable approach towards thinking about their role.
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The flaw with this very commonly held view is that crimes are far more widely reported now than previously, especially violent and sexual crimes which use to often go unreported. Most studies which have tried to normalize the differences in reporting rates from today and yesteryear (although this is difficult and subjective task) have shown pretty muc
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
The police and the press.
And who claimed that "the public" tells the police what to do?
The police and the press.
Although you're photographed 300 times a day, the cameras will help catch a lone serial killer once every few years and that's all you'll ever hear about them.
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Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Britain's increased surveillance measures sure did prevent the London bombings in 2005, now didn't they? The bigger point you seem to be missing is that though the public wants their law enforcement to be effective, they wish to limit this effectiveness from intruding on their private lives.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the police would ignore moral issues and only enforce them when they rise to the level that police personally observe them, then most people would not mind a very orwellian society.
What gives us the creeps is when they start finding out we have deviant sexual practice "17". Society gets by pretending that most people are very vanilla when in reality probably 85% of us do something deviant that we would be ashamed of if it were broadcast nation wide. And we would feel smothered if unable to do whatever that echo of childhood we felt compelled towards.
But the ideal police force that really did ignor moral crimes and focused hard on murder, robbery, etc. would probably be given carte blanche. Unfortunately, once it was, then it has power that someone wants to use to enforce their morality (the small govt. republicans just can't resist growing the government to enforce their particular morality). The latest here in the states is not being allowed to sell plastic in some eastern state if it happens to be shaped too much like a body part. So a realistic vibrator is forbidden while a "soothing massage wand" that is 7" long and 1.5" thick is okay. Classic freedom of speech issue.
Note to governments: (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm in a Western Democracy that is reasonably well-off and free-market oriented, I like my government to be small, with little insight into what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. As a matter of fact, I'd like my government to be on permanent vacation, and only convene during emergencies. Law enforcement can be efficient and on the job, but should not make me do its surveillance job, nor should it rely on technology to do the peacekeeping (which includes rounds on foot).
That's my creed, and I'm sticking to it. I just wish there were a party for me.
Re:Note to governments: (Score:4)
I'd much rather that my right to privacy was explicitly safeguarded through vigilant defense against over-reaching monitoring of private activity. A state that has theoretical ability to wield overwhelming power against the individual is a problem, even if the state lacks the resources to do so in a large-scale manner. When someone in government chooses a target, the state can bring its limited resources to bear. I'd like to make sure that citizens are not targeted inappropriately.
Then again, I'm dreaming -- so a hamstrung government might be the best we can hope for.
Re:Note to governments: (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with you on this one... and I have an insight for you:
A maximally efficient government is A Good Thing *if* we believe that our laws are rational... which means: if we believe that our neighbors have a rational moral code that they will legally enforce against us.
Since we don't believe any such thing, we need privacy. We need it in order to escape punishment (legal, social, emotional) at the hand of irrational moral codes. Those codes would have us doing stupid things, such as (for example) refrain from spanking an unruly child who is resistant to the more fashionable forms of inflicted discomfort.
In order to have privacy, we have to sacrifice some of our government's enforcement efficiency. (Either that, or we need ironclad protections for the data being gathered... but only a fool would trust in such paper walls.)
I know you already know all this in your heart, and always have, as have I. But I find that it helps to have the matter clarified in these terms. Privacy gives us the ability to do what stupid people believe to be wrong.
Re:Note to governments: (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of every little law that's ever broken being detected and enforced would be the end of civilization as we know it: it would transform a complex distributed system of human judgement and adaptibility into a largely mindless and rigid monstrosity.
Prove it. (Score:5, Interesting)
In order to back up that statement you have to prove to me that they are indeed being used to perform the jobs that they are charged with as opposed to engaging in their own forms of spying, and that they are more effective.
In the former case I would point out that the jobs of governments and police officers is to serve the citizens in their community. All too often however that has been twisted to the point where said individuals are, in fact, using their powers to pursue private agendas against the very citizens they claim to protect. Here in the U.S. for example during World War I laws were passed making it a crime to criticize the president "for our protection". During World War II the massive information compiled as part of the Census was used to hunt down American Citizens of Japanese descent and throw them into prison "for their own protection". During the Kennedy years the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover used the powers of his office to spy on politicians he disproved of and to subvert both the anti-war and civil rights movements including the well-documented blackmailing of Martin Luther King. During the 60's Nixon used the tools available to spy on his political rivals. In more recent years 'anti-terror' tools have been used to spy on anti-war groups (because how dare we oppose the Iraq war) and execute increasingly harsh surveillance of "problem communities" (aka black neighborhoods) in the War On Drugs.
