I am watching you through a camera

The BBC recently wrote about a camera network in the UK to log car number plates. That is, a database that you can hook into any local council’s CCTV cameras, provided they’re of a high enough resolution, that runs text recognition on number plates. It means that the local police can add a number plate to the watchlist and have the system automatically flag any occurences of that number plates, anywhere in the country. Sounds great, right?

John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.
It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a “marker” on his car. That meant he was added to a “hotlist”.
This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.
“I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?”

Britain is increasingly becoming a nation that categorises people as criminals and enemies of the state based on whether or not they hold a viewpoint that disagrees with that of the government. This is another in the long line of examples of the label ‘terrorist’ being used to undermine the rights of citizens acting in a way completely accordant with the principles on which the country was founded. There’s a systematic campaign under way to silence dissenting voices through intimidation and harassment.

And where there’s Creeping Socialist Nightmare, one name can’t be far behind. Take it, Jacqui Smith:

“It’s something that we will look at further legislation about where necessary,” she said.
“I don’t think we should lose sight of the very considerable benefits that this technology also brings us, brings law enforcement.”

Much as I try, I can’t convince myself that the initial ‘considerable benefits that this technology brings us’, before she amends it to ‘brings law enforcement’ is anything but a tacit admission of her own complicity in trying to institute a state where the government hold the reins of absolute power, free to track whoever they want at will without fear of reprisal or of being held accountable for misuse of the power that they, after all, have signed over to themselves.

Recent research by Huddersfield University found that the public seemed to share that view. The study took place in Leeds as the ANPR system was being introduced. The vast majority supported the cameras if they caught law breakers, with only a few mentioning concerns about police surveillance.

Baa.