CCTV and ID cards

[imamartian]

So it seems that nobody wants these two things..... well i wonder who will benefit the most from this momentous decision.... lets try to put them in reverse order..

1. CCTV installers and sellers.. obviously not a good move for them
2. Mr average like me who is law abiding and honest - little noticeable difference
3. Mr civil liberties/anti authoritarian... he's happy because he's made a point against authority..
4. a criminal... he's laughing into his methedone!!! crime will be so much less troublesome...

What a complete @rse about face bunch of nonsense.. these idiot civil liberties people, do they refuse to tell their friends and families their names? do they opt out of family holiday snaps.... don't they realise that their details are held by power companies, their dentist, the NHS... theit employers... the inland revenue etc etc etc etc ..... so why make so much fuss about things that might actually improve everyone elses lives?

 

[joe-90]

Because that's what they do.

 

[Lincsbodger]

We have a population of 65 million and we have 2 million CCTV cameras. China has 2 billion people and only 100,000 CCTV.

We are the thrird largest surveillance society in the world, which is scary. Big Brother is indeed watching.

There is no evidence that the proliferation of CCTV has had any effect whatsover in reducing street crime. But the price we pay for all these cameras is high.

Furthermore, its a contributing factor in the way labour has turned us all into criminals waiting to be caught, the assumption that everyone is guilty of something.

And lets not here that old chestnut 'if you have nothing to hide.......' because it is patently untrue, witness for example the number of people ensnared by the biased speeding laws and equipment. Labour has turned us into a police state, criminalising thousands of otherwise law abiding peopel, with a proliferation of petty laws.

So its not just about CCTV, its to do with the bigger picture of rolling back the Police state and the Big Brother attitude, and restoring state trust in the individual, rather than treating us a as a load of criminals.

 

[imamartian]

Ok Lincs, a lot of what you so eloquently state has been spouted for many years... can we break down what you say... we're not all criminals waiting to be caught because the tennet of law is innocent until proven guilty... cameras are a 'more' reliable tool to get us to that end.

You have privacy...in lots of places... toilets... the countryside.. and much more importantly.. in your own home! if you're in public, then if 5 people see you kick the sh!te out of a tramp, their evidence will get you locked up for a long time, so do you not want people to have eyes?

Cameras are not trained on you 24/7... they are a way of attempting to secure prosecutions and remove peoples' arguments when they lie about what they've done/

 

[Lincsbodger]

Well actually......no. Labour has removed so many of our rights and liberties, and warped the judicial system so badly that the very tenant of 'innocent until proven guilt' is currently not true. Fortunately, this government is going to correct that, but pointing CCTV at everyone everywhere is not the solution, but IS part of the problem.

Its also a question of personal choice. I do not give you consent to capture my image on your CCTV, because i am perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing. The average person appears on 330 cctv every day. Its overkill.

only the police (and i dont include the petty bureaucrats of the council in that) should operate cctv that points at public land and only then when they have demonstrated that theres a problem that needs a camera, and then only for a fixed period of time, after which they should have to demonstrate a continued need for the camera or take it down. NO privately owned camera should point at public land, full stop.

 

[imamartian]

that the very tenant of 'innocent until proven guilt' is currently not true.

Well actually this tenet of law is true... you may not feel it is, but it's the fabric of our society

Fortunately, this government is going to correct that, but pointing CCTV at everyone everywhere is not the solution,

You're using those emotive terms again... EVERYONE..... and EVERYWHERE... that is patently not true.

Its also a question of personal choice. I do not give you consent to capture my image on your CCTV,

Well tha's the law... that you live by and vote for making it legal to film you in public... i say live with it. And don't commit crime!

The average person appears on 330 cctv every day.

well that depends on what study you read... only today on bbc news it was stated that the kind of scale you're talking about was borne from a walk in London to try and find all the cameras they could.... but in reality it's nothing like that !

 

[Lincsbodger]

that the very tenant of 'innocent until proven guilt' is currently not true.

Well actually this tenet of law is true... you may not feel it is, but it's the fabric of our society

no it isnt. You have no right to silence, for example. That permits the prosecution to infer guilt from silence without evidence. Thats a fundamental shift from 'innocent until proven guilty' to 'guilty if silent', which forces you to prove your innocence by having to speak. If you fail to speak, all the prosecution has to do is say 'he guilty cos hes silent' and doent have to produce any further evidence. That is de facto guilty until proven innocent

Fortunately, this government is going to correct that, but pointing CCTV at everyone everywhere is not the solution,

You're using those emotive terms again... EVERYONE..... and EVERYWHERE... that is patently not true.

are there specific people in society who NEVER EVER appear on ANY CCTV ANYWHERE?

I dont think so, everyoen appears o ncctv sometime, with 2 million of them its almost impossible not to.

Its also a question of personal choice. I do not give you consent to capture my image on your CCTV,

Well tha's the law... that you live by and vote for making it legal to film you in public... i say live with it. And don't commit crime!

but there a difference between a private individual walking round with a camcorder, catching a coupel of hours of video for personal use, and a council, with 50 fixed cameras recording and storing 69 MILLION images a day.

