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Big Brother Britain; The Rolemodel of America
Tweet Topic Started: Dec 11 2006, 07:21 PM (1,146 Views)
Denovissimus Dec 11 2006, 07:21 PM Post #1
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Britain Worried About Excessive Surveillance

Angus Reid
Monday, December 11, 2006

Many Britons are concerned about the increased use of cameras and biometrics in their country, according to a poll by YouGov published in the Daily Telegraph. 79 per cent of respondents believe the country can accurately be described as a surveillance society.

In 2004, home secretary David Blunkett strongly campaigned in favour of a national identity card system. The plan contemplates setting up a database that would contain the fingerprints and/or eye scan of every single person in Britain. The government estimates that the full implementation of the plan will cost $10.5 billion U.S. over the next 10 years.

In November, British information commissioner Richard Thomas discussed the current state of affairs, saying, "Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us."

Polling Data

Because of the increased use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, speed cameras, biometric passports, fingerprinting and so forth, Britain is increasingly being described as a ‘surveillance society’. Do you think that is, on balance, an accurate description or not?

Yes, it is an accurate description
79%

No, it isn’t an accurate description
16%

Don’t know
5%

Source: YouGov / Daily Telegraph
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,979 British adults, conducted from Nov. 28 to Nov. 30. 2006. No margin of error was provided.

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Denovissimus Dec 11 2006, 07:22 PM Post #2
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It will happen here!

Beware the microchips! First Fido (your dog) then you!
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alondria Dec 11 2006, 08:05 PM Post #3
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britain has 20% of the worlds cctv systems, it may not sound a lot but when you think how small we are. and there are 14,000,000 cameras in britain, thats 3 per person
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Jane Dec 11 2006, 08:05 PM Post #4
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And after that the cybermen will get us!!!
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Denovissimus Dec 11 2006, 08:20 PM Post #5
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You can't even scratch your balls without it being caught on tape over there!
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Auntie Maine Dec 12 2006, 01:29 PM Post #6
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If is three per person then who is watching them all? :huh
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Denovissimus Dec 12 2006, 01:47 PM Post #7
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Clones, robots, aliens or combinations of all three!
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Jane Dec 12 2006, 06:14 PM Post #8
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In defense of cameras they can be used to track murderers/terororists etc. I assume images can be used as evidence in court, and if we were in trouble, getting mugged or raped or something and it was on camera we could be saved by the police!
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Noname Dec 19 2006, 01:49 PM Post #9
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We have taped phones over here. Hello, has no one learned from the Nixon administration!!
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Denovissimus Dec 26 2006, 03:06 PM Post #10
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Orwell Was Right: Spy Cameras See Britons' Every Move
Added: Dec 25th, 2006 8:28 AM

By Nick Allen

It's Saturday night in Middlesbrough, England, and drunken university students are celebrating the start of the school year, known as Freshers' Week.

One picks up a traffic cone and runs down the street. Suddenly, a disembodied voice booms out from above:

``You in the black jacket! Yes, you! Put it back!'' The confused student obeys as his friends look bewildered.

``People are shocked when they hear the cameras talk, but when they see everyone else looking at them, they feel a twinge of conscience and comply,'' said Mike Clark, a spokesman for Middlesbrough Council who recounted the incident. The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight outside bars.

Almost 70 years after George Orwell created the all-seeing dictator Big Brother in the novel ``1984,'' Britons are being watched as never before. About 4.2 million spy cameras film each citizen 300 times a day, and police have built the world's largest DNA database. Prime Minister Tony Blair said all Britons should carry biometric identification cards to help fight the war on terror.

``Nowhere else in the free world is this happening,'' said Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer who also is a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. ``The American public would find such inroads into civil liberties wholly unacceptable.''

During the past decade, the government has spent 500 million pounds ($1 billion) on spy cameras and now has one for every 14 citizens, according to a September report prepared for Information Commissioner Richard Thomas by the Surveillance Studies Network, a panel of U.K. academics.

Who's In Charge?

At a single road junction in the London borough of Hammersmith, there are 29 cameras run by police, government, private companies and transport agencies. Police officers are even trying out video cameras mounted on their heads.

