Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors 521
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.'"
Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
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
Pot Plants? (Score:5, Funny)
Growing things in pots is a transgression in Michigan?
Re:Whats so special? (Score:4, Funny)
Ehm, if you fail to cut your 'grass' you get a fine, but you're suspicious when you grow pot plants?
I must say I fail to see the logic.....
Fabulous prizes to be won! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Unpaid volunteers (Score:4, Funny)
A lot of people would actually pay for the opportunity to legally harass their neigbours, so I think the councils aren't even close to what they could have done, after all, they'll need a lot of money to staff their soon to be overwhelmed homicide divisions.
Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:1, Funny)
Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:1, Funny)
Look, that was a perfectly well constructed law and was passed for all the right reasons. Some poor Daily Mail reading womens kinky daughter was killed, no, SLAUGHTERED at the hands of her consenting partner while engaging in a consensual sex act which the poor womens kinky daughter enjoyed and had requested her partner to perform.
Now I don't know about you, but clearly when a person who is engaging in a dangerous kink is accidentally injured, it's clearly the fault of the internets and those dangerous perverts who inhabit it's every nook and cranny. Like the Daily Mail reading womens daughter, for example. Obviously her daughter never would have enjoyed breath-play if the internet was banned. Or something.
Shit, have I left my sarcasm on again? Oh I'm terribly sorry.
Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
I like 'improper copper'.
Re:Whats so special? (Score:5, Funny)
Errrm.. You mean Land of the Fee.
Re:Its cut price police - again (Score:5, Funny)
"Hobby Bobby", although that's more often used for a "Special Constable"
Traffic Wardens? Trouble? (Score:5, Funny)
It's so people don't park on their heads.
Re:And this won't be missused... (Score:3, Funny)
"It's not a small minority. Not by a long shot."
So most muslims have blown themselves up in attacks on western civillians? That sounds like a problem that sorts itself out. Or do you mean that most are involved in some sort of extended plot to kill you and people like you?
Lots of things, like the fact that the IRA was not embarking on an eternal, God-given religious quest to rid the world of infidels one way or another.
Are you sure about that? Seemed like religiously motivated violence to me.
The IRA was a small, temporal group with small, temporal objectives, not an entire religious culture over 1500 years old with members in every corner of the planet.
Again, it's not every muslim that's full of hate for you and your culture. Not by a long shot. And the IRA had links all over the planet too, with south american militias and with US funding.
"There's really no point in even talking about this. All the king's men and all the king's horses could never convince you that anything is amiss in Britain or Europe. Go back to sleep."
See my original post. There's a lot wrong with the UK. "The muslims did it!" is not one of those things though.
I suggest you wake up and see what good, honest, white (lol) British people are doing because of their fear of muslims, and what the government is doing to our once free society because it can get away with it based on that (mostly invented) fear.
Re:I Left Eight Years Ago (Score:2, Funny)
Hello? 999? (Score:3, Funny)
My neighbour is spying on me!
How do you mean sir?
Well, see, I was peaking out my curtain...