The average person appears on 330 cctv every day.

well that depends on what study you read... only today on bbc news it was stated that the kind of scale you're talking about was borne from a walk in London to try and find all the cameras they could.... but in reality it's nothing like that !

well you can argue about the numbers, i live in a small market town and travel 2 miles to work, i know theres 9 cameras in those two miles to start with.

 

[imamartian]

no it isnt. You have no right to silence, for example.

Really... what if you're a deaf mute.. do you have no rights?

You're using those emotive terms again... EVERYONE..... and EVERYWHERE... that is patently not true.

are there specific people in society who NEVER EVER appear on ANY CCTV ANYWHERE?

I dont think so, everyoen appears o ncctv sometime, with 2 million of them its almost impossible not to.

yeah but you said everyone everwhere..... which doesn't equate to "most people sometimes"!!!

 

[Lincsbodger]

your being deliberately obtuse. English law as it stands today allows the Prosecution to infer guilt from failure to respond to questions, including syaing just 'No Comment'.. Thats why the police caution was changed from

"You do not have to say anything, anything you do say may be given as evidence"

to

"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later reply on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Dont take my word for it, ask a solicitor or read PACE.

 

[imamartian]

Cmon Lincs... you're being slightly too acedemic here.... i have a right to remain silent...and if i didn't commit a crime... silence doesn;t then make me liable. My point is that the police can't torture me to speak... whereas your side of the argument is that the law 'encourages' the arrested, to speak.

And your second point.... it's you who's being emotive and playing with words..
My point is that if you walk down the road and get filmed..... so what. If you want to get a photo of maggie T out and w@nk, do it at home and not in the street.
CCTV watches you.. but does it? no. It records your actions... which, if law abiding are ignored. If they're bad, then we have a record.

 

[joinerjohn]

We have a population of 65 million and we have 2 million CCTV cameras. China has 2 billion people and only 100,000 CCTV.

That's as maybe. But in China, they have state police/ Army watching on almost every street corner.
They may well have only 100,000 CCTV cameras, but they have millions of eyes watching too.

I must admit, where I used to live, we had a problem with drug dealers. Council and police put up a surveillance camera for about 3 months.
In that 3 months , there were 3 houses raided and around 40 dealers arrested. All directly as a result of the CCTV. So it's not all bad.

 

[imamartian]

What a huge positive... versus what negative?

 

[joinerjohn]

In that particular example I used, there were no negatives. I'm not saying there isn't a downside to surveillance in this country. But if we all abide by the law of the land, then surely we have nothing to fear from CCTV ??

 

[Lincsbodger]

then surely we have nothing to fear from CCTV ??

Every time someone wheels this one out the answer is point 8:

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE, EVEN IF YOU ARE INNOCENT

1. You cannot talk your way out of being arrested, but you CAN talk your way into being arrested. . Nothing you say to a policeman can benefit you in court, and the police are not obliged to provide the court with other peoples verbal evidence beneficial to the defence, as it is heresay and inadmissible.
2. Even if you are guilty, or even innocent, you may unknowingly admit to breaking a law you didnt even know existed, eg placing a postage stamp of the queen on an envelope upside down is treason.
3.In the USA, in 25% of cases where subsequent DNA evidence proved innocence of a crime accused of, the defendant still admitted guilt in another crime in interview. The Police use psychology in interviews to make people compliant and incriminate themselves (eg good cop/bad cop). 85% of convictions in the USA last year relied on self incrimination.
4. Even if you are innocent and mostly tell the truth, its possible to tell a small lie that will be seized on by the police and used to discredit and convict you.
5. Even if you are innocent and always tell the truth, you will almost always give the police SOME trivial information that can be used out of context and against you in some way to convict you of something.
6. Even if you are innocent and always tell the truth, and give the police nothing at all incriminating, you will never remember all your evidence with 100 percent accuracy, and the discrepancies in each recollection will be used to discredit and convict you.
7. Police officers make mistakes and lie, and so even if all you answers are innocent and do not incriminate you, the recollection of the questions asked of you may change and so the changed context of your answer become detrimental to you. This is why the Police videotape interviews.
8. Even if you are innocent and always tell the truth, and give the police nothing at all incriminating,and remember all your evidence with 100 percent accuracy, and its all videotaped, the police may come into possession of contrary evidence, from unreliable sources, or from a mistaken witnesses, or malicious witnesses, or confused witnesses, and that evidence can be used to convict you.
9. Both an innocent and a guilty man will always regret talking to the police. And everyone is guilty of something, no matter how trivial, and most people are inherently honest and will confess to trivial crimes, which can be use to subject you to greater investigation and conviction.

NEVER EVER TALK TO THE POLICE WITHOUT PRIOR LEGAL ADVICE, IN THE PRESENCE OF A SOLICITOR AND WITH INDEPENDENT RECORDING OF THE INTERVIEW.

 

[big-all]

most off the cctv cameras will never be looked at except for "problem solving"
would suggest with around 3 cameras on every fitted bus and around 3 on every railway carrage fitted
would suggest more are outside police /council control and are purely for fighting vandalism violence and cronoal acts