The Ultimate Big Brother comes to the UK

[monster]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

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.”

1) What about the freedom to be safe? If you are not safe are you truly free?
2) Being old does not make the written word true or closed to different interpretations. Take the bible for example.
3) How do cameras and speakers remove your freedom? You're still free do do whatever you damn well please. You may be more likelty to be caught if it's illegal, or feel more awkward doing whatever it is you want to do, but are the cameras themselves or their operators really at fault?

[Griff]

I'm not sure if this is a nonsense point, but let me try. There are a growing number of people in the US who base morality on legality not vice versa. If we extend that mindset to enforcement of law, does that not lead to a situation where if they (can't prove) don't film you in your misbehavior then you don't consider it misbehavior? It just seems like we're turning into a society guided by extrinsic forces rather than intrinsic forces, which to me is one more step toward a general societal melt down.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Interesting.

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

No dicotomy here, one is specifically designed to combat terroristic activity the other deals specifically with crime. Huge frigging difference.

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

Cool, please post my link where I "scream George Orwell" anything. All I did was post a thought which linked a movie, no screaming, just thought provoking. The movie was an over the top example of mind control, hardly compares. And I stated that I had mixed opinions about it. Neither one side or the other on monitoring for local crime control, again a HUGE difference between that and monitoring for TERRORISTIC ACTIVITY.

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.

little bit of mixing up your facts there but ok, I'll take your word that you are paranoid.

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.

Hmmmmmm..... ok, what ever the hell that response is to imply.

[Griff]

Terrorist Activity is the GOP version of the Dems For the Children

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

I'm not sure if this is a nonsense point, but let me try. There are a growing number of people in the US who base morality on legality not vice versa. If we extend that mindset to enforcement of law, does that not lead to a situation where if they (can't prove) don't film you in your misbehavior then you don't consider it misbehavior? It just seems like we're turning into a society guided by extrinsic forces rather than intrinsic forces, which to me is one more step toward a general societal melt down.

I think you are on to something here. My biggest problem is the influx of moralistic ideals into the political process, things like Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, abortion issues, etc. All of these things appear to be an attempt to legislate morality, as well as re-writing history to reflect some aspect of political correctness. When we do that we have really screwed things up, spending way to much time on issues that are not all that important IMHO.

I think the reality is that the idea of personal guidance of moral behavior has dissolved to a greater degree with dissolution of the family unit, decreased influence of organized religious affiliation (keeping church in the home and community and out of society), and the nurturing of generations of "me" combined with generations of people who think they are "entitled" to things and have "rights" to things that in reality are neither.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

Terrorist Activity is the GOP version of the Dems For the Children

I don't know, maybe among some of the hard core RWingers. All those terms have been so abused by the media I think you would be hard pressed to find any agreement among the groups as to what any of it means at any one time.

Originally Posted by monster

1) What about the freedom to be safe? If you are not safe are you truly free?
2) Being old does not make the written word true or closed to different interpretations. Take the bible for example.
3) How do cameras and speakers remove your freedom? You're still free do do whatever you damn well please. You may be more likelty to be caught if it's illegal, or feel more awkward doing whatever it is you want to do, but are the cameras themselves or their operators really at fault?

Yes, because you cannot be safe, but you can be free.

I don't get your second point. The quote is still around because it is true.

The old, bullshit, argument that one does not have to worry if they are not doing anything wrong is still a red herring for stealing rights.

[Aliantha]

We have red light cameras over here. I think they're a good idea. They certainly discourage people from running red lights which saves lives in the end.

If you don't want your picture taken, don't run red lights. It's pretty simple.

[piercehawkeye45]

We have that here too. I don't run red lights so I'm fine but I think you can get screwed over if you push a yellow and it turns red before you make it because you will still get a ticket. Probably what they want to accomplish though.

[zippyt]

If you are not doing any thing to provoke the Gubment then what is the deal if they film you picking your ass while you walk down the street ???

this is only in Urben areas right ???

good thing i live in the sticks , cameras on poles would NEVER last around here " POW , click !!! " no camera

Hell they busted some bubbas for shooting at a power sub station a while back , it got FEDERAL REAL quick !!!!

[DanaC]

As far as I know the cameras are just in public areas in Urban settings. As far as ordinary CCTV goes, they tend to be in places where either a lot of antisocial activity goes on and people have complained (e.g the town centre outside a club) or they are in areas where people face risk of attack (such as bus stations and the small linking streets in town) or they are in places where residents have clubbed together and requested the council, police or housing assoc. place them, such as snickets where there is a high rate of drug dealing or vandalism etc. The other cameras tend to be privately owned by shopping malls or businesses who wish to protect their property. There are very strict laws about what and whom can be filmed. For instance, if I were to seek permission to put a camera in my garden because I'd been targetted by vandals or something, I wuold have to angle it so that it did not look into anybody elses garden, and I don't think I'd be allowed to have it look out onto the street itself either. The police could angle one to look at the street if it was to deal with a specific problem (e.g, there's a snicket in a housing estate that teens are using as a rat run and they then cause a bunch of damage and distress for a couple of people whose gardens back onto that snicket.)

What's of far more concern to me, is the idea currently being floated about having a National database of DNA.....and I.D cards which hold massive amounts of personal and financial (and no doubt eventually political) data all available to the government. That stuff worries me far more. Cctv we've had for years and has been proved as a useful piece of technology in crime prevention and crime solving.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by DanaC

What's of far more concern to me, is the idea currently being floated about having a National database of DNA.....and I.D cards which hold massive amounts of personal and financial (and no doubt eventually political) data all available to the government. That stuff worries me far more. Cctv we've had for years and has been proved as a useful piece of technology in crime prevention and crime solving.

Originally Posted by The Gubbamint

Look lovie, I bloody well cannot protect you from the eeeevilll terrorists if you don't hand over your DNA. Precisely, I cannot protect anyone from the terrorists without your DNA. Any citizen who fails to submit a DNA sample is clearly hiding something and will be immediately categorized as an "person of interest" to streamline the process of sidestepping established legal procedures for obtaining said DNA and whatever else we need to complete a full investigation of your threatening behaviour. Don't let this happen to you. The first 50 people who stop by one of our roving DNA collection vans will get a complimentary roll of duct tape and terrorist threat-level poster. Its ok to trust us since we're the gubbamint - no harm will come to those who comply and resist not. Besides, the Americans are doing it - their just not telling anyone. Ta ta.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by DanaC

What's of far more concern to me, is the idea currently being floated about having a National database of DNA.....and I.D cards which hold massive amounts of personal and financial (and no doubt eventually political) data all available to the government. That stuff worries me far more. Cctv we've had for years and has been proved as a useful piece of technology in crime prevention and crime solving.

As computing power increases, I would expect the camera feeds to be slaved to recognition software and tied to data banks for a perfect storm of privacy invasion. In the States it would start locally, probably in gated communities, and grow in conjunction with the technological capacity. Our aging population of scared whiteys will demand protection and they'll get it.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The police could angle one to look at the street if it was to deal with a specific problem (e.g, there's a snicket in a housing estate that teens are using as a rat run and they then cause a bunch of damage and distress for a couple of people whose gardens back onto that snicket.)

What's a snicket?

[DanaC]

Umm..sorry. It's a guinnel.....a very narrow little alley/passageway running between gardens or houses, linking one part of an estate to another.