``We've got to stand back and see where technology is taking us,'' said Thomas, whose job is to protect people's privacy. ``Humans must dictate our future, not machines.''

Blair said citizens have to sacrifice some freedoms to fight terrorism, illegal immigration and identity fraud.

``We have a modern world that we are living in, with new and different types of crime,'' Blair said Nov. 6 at a press conference in London. ``If we don't use technology in order to combat it, then we won't be fighting crime effectively.''

Constant Monitoring

In the bowels of New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London police force, a windowless room contains a giant bank of TV screens where the city is monitored around the clock. At the touch of a button, officers can focus on any neighborhood and zoom in on people's faces.

Police hunting the killer of five prostitutes in Suffolk were able to gather 10,000 hours of footage from in and around Ipswich.

By 2016, there will be cameras using facial recognition technology embedded in lampposts, according to the Surveillance Studies report. Unmanned spy planes will monitor the movements of citizens, while criminals and the elderly will be implanted with microchips to track their movements, the report says.

``The level of surveillance in this country should shock people,'' said David Murakami Wood, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle who headed the study. ``It is infiltrating everything we do.''

Wood is also concerned about the U.K.'s growing DNA database. The files contain the genetic codes of more than 3.8 million people, or 5.2 percent of the population. By comparison, the U.S. has the DNA records of 0.5 percent of its residents.

DNA matches helped solve 45,000 crimes in the U.K. last year, including 422 murders, 645 rapes and 9,000 burglaries, according to the Home Office. But the database isn't foolproof.

Burglar Who Wasn't

Police who knocked on Raymond Easton's door in Swindon, England, in 1999 were certain he had committed burglary at a house 200 miles (300 kilometers) away. DNA found at the scene was a 37 million-to-1 match with Easton's sample, which had been taken three years earlier.

Easton, a former construction worker, had Parkinson's disease and could barely dress himself. He was still charged. Further tests proved he had never been to Bolton, where the burglary occurred, according to the Greater Manchester police.

``Britain's DNA database is spiraling out of control,'' said Helen Wallace, deputy director of GeneWatch U.K., which campaigns for responsible use of genetic science. ``It could allow an unprecedented level of government surveillance.''

Other government plans include loading the confidential medical records of 50 million patients in the state-run health system onto a central database without their consent.

Most controversial of all are Blair's biometric ID cards linked to a national register holding every citizen's fingerprints, iris or face scan. Starting in 2010, anyone renewing or applying for a passport will have to get one.

``Desperate for some sort of legacy, the prime minister has nothing to offer but Blair's Big Brother Britain,'' said Phil Booth, national coordinator of the anti-ID card group NO2ID.
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Denovissimus Jan 9 2007, 04:48 PM Post #11
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A MORTGAGE? GIVE US YOUR FINGERPRINTS
EXCLUSIVE Shock move on ID cards
By Nigel Nelson
HOME seekers will soon have to show their FINGERPRINTS to take out a mortgage.

Banks and building societies will introduce the measure for first-time buyers to clamp down on identity fraud.

The shock move comes as the Government prepares plans to introduce its controversial ID cards.

Home Secretary John Reid asked lenders what checks they would like for granting a mortgage.

They want fingerprint and facial biometrics - which will be included on identity cards.

Couples buying their first home will be the first to get the cards when they are introduced in 2009. Eventually everyone will need one.


Premier Tony Blair said: "This is not just important for security.


It will make accessing services in modern life easier for people."


Identity cards will add £30 to the cost of a biometric passport. They are supposed to cut crime and deter terrorists.


But critics say they are not worth the scheme's £5.4billion cost.
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la anaconda de chocolatee Jan 9 2007, 04:58 PM Post #12
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damn! Bush and his attempts to completely take away all of our privacy rights in the name of fighting terrorism has nothing at all on Blair and the UK! that is crazy!!
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Jane Jan 9 2007, 05:58 PM Post #13
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:shock forcing people to get cards or they won't get a mortgage! :shock
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la anaconda de chocolatee Jan 9 2007, 07:16 PM Post #14
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Blair is so much worse than bush! He is a megalomaniac!
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Denovissimus Jan 11 2007, 06:34 PM Post #15
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Drivers face jail for tampering with car black boxes under new road toll plans
by RAY MASSEY

The Government has been accused of sneaking in draconian new laws
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Motorists face six months in jail if they tamper with "pay-as-you drive" road-toll tracking devices put into their cars under draconian new laws being sneaked through Parliament, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Wardens and council officials will have stop-and-search powers to enter anyone's car to check if the on-board tolling equipment - most likely an electronic 'tag' on the windscreen - has been tampered with.

