Closed circuit cameras are watching you...

[Eli]

Originally posted by Dauphin
The almightly government is not supposed to fight crime unless you have a weird judicial system.

Meh. The police fights crime, the police is an arm of the government, therefore the government fights crime. All the rest is semantics.

[rah]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I would find that hard to believe, as there are a lot of cameras here. There are something like 7,000 on the Underground system alone, plus every train carriage and most buses have them. Its not an exaggeration to say that wherever you are in the streets of London you can spot at least one camera.

WOW, but you might be surprised. There's at least 50 in our office building alone. And there's a lot of office buildings, but I guarentee there aren't 7000 in the underground here. I guess we have some catching up to do.

[DanS]

I was about to say that CCTV doesn't count toward the total, but I guess it might.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Personally I don't fully appreciate the privacy argument, assuming that the CCTV is in a public place. You are in a public place where anyone can see you, so why be overly concerned that you are being seen by a camera.

Its highly unlikely that the footage would ever be used except when a crime has been commited or there is good porn. Its not in anyone's interest to waste time watching the footage otherwise.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by rah


WOW, but you might be surprised. There's at least 50 in our office building alone. And there's a lot of office buildings, but I guarentee there aren't 7000 in the underground here. I guess we have some catching up to do.

A google search has the WSJ stating there are 500,000 cameras in London.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112077340647880052-cKyZgAb0T3asU4UDFVNPWrOAqCY_20060708,00.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

The British capital has more surveillance cameras monitoring its citizens than any other major city in the world. The highly visible gadgets are posted on the corners of many buildings, on new buses and in every subway station. Since 2003, the license plate of every car driving into central London during weekdays is filmed as part of a program to reduce traffic congestion. London charges a fee to cars and also uses the films to catch and fine cheats. In all, there are at least 500,000 cameras in the city, and one study showed that in a single day a person could expect to be filmed 300 times.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Eli
Rule of thumb: If you were in charge and in control of such system, what would you do?

Obviously being a paranoid fascist, I'd use it to track down my enemys and slaughter them in a dark alleyway.

Seriously? Absolutely nothing unless a crime was committed and the footage could be used to help identify the criminal(s).

[Winston]

And the crime committed doesn't even need to be where the camera is taking its pictures. Some of the cases that stand out where cameras have played an important role have been where they positively identified and placed a suspect at another place or time than what he'd told the police. Cameras are great for picking apart the story of a crime suspect, provided the police know where to look of course. The ones in stations and public transportation seem especially useful.

[Fake Boris]

When the technology allows efficient monitoring, those cameras will be used in no time for political repression.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
When the technology allows efficient monitoring, those cameras will be used in no time for political repression.

Yeah, fit them all with vaporising lasers!

[Winston]

People who practice and express their political views in a lawful and non-violent way are not being "repressed" today, why would they be in the future just because the camera technology evolves?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Winston
People who practice and express their political views in a lawful and non-violent way are not being repressed today, why would they be in the future just because the camera technology evolves?

That's just not true, more often than not the police provokes demonstrators into violence.

Like yeah, we're so free, we have to ask the police permission before demonstrating.

[Kuciwalker]

I agree you don't have freedom of speech. Hate speech laws

[Fake Boris]

We're always just a step away from repression. Take for instance Canada, a suposedly peaceful country. In '70, following the rapt of a minister, the Canadian police used a list of the PQ members (separatist party) stolen from their headquarters to arrest pretty much anyone holding a meaningful position in the party.

[Winston]

"...police provokes demonstrators into violence."

My impression is some of the protestors need to work a little on their provocation tolerance levels.

[Fake Boris]

Actually, no. The police usually requires that demonstrators ask for the permission to demonstrate. Failure to comply usually means everyone in the demonstration will be arrested. Think about it a second. You have to ask the government... the permission to protest against it.