In each case the claim was that they were serving their constituents. Nixon himself said that he "thought it would be bad for the country if the president lost an election". And despite claims that it "won't happen again" we can see even modern U.S. Congressmen claiming that it is a good idea:
Similar comments have been made about the recent attempts to spy on American's internet use and telephone traffic "for our own good".
Which brings me to my second point. There is, indeed little to no evidence that the modern tools (e.g. large scale databases or CCTV networks) actually help prevent crime which is, after all the goal. With repsect to "big name" items like the terror suspect lists and the internet surveillance their effectiveness is difficult to judge as they are largely secretive (too secretive) and the evidence that they obtain will never be used in a court of law. While the Justice department likes to point to high-name cases like Jose Padilla and the rest of us like to point out that Padilla is a) being charged in a carefully rigged situation, b) being charged for a small fraction of what they claimed they could prove but did not, and c) is himself surrounded by many many cases which seem likely to never reach trial because nothing at all really happened.
If you want a better arguing point we should look at the large-scale sweeps that were done in New York shortly after 9/11. While these netted a few illegal aliens (at least one of whom died under highly questionable circumstances) and pissed off a large segment of an otherwise legitimate population it failed to net anything useful. But this too might be considered "exceptional".
So let us turn to the daily street crime scenario. While some noise has been made about Chicago's heavy use of surveillance cameras and databases there is little scientific evidence that the cameras "did the trick". While Chicago's rate of cri
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Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Ugh. Where to begin.
First of all, you got the quote wrong. It's:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Second, it's Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson. (Wow.)
Anyway, note essential liberty...a little temporary safety.
Not that it's somehow never right to sacrifice any liberty for any amount of safety - we do it every day. It's called the rule of law and is necessary for collectively maintaining order and stability in society.
I can't believe how much this quote is bastardized and misinterpreted as it is continually trotted out in opposition to anything the "government" does in a free society in an attempt to fulfill its obligation to its citizens.
You kind of topped them all by completely misattributing it, though. Good job.
Is there any evidence that's what this is about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:2, Insightful)
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Telephones make the job of law enforcement easier. Should we protest or prohibit their use of telephones?
Computers make the job of law enforcement easi
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Should we stop something because it makes the job of law enforcement easier? no.
Should we stop something because it removes the basic rights of law abiding citizens? Yes.
Should we stop something because it makes harassment easier? Yes.
Telephone
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:4, Informative)
What they didn't mention is that with all those video cameras each frame counts as an individual photograph, so standing in view of a 30fps camera for 4 seconds counts as 120 individual photographs. Not as scary once you do the math.
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in London, where there are probably more cameras than most cities, but I certainly find the number of camera alarming and unsettling - it's never clear who runs the cameras, for what purpose and where the data ends up and for how long. I've also seen some pretty bad behaviour in front of CCTV cameras; I always think that if I were attacked, the grainy CCTV pictures shown on Crime Watch [wikipedia.org] or in the paper would be of little comfort.
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Well, this is the UK we're talking about, so that would be a 25fps camera, hence only 100 photographs....
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:5, Interesting)
It's ok though, all the moderaters have to do is mod my last comment [slashdot.org] up +5 funny, and then this one +5 informative. Yes I get oodles of karma but it's the integrity of the discussion on slashdot that matters.
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:4, Funny)
I think that's the comment that should be modded +5 funny.
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everyone photographed hundreds of times a day
What they didn't mention is that with all those video cameras each frame counts as an individual photograph, so standing in view of a 30fps camera for 4 seconds counts as 120 individual photographs. Not as scary once you do the math.
Err, no. With, on average, one camera per 14 people (and far, far more in the big cities), it is more like "everyone caught on camera hundreds of times per day"
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In any case, with 4.2M [bbc.co.uk] security cams in the UK - one camera for every 14 people - it's obvious that pervasive surveliance actually has been implemented.
