[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

The chips are coming.

Great news Marsh - I'm fecking starving.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

Until one day you are affected and your life falls apart. They act outside the law and the law is there to protect us.

And yes, me too. Anyone looking in to my personal life will probably be asleep in about fifteen minutes.

Doubtful

[DemolitionRed]

1984 was a novel, not a manual…Britain owns and runs quarter of the worlds CCCT cameras, the largest of any country. That’s 4.2 million cameras which makes it one camera for every 14 people. Britain is obsessed with security and we are all paranoid about our safety.

I was walking through the City of London with a barrister last year when we came across a very distraught elderly lady who was being held by 2 security guards. It turned out that she’d been waiting for her daughter outside some offices and had put her cigarette out on the pavement. The man behind the camera who’d been watching her signalled for security officers to attend. Neither my colleague nor myself are smokers and neither of us approve of people stubbing their fags out in the road but this was complete overkill. The barrister intervened and read these guys the riot act and the old lady who was shaking and crying could only repeat, “Please forgive me, I’m not a criminal”. This is authoritarian Britain today. The more I sea and learn, the less I want to live here.

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Shame they can't use all the tech they have to catch high profile peadophiles and it has to be done anonymously...

See this is one of the things that springs to my mind that I find highly hypocritical tbh, some are totally fine with the governments and security agencies knowing everything about them whilst claiming it helps in the fight against terrorists etc (although I have no idea how them knowing if I pop into old misses browns down the road for a cuppa on a Tuesday afternoon makes our country more secure), I am not one of theses people that are fine with it...but then these same people in another breath are completely against organisations like Anonymous revealing the identity of peadophiles, surely by them doing that they are doing the same thing as the governments claim to be doing?

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Livia

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. It's not as if the government are compiling piles of information purely to snoop on ordinary people with ordinary lives. Anyone with a supermarket loyalty card has information stored and passed on about them - what newspaper you buy, how much you spend... it's all amalgamated by companies like Experian who, from the information gleaned, can take a pretty good guess at which way you vote, for instance, and this information is for sale under the trade name Mosac. I don't see anyone cutting up their loyalty cards though. Also, we're less vigilant about our own personal information than ever with half the country sharing personal info, photos etc. social networks.

We might want to live in a country where personal information is totally personal and no information is collated about anyone. But then we'd see how many terrorists incidents are stopped every year because all those incidents would go ahead and there'd be carnage. Then there'd be a thread on how the security services aren't doing enough. It's not possible to have it all ways.

I don't think these information gleaning tactics are preventing as much attacks from terrorists as some seem to think or are led to believe, Didn't Obama claim that over 50 attacks had been prevented due to the NSA info? a number that was revealed later to seemingly have been plucked out of thin air. (I remember reading something about this so I will try find a link)

There is also a difference IMO when people give out their personal info and then when governments go looking for it for no reason, I just don't see how the metadata is needed, I'm talking about innocent daily activities that are being recorded, calling someone at a certain time for example, if neither people involved have ever been suspected of criminal activities that are threat to security then why does that info need to be recorded?

[bots]

Originally Posted by Josy

There is also a difference IMO when people give out their personal info and then when governments go looking for it for no reason, I just don't see how the metadata is needed, I'm talking about innocent daily activities that are being recorded, calling someone at a certain time for example, if neither people involved have ever been suspected of criminal activities that are threat to security then why does that info need to be recorded?

The likelihood is that it is information that is never referenced, the problem is that its included in a general pool of information that could be referenced and is therefore categorised as "recorded" information

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Josy

I don't think these information gleaning tactics are preventing as much attacks from terrorists as some seem to think or are led to believe, Didn't Obama claim that over 50 attacks had been prevented due to the NSA info? a number that was revealed later to seemingly have been plucked out of thin air. (I remember reading something about this so I will try find a link)

There is also a difference IMO when people give out their personal info and then when governments go looking for it for no reason, I just don't see how the metadata is needed, I'm talking about innocent daily activities that are being recorded, calling someone at a certain time for example, if neither people involved have ever been suspected of criminal activities that are threat to security then why does that info need to be recorded?

You could be making bombs with your grocery shopping.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

You could be making bombs with your grocery shopping.

[lostalex]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

1984 was a novel, not a manual…Britain owns and runs quarter of the worlds CCCT cameras, the largest of any country. That’s 4.2 million cameras which makes it one camera for every 14 people. Britain is obsessed with security and we are all paranoid about our safety.

I was walking through the City of London with a barrister last year when we came across a very distraught elderly lady who was being held by 2 security guards. It turned out that she’d been waiting for her daughter outside some offices and had put her cigarette out on the pavement. The man behind the camera who’d been watching her signalled for security officers to attend. Neither my colleague nor myself are smokers and neither of us approve of people stubbing their fags out in the road but this was complete overkill. The barrister intervened and read these guys the riot act and the old lady who was shaking and crying could only repeat, “Please forgive me, I’m not a criminal”. This is authoritarian Britain today. The more I sea and learn, the less I want to live here.

i wonder if there are any statistics about how many crimes were prevented with these cameras.

i would be interested to hear those stories.

