State surveillance? I didn't vote for it!

[Zeb]

Panopticon highway:

Every time you travel by road in Britain, your car will be tracked by the police. How many more freedoms will we sacrifice in the name of security?

Henry Porter guardian.co.uk, Monday September 15 2008


The police ANPR database, which the Guardian today reveals will retain information from 50 million road journeys a day for five years, is a system that was never sanctioned or debated in parliament and which threatens the freedom of movement, assembly and protest.

Presented simply as a tool to fight crime and terror by the police, it will become one of the cornerstones of the surveillance state, and will give the police far too much power to track, in real time, the movement of people who may be bound for legitimate demonstrations and protest rallies.

Linked with the government's proposals to seize all our communications data to be announced in the Queen's speech this autumn, this move signifies a profound change in our society and an irreversible transfer of power from free individuals to the state.

It is not difficult to imagine how the system will be used in times of industrial and political strife. We have already seen how police prevented legitimate demonstration during the first years of the Iraq war and have illegally obstructed protests against the arms trade, and are currently harassing accredited press photographers going about their legitimate business. These are hints of what will come when the police can track the movement of all vehicles, particularly if harsher economic times are accompanied by unrest.

The revelations in the Guardian today come from freedom of information requests made to the Home Office. In this context it is important to know that the dealings and discussions in Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which has been largely responsible for pushing the ANPR system, remain hidden from public scrutiny. Because Acpo has limited company status and is not a public body, it does not have to comply with freedom of information laws.

Police officers keep on insisting that these powers will not be abused, but revelations made by another FOI request last week show that the police use surveillance techniques to bully and harass citizens. In Wales, a team of 11 officers took part in a surveillance operation against a 49-year-old police dog handler who claimed he was suffering from depression, a fact established by the Police Medical Appeal Board. Officers from two forces watched his home for months and filmed him at a cost of £100,000.

If the police have such little regard for the rights and privacy of one of their own, it's difficult to imagine that they will treat the public with any more respect.

The surveillance of all journeys is a very serious move indeed and it tells us a lot about how far Labour has advanced a state of total and unwavering surveillance; and also how little parliament has done to protect our rights. It seems incredible that the great issues of control and privacy that are obviously involved in the ANPR system were never discussed in parliament. That a secretive and unaccountable organisation like ACPO can press ahead behind parliament's back is a measure of our failed politics, at the very least of the failure of mechanisms of restraint and scrutiny.

In these days of enormous daily distractions – of freakish weather, banks failing and general economic turbulence – it is difficult to concentrate on the programme to convert Britain into a totally controlled and watched state. But we can all be sure that it is happening under our noses.

The penny has dropped with the Trades Union Congress, which will surely have much to say about the possibility of police watching and intercepting those on their way to take part in legitimate industrial action and protest.

Last week the TUC voted to resist the ID card scheme and consider legal action to uphold civil liberties. The move came after aviation workers – among the first group to be compelled to register for ID cards – placed a motion before congress. The motion states:

Congress sees absolutely no value in the scheme or in improvements to security that might flow from this exercise and feels that aviation workers are being used as pawns in a politically led process which might lead to individuals being denied the right to work because they are not registered or chose not to register in the scheme.



This represents a considerable victory for reason and democracy, and the important part is that the vote was not carried simply because the ID card might deny people the right to work. Broader civil liberties considerations were at the heart of this debate.

With parliament dead from the neck up when it comes to issues of liberty, it is difficult to know how the ANPR surveillance and the equally important proposal to seize data concerning all phone calls, text messages and internet connections, can be resisted. But resist we must if we are to save our free society.

[Tyler Durden]

Yeah lobby it all you want. Then get it taken out and we'll have what happened in Madrid, Pakistan, India etc etc etc. Nice.

Im a law abiding citizen and I have absolutely nothing to hide. I actualy feel safer knowing if something happenes to me, the use of CCTV and/or anpr camera's could in fact help track my attacker down (or my missus's or kids etc god forbid).

Kinda gets my goat a bit, the fact people moan when our security is too NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD- (look at 70's and 80's with PIRA running amok). Now its better than most of the worlds, its actualy too much.

Nah just take it all out and let the scumbags and terrorists do their thing without fear of getting caught.

[Zeb]

But there lies the difficulty Tyler. Balancing freedom and security. Too much security damages the freedom you are trying to protect... Let's face it, in times gone by, the state authorities have not always covered themselves in glory when the public disagreed with them...

[Tyler Durden]

Zeb I fully undertstand where you are coming from beleive me. But where is the line drawn? Its going to be one of those things that is always going to appeal to some, and be hated by others

[Zeb]

Originally Posted by Tyler Durden

Zeb I fully undertstand where you are coming from beleive me. But where is the line drawn? Its going to be one of those things that is always going to appeal to some, and be hated by others

I suppose my own concern is more to do with the potential uses the State may wish to make of the information gathered as opposed to the actual collection of it.

[efreeti]

I find the above article depressing in the extreme. This has little to do with terrorism or crime and a lot to do with reliable data on which to tax people further.

Anybody who does not see that this technology will be used in the future to tax our journeys and movements is kidding themselves. It will all tie in nicely with their communist party papers, er I mean ID cards. The ID card will reference how many miles you have done over the year, which will be taxed by councils as congestion charges, the government as road tax, and the ministry for Green affairs as carbon tax. The data will also of course be sold to insurance companies to ensure we are not going over our declared annual mileage and also to advertising agencies so they can bombard us with personalised bill board adverts as we drive past.

That is before we even begin to consider what happens when the government simply lose all the data.

Lets face it, criminals and terrorists don't tend to register for ID cards or drive their own cars on the way to blow up an airport. Any suggestion that it will make any difference against terrorism or major crime is just ridiculous. It will probably however provide plenty of automatic pulls for minor motor vehicle offences, you know the sort of offences generally committed by erm, oh what do you call them... poor people, that's it!

Next thing you know they will be telling my granny to put more cotton wool in her loft to help her find the extra money to cover the 100% rise in her heating bills. Oh wait...

It is becoming hard to stay positive about the future of this country.

[tourerfogey]

I suppose my own concern is more to do with the potential uses the State may wish to make of the information gathered as opposed to the actual collection of it.

Such as ?

[Zeb]

Originally Posted by tourerfogey

I suppose my own concern is more to do with the potential uses the State may wish to make of the information gathered as opposed to the actual collection of it.

Such as ?

See Efreeti's post....

[Pete]

I can very clearly remember the protests in the Eighties when people made broad accusations that the country was a Police state. Freedoms have certainly eroded quite sharply since then and the move to a culture of presumed guilt - freely encouraged by the press who ironically now see themselves cornered on several areas.

Frankly, if I wish to go to the middle of Wales for a stroll that is my choice, and there is no fit and proper reason that any administration should be monitoring my movements.

[tourerfogey]

Originally Posted by Zeb

See Efreeti's post....

Right