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And I know the connotation in which you meant that, but that's exactly what law enforcement is, in case you hadn't noticed: the control of society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau explained in the 1762 The Social Contract Or Principles Of Political Right that "laws" are "the rules the members o
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I'm not blaming law enforcement. It's the wealthy that are implementing these policies, law enforcement are only trying to do their job, just as you say. Their job is to protect
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're making connections that are a little too tenuous. If lawmakers are generally "wealthy" (in comparison with the rest of the population), then, sure, it's a true statement that the "wealthy" are implementing these policies. But it's not because they're wealthy. And this notion that there is a silent plot by the "wealthy" to constantly control the "sheep" of society via any means they can - such as drone aircraft used by law enforcement - is a little too much of a stretch for me, and for most people.
Yes, there are people with power and wealth who want to protect what they have. Society will be friendlier to the "rich" because everything is by nature "friendlier" for the rich. But it's not as direct a plot as you imagine by the ultra-rich to "control" society to their own benefit. That a stable societal structure benefits the "rich" is incidental, not causative. I won't disagree that the rich have things easier. But unless you believe in punishing the rich or in true communist/socialist ideals, wealth redistribution, and so on, I don't see how that reality will - or even should - change.
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I am not saying that we all do not benefit from a stable society, I'm just saying the rich benefit more.
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
The power and connections that come along with wealth are unavoidable, and the saying, "It takes money to make money", is as true as ever.
Your conclusion that "most" wealthy are rich due to luck and don't actually contribute anything tangible to society is only correct if you are perhaps considering the super-wealthy, which constitute such a small number of people that they're not even worth discussing. And they aren't the ones controlling the world - it's a much, much larger group of people. To say that one is in the "wealthiest 1%", which has been a sound bite in many previous discussions on this topic, doesn't take a lot of income. As of 2000, it was just over $200,000/year. Is that what you consider "wealthy"? There are millions of these people, and most of them are wealthy because of their own hard work and contributions to society, including the business they often run which employ so many others. We're not talking about faceless megacorporations, here. We're talking about the millions of businesses that make economies run.
The bottom 50% of wage-earners in the US pay less than 3% of the tax burden (with many at the bottom paying nothing). The top 5% pay over 60% - the top 1% almost half themselves. What if we made the bottom pay nothing, and put all the tax burden, on, say the top 5% or 1%. Would that be fair? The rich would still have so much more than the poor. Should we maybe take some away from them and, you know, spread it around? How do you limit wealth you consider "unfair"? Why is it "unfair"? Who decides how much is too much?
If you're concerned about limiting freedoms, that would be one of the more egregious affronts to "freedom" I could think of.
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The #1 rule of being in public (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be ticked if they were putting cameras in people's homes without a warrant related to a specific investigation. But seriously, what you do in public is *public*. Hellooo.
I dunno why people feel they have an inherent right to privacy on a public street. I think that governments have every right to put cameras out in public places if they so choose.
And yes, I do think this is about making the public safer. Tracking criminals and terrorists so that they can't as easily get away from law enforcement. Providing documentary evidence of crimes committed in public spaces instead of relying on unreliable eye-witness testimony, so that prosecutions can be obtained and criminals sent to jail instead of back on the street committing more crimes.
We've already seen, in society, how putting cameras in banks and stores has helped to identify and convict criminals. It's hard to tell a court that you didn't do it when they've got you on camera shooting the clerk in the face with your gun and grabbing the money out of the cash register. This is an extension of that.
Cameras might not prevent crimes, directly. But getting an arrest and a conviction can prevent future crimes by the same person.
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Intentionally or not, this sums up the entirety of the problem. Legitimate governments - by which I mean any government purportedly "of the people" - have no rights. Human beings have rights. Governments have powers granted them by the governed; either explicitly (through voting/running for office) or implicitly (by not taking up arms against the government). The term "rights" carries with inherent justification.
Re:The #1 rule of being in public (Score:5, Insightful)
I could write a thousand words to explain how a camera offers absolutely no protection whatsoever, but you can see for yourself that these are just four guys getting on a subway, they aren't walking around in a sandwich board that reads "we are miscreants on our way to do misdeeds".
The camera cannot prevent anything, it can only watch things happening.
You can track someone you know who's out and about. Say, a political opponent, for instance. Or track a special kind of person, like college girls in miniskirts, most likely. But you can't track someone you don't know, doing something you can't guess, in the middle of millions of others, doing apparently the same thing. It may give you warm fuzzy feelings of a benevolent all-seeing eye, but it's nothing more than a tool putting the many under the thumbs of the few.
image (Score:3, Informative)
Now with actual linkage goodness.
