Britain 2009 (are we in a police state?)

[fela fan]

Perhaps the panopticon will never happen because the government won't be able to find enough people to sit around watching endless videos of petty crime in the hope of catching a glimpse inside the hoodie. I imagine an outbreak of air guitar would be a welcome diversion!

But wasn't that certain people's specific jobs in orwell's 1984, to simply wade through video footage?

Isn't it called red tape, just that in this case it's actually watching something instead of writing reams and reams of stuff out?

What's a panopticon, apart from a natty sounding word?!

 

[Azrael]

Yes. And it leads me to thinking about another aspect of a 'surveillance' state, which i too agree is a good term.

Why are the police no longer walking the streets so to speak? Where are they and what are they doing? Is their time partly taken up by dealing with mountains of forms and things to fill in? It seems to me that britain now spends half its energies reporting on what it's doing and how well it is realising 'targets'.

Police no longer pound the beat due to a series of changes in the 1960s. Cars were considered more efficient on some new housing estate, and we ended up with "unit beat policing", a combination of foot patrols and cars. The "beat" part soon went. This is why calls to "put bobbies back on the beat" are absurd: there's no "beat" for them to walk, and the paramilitary officers waddling under the weight of stab vests, gas cans, nightsticks, handcuffs, and increasingly Tasers cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called "bobbies".

For the mountains of forms we can thank PACE. Some genius decided that hours of paperwork and labyrinthine codes of practice were the only way to stop the police beating confessions out of people. The Americans decided that an absolute right to have lawyer sit-in during interrogations would do the job just fine. It's one innovation of theirs I'd love to see imported.

"Targets" are all bureaucracy can think in. It's led to the police searching people under the Terrorism Act in the foyer of the British Library. Surpassing all previous awards for irony-bypass, they did so outside an exhibition called Taking Liberties.

 

[fela fan]

The psychological consequences of spy cameras may be worse. In Ilford there's now signs that read, without a hint of irony, "WE ARE WATCHING YOU", with a pair of eyes looking down. Now that's scary!

Firstly, what is the mindset that thinks up such stuff, and secondly, what kind of state is it where such signs can be put up in seriousness? And thirdly, who exactly are the 'we'? Is it known, or is it supposed to be not discoverable?

Sorry, but signs like that are a real symbol that a police state is on its way. Unbelievable!

 

[Azrael]

But wasn't that certain people's specific jobs in orwell's 1984, to simply wade through video footage?

True. Maybe the government will get round to it: currently our best hope in avoiding a police state appears to lie in official indolence and incompetence. The chaps in Nineteen-Eighty Four were well organised, I'll say that for them.

The Panopticon's got a bad rep. Originally it was a prison arranged around a central surveillance hub, whose inmates never knew if they were being watched. Clever idea of Jeremy Bentham's, and fine by me if it's used against convicted criminals. The government seem hell-bent on expanding it to encompass our society.

 

[Azrael]

Sorry, but signs like that are a real symbol that a police state is on its way. Unbelievable!

They're on the road by the library and the cinema complex, if anyone's in Ilford with a camera. I might snap them myself when I'm next there, if doing so doesn't fall foul of the Terroism Act.

Did a double-take when I first saw them. Thought maybe it was some post modernistic rubbish from the council, but no, they're for real.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

We are all potential criminals, because we might disagree with them.

That sort of thing has to be stopped, at any price ...

 

[il_bastardo]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,And when you get arrested you get cuffed, photographed, your prints and DNA taken and kept forever...........

They better not take my DNA, the bastards! I'll need it when the time comes to prove how local I am!

 

[fela fan]

True. Maybe the government will get round to it: currently our best hope in avoiding a police state appears to lie in official indolence and incompetence. The chaps in Nineteen-Eighty Four were well organised, I'll say that for them.

For me the only method of avoiding the police state that britain is definitely headed for comes from the general public. They always have the power to defeat the government, when so used. I would think that pretty much throughout history government have only given away what they had to, and have taken whatever they can. Generations of people fought for the freedoms and liberty that britain and other first world countries had (i don't think i can say 'have', too many have already disappeared). Always it's a fight.

I would suggest that in the last generation or two, the people took their eye off the ball. Technology and just the way life has gone in recent times has allowed the ruling elite to make several gains. We perhaps got too blase about our freedoms, which would not be unsurprising.

Incidentally, there are many who see the big brotherisation of life being not just confined to britain, but throughout the first world. Flying into australia for one is a scary experience, even in laidback cairns.

What is this 'summer of rage' i've just recently been learning about?

 

[Stoat Boy]

Something that freaked me out today was Harman talking about Sir Freds pension. She was giving it the biggun and even conceded that the courts might find in his favour but said they would still get the money off him.

Now I aint got any reasons to stick up for Freddie but if the man has a legal contract and that is upheld by our courts then its pretty sinister for a Minister to say that will not matter.

I hate to think what sort of laws they might pass on the back of public indignation over what is plainly something that they agreed on.

 

[two sheds]

Jack Straw got a fine kicking on the Guardian Comments after his article about how how daft we all are to even talk about this. One said that England is becoming an Open Prison, which i thought is a good way of putting it.

I also wonder how many cctvs pick up what people are saying, too. It would seem silly to have all that nice technology and not use it.