The ever intrusive state that Labour have built to control us took a new twist yesterday.
BBC.
So of course Labour want more, because people think they are safer (they aren't) and it's a vote winner, at least until the cameras are used to spy on the very people who want them. And I can almost bet that once they are in, there will be no right to remove them.
We're sleepwalking into a "1984" style regime and instead of fighting it every step of the way people are asking for it when they aren't just ignoring it. Wherever there's opposition the government moves to neutralise it or demonise it, there are times I get so tired of warning my friends and being looked at as if I'm mad, "Done nothing wrong, got nothing to fear" is usually the response I get, though slowly but surely it's becoming more obvious the levels of state intrusion and the things it supports.
Still it's a fight worth the effort and I still believe we can win, though I'm coming more and more to suspect it will be a Romanian style revolution rather than a political renaissance of the body politic.
More about → Does this include the right to remove them?
BBC.
Now Katie Piper was lucky, the CCTV cameras actually caught her attackers, however in the vast majority of cases they don't even work properly, or are looking in the wrong direction or even used for matters not to do with personal safety (putting rubbish in the wrong bins, parking offences etc) Indeed according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, who heads the Metropolitan Police's Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido), billions of pounds have been spent with almost no results to show. Only three percent of crimes have been solved using CCTV footage, and offenders aren't afraid of being caught on video. Det. Chief Inspector Neville, speaking to The Guardian, described the system as an "utter fiasco" and that "no thought" had gone into implementation.People will be given the right to petition for CCTV cameras, Labour has pledged, as the party unveils its plans for communities and law and order.Home Secretary Alan Johnson was joined at a press conference by Katie Piper, who was the victim of an acid attack.
She said her attackers may not have been caught and brought to justice if it had not been for the use of CCTV.
Mr Johnson also said Britain was "not broken", and violent crime had fallen, contrary to Conservative claims.
Mr Johnson accused opposition parties of opposing greater use of CCTV cameras on the basis of it forming part of a "surveillance society".
So of course Labour want more, because people think they are safer (they aren't) and it's a vote winner, at least until the cameras are used to spy on the very people who want them. And I can almost bet that once they are in, there will be no right to remove them.
We're sleepwalking into a "1984" style regime and instead of fighting it every step of the way people are asking for it when they aren't just ignoring it. Wherever there's opposition the government moves to neutralise it or demonise it, there are times I get so tired of warning my friends and being looked at as if I'm mad, "Done nothing wrong, got nothing to fear" is usually the response I get, though slowly but surely it's becoming more obvious the levels of state intrusion and the things it supports.
Still it's a fight worth the effort and I still believe we can win, though I'm coming more and more to suspect it will be a Romanian style revolution rather than a political renaissance of the body politic.