Re:The #1 rule of being in public (Score:5, Interesting)
"...In public, you have no right to privacy..."
Largely true, but remember that this was established in an age when in order to be observed or be subject to surveillance, an actual person had to be located in your sight and pretty close to you.
This of course meant that you, in turn, could observe them right back and if you felt like it, go up to them and ask them what their fucking problem was.
With the onset of the ubiquitous camera, you may or may not be under observation, but probably best to act as though you are, all the time, too. With the cameras, the balance of power has shifted completely - you may be watched by no-one or you may be being watched by dozens, and being recorded to boot - you simply don't know.
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I know a lot of slashdotters seem paranoid about this kind of stuff, but the truth is if the government/police/"the man" wants to screw you over, he
Re:Is there any evidence that's what this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is what they are there to do and why they are a problem.
They make you FEEL safer.
They do not make you safer.
I love this bit (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA:
"However, senior officers in Merseyside, who are trialling the drone, said they did not believe it was the next phase in creating a Big Brother society.
"Assistant chief constable Simon Byrne said: "People clamour for the feeling of safety which cameras give."
This is such a beautiful use of the English language that I can't help but admire it.
The people who have already been brainwashed into believing that a surveillance society is a safe society will have their warm feelings of safety reinforced by this statement, even though in no logical way can it be conceived to be a statement that it will actually make anyone safer.
The people who have not are the only ones who will read between the lines.
Thus this is a brilliant way to say something to the media without actually saying anything, and what's more, without compromising their goal of having a camera covering every square inch of the nation. The media goes away happy with a sound bite, the sheeple go away happy after listening to the sound bite, and life progresses as "normal". Which is to say, straight down the toilet.
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It sucks that what the majority wants is different than what I want. Perhaps what I want is right, and what they want is wrong. Perhaps the whole universe is broken because of this. Perhaps my rants are the most justified rants in all of recorded history. But it doesn't matter.
I am outvoted."
You are a citizen. It is your duty to make your government work for the people. Being out-voted is a temporary situation that can be easily overcome
Re:*shrug* (Score:4, Insightful)
You're a Citizen, that's who you are.
"A democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to eat for dinner.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
If you're not willing to arm yourself against the majority and their tyranny, then you might as well throw in the towel.
To quote a recent movie... (Score:5, Informative)
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Let me be the first (Score:2, Insightful)
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Don't worry, UAVs are also being used to keep the American [slashdot.org] civilian population in line, too.
300 Times per day = 12 seconds of film (Score:2)
Seeing as it could take about that time to walk past a camera, it doesn't sound like very much surveilance at all.
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They have to start somewhere, get you used to the idea then slowly expand it as technology improves.
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Seeing as it could take about that time to walk past a camera, it doesn't sound like very much surveilance at all.
Oh, well I guess that makes it alright then.
Video of it in action (Score:3, Informative)
Shouldn't the question be (Score:3, Insightful)
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The cops.
gah (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems any safety increase s dubious at best. I know for a fact it would not make me feel safer, it would give me that creepy feeling, the Bugs Bunny "Ever got the feeling yous was being... watched?" (minus the looney part of it) feeling.
I think there should seriously be a council or something that actually looks into whether technologies that are slated for implementation will actually have the desired e
Load it up with a laser... (Score:2)
What would be cool is to have it loaded up with a laser. Then when some thugs are kicking the crap out of someone or robbing them, send it after them. Zap, zap... would be cool to see that. And when they run out of CCD range, this thing could follow them.
But unfortunately, like anything else there are good ways to use technology, and there are bad ones. I could also see it carry a nerve gas agent for crowd control on a protest of an unpopular government move.
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See my sig which I put up last week.
drones (Score:2)
Read Theodore Dalrymple (Score:5, Interesting)
His observation is that dysfunction grows to consume all the money made available to combat it. Filming people isn't going to fix anything. Holding them accountable will.
Oh and also, the last time I was in the UK, I was struck by all the kids wearing hoodies.
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But yes, there is an abundance of chavs [urbandictionary.com] in the UK.
(The hoodie in question. [megagear.com] Exceptionally comfortable, very warm, mostly rainproof.)
Re:Read Theodore Dalrymple (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, all of them? Did it hurt?