Do you think in many circumstances the cameras actually do make people safer? or do you really believe they are just evil tools used by the government not to help people, but just to oppress people?

[Kizzy]

That's not such a joke, stores are told to watch for people buying large quantities of certain items.

[DemolitionRed]

Originally Posted by lostalex

i wonder if there are any statistics about how many crimes were prevented with these cameras.

i would be interested to hear those stories.

Do you think in many circumstances the cameras actually do make people safer? or do you really believe they are just evil tools used by the government not to help people, but just to oppress people?

I’m not saying don’t have surveillance cameras but why has Britain go more cameras than any other country in the world?

I don’t think people realize just how little freedom they have. Layer upon layer of legislation has been put in place to manipulate the way people behave. I mentioned in another thread about never seeing kids chalking a hopscotch on a pavement anymore and that’s because those children would be pounced on for vandalism. There are laws about how many people are allowed to gather in a public space; Its a very small number before the police can step in and disperse them. Our daughter can’t go with her mates to the local park because groups of teenagers are seen as suspicious.

What I resent is this extensive surveillance to ensure we all tow the line whilst believing we need their protection.

[lostalex]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

I’m not saying don’t have surveillance cameras but why has Britain go more cameras than any other country in the world?

I don’t think people realize just how little freedom they have. Layer upon layer of legislation has been put in place to manipulate the way people behave. I mentioned in another thread about never seeing kids chalking a hopscotch on a pavement anymore and that’s because those children would be pounced on for vandalism. There are laws about how many people are allowed to gather in a public space; Its a very small number before the police can step in and disperse them. Our daughter can’t go with her mates to the local park because groups of teenagers are seen as suspicious.

What I resent is this extensive surveillance to ensure we all tow the line whilst believing we need their protection.

and when large groups get unruly and there's a stabbing or a rape, everyone asks why the police weren't monitoring the large group of teenagers in the park.

the police are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

I’m not saying don’t have surveillance cameras but why has Britain go more cameras than any other country in the world?

I don’t think people realize just how little freedom they have. Layer upon layer of legislation has been put in place to manipulate the way people behave. I mentioned in another thread about never seeing kids chalking a hopscotch on a pavement anymore and that’s because those children would be pounced on for vandalism. There are laws about how many people are allowed to gather in a public space; Its a very small number before the police can step in and disperse them. Our daughter can’t go with her mates to the local park because groups of teenagers are seen as suspicious.

What I resent is this extensive surveillance to ensure we all tow the line whilst believing we need their protection.

You cannot seriously believe that. Laws are in place for our protection, what would the government get out of turning us into an Orwellian society? The government is liable to change every four or five years, this isn't some kind of dictatorship. And we DO need their protection. If we lived in a country that truly has no freedom there really would be something to complain about.

[Kizzy]

They get control, compliance and unquestioning obedience.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Josy

I don't think these information gleaning tactics are preventing as much attacks from terrorists as some seem to think or are led to believe, Didn't Obama claim that over 50 attacks had been prevented due to the NSA info? a number that was revealed later to seemingly have been plucked out of thin air. (I remember reading something about this so I will try find a link)

There is also a difference IMO when people give out their personal info and then when governments go looking for it for no reason, I just don't see how the metadata is needed, I'm talking about innocent daily activities that are being recorded, calling someone at a certain time for example, if neither people involved have ever been suspected of criminal activities that are threat to security then why does that info need to be recorded?

I disagree. I think the public will never know how much they owe the security services.

Why would be government be interested in looking at your information for no reason? They have enough to do looking at the scumbags with the agenda.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

They get control, compliance and unquestioning obedience.

Oh yeah, that sounds like the British public.

[DemolitionRed]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

They get control, compliance and unquestioning obedience.

Thank you Kizzy...that short sentence says it all.
Right now I've got bigger things to worry about and so I'm going to leave the robots to it and back out of this site for a while.

[JoshBB]

My personal opinion is that measures should be put in place to catch dangerous criminals and terrorists, but anything beyond that I am very strongly against. Innocent people should not be spied on.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Livia

Oh yeah, that sounds like the British public.

It does yes, we do and say very little and the govt are legislating away piece by piece many civil liberties it took past generations their lives to get.

There's a media blackout on any demonstration, then they focus on one act of civil disobedience to create a public backlash.

[bots]

Thing is, people complain about the government snooping on them and then go and post intimate details of their day on facebook, twitter and the like which are all available to the public. People complain when youths run amok on trains beating up old ladies and yet complain when video cameras are installed in train carriages to prevent it. I don't give a damn about appearing on a video camera compared to the benefits that it provides us.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

Thing is, people complain about the government snooping on them and then go and post intimate details of their day on facebook, twitter and the like which are all available to the public. People complain when youths run amok on trains beating up old ladies and yet complain when video cameras are installed in train carriages to prevent it. I don't give a damn about appearing on a video camera compared to the benefits that it provides us.

And that, I reckon, is how the majority of British citizens feel. I know I do.

[Kizzy]

By the same token the majority of people would be happy whoever unveils pedophilia.