The Ultimate Big Brother comes to the UK
 

Ever see 1984?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6524495.stm

A hobby of mine, fast, would be a super-soaker loaded with paint.

Yea, but they would still have your picture on camera. :D We were walking around Nottingham in Nov 06 and there is a central shopping area where no cars are allowed but there are a ton of people there, thousands, suddenly there were about 20 cops coming down to a single intersection from all directions. Talking on their little walkie talkies. They busted some guys who had committed some crimes minutes ago. They were directed to the specific individuals via their headsets and guided by the cameras, because you could see them picking people out of the crowd. It was the wildest thing I have ever seen. We need that in some places here in the US.

The Times.

Vandalism is the answer but you have to be smart about it.

We have just started to get red light cameras here. We have two major intersections with them and as much controversy that surrounds them people have stopped running the yellow to get through. I understand that in the UK you never know exactly which of the yellow boxes have a camera in them at any one time becasue they keep moving the cameras around from box to box. Maybe some of the UK guests here could enlighten us.

Yeah, freedom's a bitch.

Have you guys started to get Red Light Cameras where you live yet?

In one area, a sniper took one out, I laughed.

Well that would be one way to take them out, but most of the ones we have around here are in fairly populated areas. You would be hard pressed to fire off a rifle in this area.

The other thing that the local cops just picked up is a License Plate Scanner. What they are doing is driving around the city, through public parking garages (of which we have a few big ones), and scanning every single plate into a computer. It scans as it drives by in a matter of seconds. It compares that against a national data base for all kinds of things including delinquent child support, wants and warrants, expired plates, delinquent taxes, or what ever they can pull from a plate. Then they bust the people or tow and impound the car.

OK, so what is the issue with CCTV? How exactly does it encroach on your personal freedom? It's not in your home (a la 1984), it's in the streets. In the areas where you would like to be able to walk freely without fear of attack. In the areas where you would like proof that the dickheed who ran the red and wrote off your car was at fault.

Would you rather get a warning or a fine for littering? What is the problem? Do you like to litter?

As long as the cameras aren't in my private space, I have no problem. How is it any more of an infringement of my personal liberties than it is when someone throws trash from their car that interacts with mine? Would I rather have the freedom to solicit for sex without the watchful eye of the state on me, or the freedom to walk home at night by myself safe in the knowledge that no-one will rape me because it's recorded?

I sort of have mixed opinions of them. One of the problems here in the US is that it would be very hard to take that system and expand it nationwide as it is in the UK. Regionally it is ok, but still very expensive. I know that they use them at many of the very large stadiums where they need to have a broder security cordon. I would like to see them in some of the seedier crime ridden parts of town but you know that some ACLU asshat would sue and say that it was racist.

My rifle is accurate up to a mile.

I have no problem with them as long as they are NEVER trained on ANY private property, at any time.

I have mixed feelings about cctv. On the one hand I don't like the idea that the UK is the most spied upon nation in Europe.....and given howlittle i trust the establishment generally, I am not thrilled at them having ever more access to information about me (though I find id cards more worrying frankly); however, there have been many instances in recent years where the cctv network coverage of areas has helped in crime solving and crime prevention. For instance in some cases of spousal abuse, where a guy has laid into his wife/partner on the way home from the pub, then bullied the woman into dropping charges, the police have had cctv evidence to be able to push the prosecution forwards. And, I must admit I feel safer in staions and on buses that have cctv on them, travelling alone at night.

AUTHOR: Benjamin Franklin (1706–90)
QUOTATION:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

ATTRIBUTION: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.—The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).

This quotation, slightly altered, is inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Interesting.

In one thread you support the Bush administration's covert domestic spying campaign despite the Constitutional prohibitions against it.

In another thread you scream George Orwell on England's above-board, anything-but-covert surveillance of public property.

I'll take a camera watching me pick my nose while crossing the street over having my bank statements, phone records, credit card activity and internet/email logs demanded without a warrant and submitted without my knowlege or consent to the same irresponsible government bozos who sat on their fat asses eating jelly donuts while terrorists were training right under their noses any damn day.

Speaking of talking points, I think I hear your fax maching ringing. If you had that thing where faxes could come right into your computer, you could just cut and paste your reply to this post rather than having to retype it. Just a thought.