The sheep... (Score:2)
Video of it in action today (Score:2)
Alarm bells. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security"
That really sums up what's happening on both sides of the ocean. While I disagree that this is (solely) a sinister plot of an overweening government to control of its populace, this seems as often as not to be the end effect in scenarios like this. People are smart individually, but in scared groups they often make terrible decisions, which is why there's a lot of sheepish head-sc
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Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
Add compulsory reporting (Score:5, Informative)
The UK is adding laws requiring compulsory reporting of people who might be criminals. [bbc.co.uk]
It really is falling into order, comrade. This is doubleplusungood.
Cameras help those in charge, not the people (Score:5, Interesting)
The police have even learnt a good trick to assault you based on these cameras. I had one WPC ask me what was going on after a disturbance that I was not part of. I explained. She said 'pardon?'. So, naturally, I lean in a bit closer so she can hear. Wham ! She lays into me. On camera, it looks like I'm about to attack her by leaning in. *sigh*.
Cameras are solely in the UK to allow police to avoid doing real police work and provide a deterring presence, and to allow them to employ nefarious tactics against the criminal public. Don't ever be under the illusion that they are there for you, the taxpayer.
We didn't get surveillance by democratic process (Score:4, Interesting)
All the major UK parties have "Law and Order" as a plank of their manifestos, so it's not as if we ever had a choice of any kind that would allow even an implicit anti-surveillance vote to be made. What's more, not voting at all will always return one of these parties to power given the way that the voting system is rigged, so democracy is really just a figment of the imagination here in that respect.
And just try challanging it
I'm not sure where all this is leading, but a civil war in a few decades' time wouldn't surprise me at all. It won't be labelled as civil unrest though
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They might not have done round your way, but they do round here. We lose votes every time we don't install enough new cameras fast enough in my council.
even with a vote the result would be the same (Score:2)
Re:We didn't get surveillance by democratic proces (Score:2)
Re:We didn't get surveillance by democratic proces (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got 3 words for you: Vote Lib Dem. They're committed to overhauling our electoral system and introducing proportional representation, so this cycle can be broken.
Predictable (Score:2)
I used to think being photographed was bad (Score:2)
Brazil (Score:3, Insightful)
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Possibly effective (Score:4, Informative)
In a more recent study [aic.gov.au], it seemed to help deter crime.
Now here's something you don't read every day (Score:2)
It's a beautiful bit of self-contradiction. The best bit is:
The spy plane was launched as a senior police officer warned the surveillance society in the UK is eroding civil liberties.
Well, nobody's forcing you to deploy these, Mr. Senior Police Officer.
UK + CCTV = front page (Score:2)
The real safety issue ... (Score:2)
I'm not worried about police choppers, because they're big enough to see, and they have a pilot on board who is just as keen on staying alive as I am (and on a really good day ATC will tell me where they are, although one doesn't want to rely on that).
But toy planes, being flown around by someone safely on the ground who probably doesn't even have a pilot's licence?? Have they even passed the Air Law exam??
it's not an orwellian future, something weirder... (Score:5, Insightful)
for good? for bad? who knows, but i do believe that the era of humanity where you could go about your business in cities (and soon the countryside i bet) and be anonymous except for human witnesses is fast disappearing, perhaps forever, perhaps inexorably so. and i think it's inevitable- i didn't say it was good, but i think there's no going back
this evolution will change society. but i would also like to submit that everyone always focuses on the government putting more cameras up, a la orwell, and it is the case that governments are all to happy to stick recording devices everywhere, but there is arms race going on in reverse... and in perpendicular
what i mean is, witness rodney king and other examples of citizens with cameras. that "little brother" is just as much an issue as "big brother", that citizens are watching the government just as much as governments are watching citizens. and there was a case here in new york ctiy recently of a flasher on the subway who was caught on the cellphone of one of his victims. that's what i mean by "perpendicular": forget about the government for a moment watching you, what does it mean for society where everyone has a cellphone camera and can start recording what's going on around them at a moment's notice?
