One Way Surveillance Is A Mark Of Tyranny

The UK is planning to track every movement of every car on the road.
Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

Now like myself you may be gagging with rage at this point, so let me skip the part where attempt to voice just how stupid and dangerous this is, and skip straight to the conclusion.  The only way the planners of this system could have the slightest regard for liberty is if they open it to everyone.  Create a website, vehiclejourneys.gov.uk, and let everyone see everyone else, police vehicles included.  That would be a changed world, and maybe not a better one, but it wouldn't be a unilateral handing of power to the state.
cam: Citizen Vigilantes: Might stop stuff like this happening .

cam
adam: Hello Mr Ocker Echelon: We mean non-violent vigilantes, by the way.  Posses of photographers on their way for a peaceful flashphoto-lynching.
cam: On the subject of surveillance:

I was at an ITS demonstration of a camera/software combo which counted cars and trucks. It was by a Canadian company IIRC. One of the problems with fixed cameras is that it is inaccurate as cars can hide behind trucks. So they used refraction from the top/lip of the truck and used software to determine the strength of the waves coming back. Interesting I thought. Their sales pitch was that they were more accurate in traffic counting/prediction for it.

Anonymous counting of traffic is different though to data being pro-actively used for the intent of spying.

cam

Surveillance Society Rankings

Privacy International has released a map showing the leading surveillance societies in the world . The shockers were the UK which ranked as badly as China and Russia. The United States didn't fare too well either. Australia was ranked in the middle of the pack, though with the ominous ranking of "systemic failure to uphold safeguards".

Privacy is a second-order effect of liberty. The greater the liberty, the greater the privacy, especially from state intrusion. I would not be surprised if trends in increasing surveillance and invasion of privacy by the state are commensurate with the intrusion on liberties.

Source: Privacy International

Australia was one of the worst ranked in the "Travel, Finances and Transborder" category. The stand out countries were Canada and Germany, with the UK being one of the worst. The foreign policy blog has some more commentary on the issue , especially in relation to Germany.

Cameras and the State

The cameras that were used in the UK to thwart and solve crimes have been unsuccessful. Ironically the police prefer not to use them and would rather use human means to solve crimes. The camera represents the most inhuman face of the state. They are purely cynical in their deployment. I do not like them.

Speeding cameras have become popular with local and state government in Arizona. They local councils make approximately two million off them each year. Though I have seen figures as high as seven and fourteen million mentioned. Nobody likes them - other than the politicians. They get defaced; people protest infront of them; and drivers flick their headlights on and off when a mobile one is deployed in one of the many horizontal streets that connects the loops in Phoenix.

Yet more and more get put in.

Update

Many years ago, probably in the mid-90s, a mate of mine invested a bunch of money in companies that make video and speed camera systems for government surveillance. His thinking was that governments were only going to do this more and more. The company that runs the Arizonan speed camera system is an Australian one.

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Cam Riley I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident. I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end. I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.

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