If a driver remonstrates or in any way obstructs the official, he or she will also be deemed guilty of an offence and be liable to up to six months in prison.

Under the road pricing plans, which will be introduced in England within ten years, cars will be fitted with equipment to have their every movement tracked by satellite or roadside beacon.

Now details of the new powers to enforce these plans have emerged in a little noticed Bill obtained by the Daily Mail which experts say is a 'dry run' for the Government's proposed flagship national tolling scheme.

The scheme has already provoked a powerful grass-routes backlash. It has attracted massive opposition from thousands of angry entries to an electronic petition lodged on the Downing Street website.

Transport for London is taking widespread new powers for tolling major roads - far beyond the current congestion charge - that would see the capital acting as a test-bed for the Government's national road-pricing scheme in which drivers will pay up to £1.50 a mile at peak times.

The extent of the new powers last night (THURS) caused alarm and outrage among critics concerned at the latest 'Big Brother' intrusion by the state into the lives of ordinary motorists. Critics also fear the powers will be abused and that drivers will be intimidated.

The small print of the Proposed Transport for London (Supplemental Toll Provisions) Bill will allow the authorities to apply a toll along individual roads crossing many council areas.

Clause 14 says anyone who interferes with tolling equipment is liable to six months in jail. So too is anyone who causes or permits the registration plate to be obscured; or uses false documents to avoid paying the fine.

Obstructing a tolling official could also lead to six months in jail plus a hefty fine, according to clause 15.

Under the Bill, Transport for London officials will have the power to enter cars and examine any tolling equipment carried on-board, to ensure it has not been interfered with to avoid paying the toll or being fined.

The equipment can also be detached and seized by officials. The Bill also reveals that vehicles might have to carry 'documentation' when out on a toll road.

Significantly, the Bill also gives Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander powers to prevent a toll road scheme going ahead if the equipment being used is 'incompatible' with a national standard and if this is "detrimental to the interests of persons resident in England outside Greater London."

Motoring expert Hilton Holloway who unearthed the unknown Bill in the latest edition of Autocar magazine yesterday said: "It is quite clear from reading the Bill that the Government is quietly laying the legal foundations for national tolling, despite it's softly-softly stance in public.

"It is a good example of how new laws are introduced while we are sleeping. This goes far beyond the existing congestion charge and opens the way for the tolling of individual roads. Busy commuter routes such as the A40, A3 A4 and A1 are all in the frame."

Mr Holloway added: "This clearly shows that the Government already has a national tolling system in mind, and it's virtually certain to be the kind of charge card mounted inside the windscreen that is already in widespread use on European motorways. This scheme is a laboratory test for the rest of the country. But it shows how draconian the law is going to be.

"The controversial but unnoticed TfL Bill was published in draft form in August and has already been quietly laid before Parliament. It is expected to become law in the Autumn.

"Transport for London is arming itself with some quite draconian powers that will allow their officials entry to any car - with six months in jail if you remonstrate. There are some very worrying civil liberties aspects to this Bill which has been quietly pushed though without any debate."

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Jane Jan 11 2007, 08:37 PM Post #16
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:shock That'd better never happen!!!
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Denovissimus Jan 11 2007, 08:43 PM Post #17
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They will have mandatory microchipping of humans like they made you do your Vinny! Mark my words!
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Jane Jan 11 2007, 08:44 PM Post #18
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I chipped my doggie on purpose so he can get found if he gets lost!
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Denovissimus Jan 11 2007, 08:48 PM Post #19
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Stepping stones to branding human cattle!

I need to resurrect my microchipping thread.
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Noname Jan 12 2007, 12:37 PM Post #20
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I don't know that much on Blair so I can't say much about him.
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