so the issue with cameras is not so much that the fbi or the nypd is watching you, but also that:
1. people are watching the government right back (rodney king)
2. your fellow citizens are watching you, and you are watching them (ie, the tyranny of the crowd is just as much as an issue as the tyranny of the government.. such as with the subway flasher example)
folks, it's some interesting evolutionary dynamics in human society going on with cheaper and cheaper eavesdropping tech. and i think the way things are going to play out are not going to be like 1984 at all, but something perhaps a lot weirder. it's an arms race
so i think we need to retire the 1984 references, and lose the obsession with an intrusive government... because we can intrude right back, and it may be your fellow citizen who is more of a "tyranny" of eavesdropping than the government anyways. what's the proper way to think about this issue? i don't know, but it is weirder and more complex than the stereotypical orwellian ideas on the subject
Re:it's not an orwellian future, something weirder (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. The "death of privacy" scenario has far less to do with your government that it has to do with your fellow citizens. Individuals have just as much ability to leverage cheap technology as governments do. I know the day is coming when I will be recorded almost constantly in public, but it won't be by government cameras alone. It'll be by the cameras installed outside every home and business, and carried by every person I pass on the street.
I've been waiting for some manufacturer to offer an inexpensive CMOS image sensor and microphone unit that plugs into an iPod and records compressed digital video. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. You clip the unit to the front of your shirt, plug it into your iPod, and you're good to go for hours. In a few more years iPods will have the capacity to record days of continuous video as long as the battery holds out. I worry far less what the government will do with the images made of me; the goverment can at least be changed or influenced by votes, legislation, and protests. I have no influence whatsoever over the hundreds of individuals who'll also be keeping me under surveillance.
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The thing about surveilance cameras is that it's impossible to surveil them all.
Think about it - you could have ubiquitous surveilance, but you're never going to be able to monitor each camera. The more you add, the larger the problem gets.
The data arguably only becomes relevant and useful when a crime has been reported / caught / noticed - digging the data stream becomes useful.
Until such a time when each and every camera can read your mind, or you KNOW it's being watched, odds ar
Let me just say that this is rubbish... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. While the claim about the total number of surveillance cameras might be close to the truth, what this kind of blanket statement doesn't tell you is where those cameras are.
The vast majority of them will be in private spaces, like shops, bars, and restaurants, where owners are primarily concerned about minor crime like theft. Then there will be a fair proportion in public spaces where crowd control and security are an issue, like tube stations and airports. And, of course, municipal buildings, such as courts, police stations and hospitals will have a chunk of cameras, too.
I'd estimate that over 80 percent of those cameras are accounted for right there. Many of them aren't recording an image more often than once every few seconds. Many will be decoys that aren't recording at all. Many are black and white. Many are of very low quality. The overwhelming majority won't be user-operated in any way or have any archived long-term storage. None of them will be networked in any meaningful way that would let anybody track you in real-time over more than a few hundred yards.
2. The idea that you'd be photographed 300 times in an average day is complete rubbish. If you woke up, got on a bus, caught a tube train, changed at a busy station, got to work, visited several shops at lunchtime, went back to work, spent a few hours socialising in a couple of places and then went home, then, perhaps, I can see you possibly passing a camera around 100 times. The likelyhood of your picture actually being taken every time? Less than the likelyhood of you winning the lottery, I'd bet.
Don't forget, one way or another, Britain has been a victim of violent terrorism for at least two generations. First there was Irish republicans, now there's Islamic extremists. The former didn't much like having their pictures taken, so cameras were an effective deterrent before the fact, as well as a vital detective tool after it. The latter aren't so easily deterred but cameras have still been of limited use in going over their attacks.
If you want proof of how "effective" CCTV is in the UK, just look at the 7th July attacks in London a couple of years back. Although they were travelling by pulic transport and their identities were known after the fact, police were able to piece together only a few shots of the attackers, all from one camera, I believe. Their whereabouts and what they did once they reached London, even though they travelled by public transport, and virtually unknown. Bottom line: in a "pull out all the stops" exercise, four people were totally lost in the crowd.
The camera footage of the attempted attacks a fortnight later weren't much better and the perpetrators were able to escape untracked through London. If these CCTV cameras were half as effective as people want to make out, then police would have been knocking on the perps' doors hours if not minutes after they escaped. The reality of the situation is different, and anybody who thinks otherwise is, frankly, an idiot.
Perceived surveillance changes behavior (Score:4, Interesting)
For the cameras to exert social control, the perception of surveillance is what counts. This is good to the extent that it deters criminals from commiting crimes. The main criticism of these cameras, however, is that they change the behavior of everybody. People behave differently when they believe they believe they are being watched. They act in accordance with how they believe their behavior will be perceived. This perception therefore acts as a powerful form of control, one which is internalized by those under surveillance. See Foucault's [wikipedia.org] characterization of the Panopticon [wikipedia.org].
