PistonHeads reports police in Manchester have raise their surveillance efforts in the world's most surveilled country to the next level. They're recording information on every one of the 600k cars that enter the city on a daily basis. When you drive into Manchester on one of twelve major routes, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras record your car's registration and color and the time of entry. The system automatically checks your information against national databases to see what heinous crime someone driving your car may have committed. The police and/or various government agencies store the information for five years "to fight terrorism, crime and car theft." The UK has the same system in place in The City (London's financial district) following a 1993 terrorist attack in Bishopsgate. Let the "if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" arguments begin.
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If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
You know, as the surveillance increases the likely hood that someone will do something does too…and in a low tech manner.
Do terrorists really need cars to get around? How about electronics? Have you seen the nut cases in Afghanistan lately? They tend to walk, bike, or ride a camel/mule/whatever has four legs and can carry them. Or they hitch a ride.
Look to the UK to see what is next here (USA). Civil liberties anyone? I for one would not check them at the door for “more” security!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
@picard234…
So the teen here is in the wrong??
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/20/city_london_scientology_protest_summons/
(just one of many examples btw)
Listen to “For What it’s Worth” from the 60’s – hey I remember those days. The lyrics really stand up to the test of time.
Why does every intersection in america seem to have cameras looking in every direction?South Jersey anyway. Must be for the traffic, yeah, thats it. Even in the desolate intersections with no traffic, look up, there they are! When is the facial recognition software going to be installed? Remember the super bowl some years back when it was used and they told the public afterward, presumably to gauge reaction and outrage, or lack thereof? Maybe Orwells 1984 and Animal Farm should be required reading. And the sheeple go about their business…
People will continue to rationalize this continual descent into a surveilance state right up until the jackboots of a dictator’s security forces are pressed onto their necks.
Tyrany will come at the hands of otherwise well-meaning people.
Why does every intersection in america seem to have cameras looking in every direction?South Jersey anyway.
I have wondered about that. We have them all over Utah too. What are they? Where does the video go?
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Ben Franklin
Qwerty :
Why does every intersection in america seem to have cameras looking in every direction?South Jersey anyway.
I have wondered about that. We have them all over Utah too. What are they? Where does the video go?
Aren’t they motion detectors that trip the lights ? Probably less expensive than burying inductive loops or physical triggers in the ground.
> Look to the UK to see what is next here (USA). Civil liberties anyone? I for one would not check them at the door for “more” security!
Neither would I since we are in no greater danger now than we were in 2001. Maybe less.
However, I don’t believe there is much of a privacy argument with respect to public highways. What reasonable expectation of privacy is there? It’s a public place.
In my city we are having a similar “flap” over cameras in a local park. Some people are up in arms over being “spied” upon. But it’s a public park. Anyone can go there and watch anyone else.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3965033.ece
This is about British plans to maintain a database of every single phone call, email, and internet session by the whole population for a year at a time.
British gov’t plans are obviously total surveillance of the population. Of all things pretty much exactly like Orwell’s account in fiction. As the technology to do so improves it is clear the UK authorities will use it for any and all surveillance possible. Pity that so far it hasn’t made anything safer or better while wasting lots of money imo. I think it is much less about terrorism and crime prevention than about gov’t control of the population it fears.
Well I may not like Big Brother but its not infallible. I have only just bothered to tax my car after two years of being on the road. I also have quite a few unpaid tickets and they havn’t managed to catch up with me quite yet. No doubt I am a rash on somebodies computer
The small “cameras” at intersections are just motion detectors that control the signals instead of pressure sensors buried in the pavement. Unless you are really paranoid and believe in government conspiracies of all kinds, then they are cameras following your every move.
so would that wonderful photo blocker spray shit and some full-body vinyls to change your car’s color on a daily basis help out?