Surely you have known people who "put on a face" in public. Perhaps they conceal their intelligence or hide their beliefs or suppress their individuality. If our response to surveillance is to suppress the unique or unusual dimensions of our character, it also gives us permission to exhibit other behaviors. This happens all the time with bullies - witness the recent British phenomenon of happy slapping [wikipedia.org]; it seems perhaps relevant that this is happening in a heavily-surveilled society. Similarly, crimes like those of the Nazis or of Rwanda could probably not have happened without surveillance.
Surveillance can eliminate difference and diversity, while also suppressing morality. All that matters is the perception - there need not be anyone recording or watching the cameras. That is the great danger, and those who make the argument are hardly "idiots".
Apparently (Score:3, Interesting)
So its not a Predator type UAV sitting for hours 500 miles from the launch site, with a tangle of sensors and weapons attached, more of an instant CCTV camera, maybe useful for crowd control or events... (or just for propaganda value).
Saying that I a not terribly comfortable with the direction this is taking, I close to a city centre (with a really low crime rate - except with regard to burglaries...), and it bothers me that in 5-10 years there may be stealthy drones airborne over my house or garden without my knowledge, taking pictures.
I wish we could get back to having a few more Police officers knocking about, on foot, talking to people.
New and radical concept (Score:3, Informative)
When I was a kid I always thought it was the coolest thing when ever the St Louis police helicopter (aka the Brown Hornet, it was brown, duh) landed in the parking lot of the Wendy's down the street. They'd kick the observer out to grab a bag of burgers.
I moved to the UK last year for work, and the only difference between the US and the UK is the fact the CCTV camera are labeled in the UK and typically not so in the US. Other than that there don't seem to be any more or less of them. What you don't see much of is the police. They don't "Fly the flag" near as much as they do in the US.
The only other thing that cracks me up is the radar cameras, most of which seem to have had every possible form of vandalism done to them. From being painted over to being blown up. I even saw one funny picture of a guy with a porky pig mask on with an fireman's emergency gas powered saw making short work of the post one was mounted on.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd be silly to pass up an assignment overseas. Most people pay to visit UK/EU.
Quality of life is very subjective. I like it, it reminds me of what most cities where like in the States 20-30 years ago (with 5x times the population), before all the mega-stores and chains blighted the landscape. Most shops and resturants are of the local variety. Wages for middle income and lower income are pretty bad and the unemployment rate is well into the double
Other Days, Other Eyes (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, a scientist creates 'slow glass' - glass through which light passes much more slowly than regular glass. Many of the inter-connected short stories are about specific applications - a detective waits for the image to come through on a piece of 5-year glass to prove that the man who'd been executed for murder was the right one; a murderer uses a piece of slow glass in his car windscreen to make it appear another man is driving his truck.
The end of the book is the scientist who created slow glass (Retardite TM) realising that the governments of the world are using it for espionage and worse, dusting the entire world with microscopic crystals that will capture images of everything, everywhere.
"From now on, came the silent scream inside his head, anybody, any agency, with the right equipment can find out anything about ANYBODY! This planet is one huge unblinking eye watching everything that moves on its surface. We're all encased in glass, asphyxiating, like bugs dropped into a entomologist's killing bottle."
But less than a page from this realisation comes a short epilogue which contains this sentence:
"In later decades, men were to come to accept the universal presence of Retardite eyes, and they learned to live without subterfuge or shame as they had done in a distant past when it was known that the eyes of God could see everywhere."
Maybe universal surveillance is a good thing, as long as it's genuinely universal. Maybe if the politicians and lawmen knew they were being watched 24/7 along with everyone else, they'd have to behave properly as well.
Re:Safety? You want to talk about safety? (Score:5, Insightful)
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We have it easy today.
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So first of all, don't talk about stuff you don't even have the faintest idea about. Second of all, no the US doesn't have bigger proble
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A sell job (Score:4, Insightful)
You were watching propaganda designed to sell you a bad bill of goods.
The best way to sell a bad bill of goods to somebody is to mix in a few good nuts with all the poison pills you want people to consume.
Interestingly, even with the cameras in place, the crime you describe still took place, so it didn't make things any safer for the victim. Further, jokers who attack people generally find their way to prison regardless. That's just how it works. So since the crime took place even with cameras in place, and since these guys were headed for prison anyway, how does that validate a surveillance state?
-FL