Just Had a Major Big Brother Moment

^Sure, if there's a warrant, it's no longer a problem.

Incidentally: if they're allowed to stick something on your car, what else is allowed? Can they stick something on your clothes? Your body? Does it have to be a GPS unit or could it be, I don't know, graffiti or a bomb?

If it were me making the decisions, I would say that you can't fuck with anyones property without a warrant, unless you have very reasonable suspicion that there is something illegal there, say in the trunk of a car you've stopped.

But I would not let reasonable suspicion be a condition for planting objects.

By condition, do you mean sufficient, or necessary?

^^That sounds like a good rule. I move that it be adopted with that exact wording.

Over here we have the police obudsman that look over things like this.

But I do tend to laugh whenever American commentators say that Britain is a dystopia due to the amount of cameras, when for the most part you guys are living with the patriot act. Also, no-one cares if there are cameras watching us, because they cost too much money to update so a full half of them are broken.

And there's a misconception that our government is totalitarian because of the number of CCTV cameras.

Surprisingly, a large proportion of CCTV cameras in the UK are privately-owned, not government-issue. It seems not so much that Big Brother is watching you as a whole bunch of corner shops, companies, and paranoid individuals.

This article raises a good point; the current value of the images obtained by CCTV is quite small due to the crappiness of the image quality.

Doesn't mean it's a good thing, though; CCTV cameras are put up as an excuse to put police officers on the streets; a lot of money is poured into these projects for relatively little gain.

I'd say we need less policemen really. But try suggesting that to the majority of people and they'll start flailing around.

I read recently that a British company is starting a program to hire people to watch private CCTV cameras from their homes and alert property owners to potential crimes, with a bounty paid if they catch someone. The biggest [technical] problem with surveillance is the difficulty of actually watching all that footage.

Studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of traffic cameras in reducing speeding and stoplight violations, so there is a deterrent effect to people knowing they're under surveillance. I fully support automated traffic monitoring; in fact, I think we'd all be far better with fully automated traffic systems - cars included - but that's a different topic.  ^*

^{And a fascinating one; see this article.}

On warrantless tracking - no, that's a bit over the line. The judicial system is supposed to be the check on the capability of law enforcement to do whatever the heck they feel like. Now, I fully realize that this conflicts to a certain extent with my statement above about automated traffic control, but in theory, you could have an automated system that restricts the ability of law enforcement to monitor without probable cause (someone violating the laws) or a warrant.

Addition: I'm not overly paranoid about Big Brother Is Watching. First, because I have nothing to hide; second, because I'm Lawful Good in general outlook and feel that people ought not to expect the freedom to break the law unless caught; and third, because I believe that governments are made up of people, who do not go from "one of us" to "the enemy of freedom" just because they draw a public paycheck.

edited 11th Oct '10 7:06:55 AM by Fighteer

But I do tend to laugh whenever American commentators say that Britain is a dystopia due to the amount of cameras, when for the most part you guys are living with the patriot act. Also, no-one cares if there are cameras watching us, because they cost too much money to update so a full half of them are broken.

The thing about the Patriot Act is that while it authorizes lots of things that could be considered terrible invasions of privacy, there really hasn't been much done that they couldn't have done without the patriot act.

But yeah, I fully support making it so that a warrant has to be granted to plant any sort of device or invade any sort of property a person owns, property being defined as a persons home, belongings, and vehicles. If the cops truly have the right intentions, then they shouldn't be intimidated at the prospect of a judge or DA being aware of it.

I still can't take the British police force very seriously, by virtue of them being so... Underequipped.

I mean I've seen some of them kick some serious ass in a fight, but still.

edited 11th Oct '10 10:01:37 AM by Barkey

Except in cases of probable cause, of course.

^

Not for planting anything. For a search then I'm ok with that if the officer justifies probable cause, just as it is done now. If you don't have anything illegal, then you shouldn't have a problem with your car being searched short of the annoyance of them wasting your time. And most of the time if a cop wants to search your vehicle, either you fit a very suspicious profile or there is some sort of probable cause to it, or you were being an asshole to the cop, in which case you deserved to have your time wasted.

I don't know how many times I've performed a "Random Vehicle Inspection" that wasn't so random on a troop on base who was a dick to one of our guys trying to do their job.

You mean lacking in firearms? They've still got stun guns and tasers (though not as many as you guys have) and a thing you've got to realise is that MOST people in Britain don't have access to firearms, most crime in the inner cities is done with knives and as such it doesn't need the police to be "equipped".

It's much better for officer safety if they can just point the gun and demand compliance, but that's just my opinion.

Not a huge fan of unnecessary escalation of violence.

Ultimately, it's the hope of many that we can arrive at a nonviolent civilization where the use of firearms is completely unnecessary - police armed with tasers and other nonlethal weapons should be more than a match for criminals who are armed only with knives and baseball bats.

The problem comes when the criminals have guns (or assault rifles) and the cops don't.

Which our ones don't have often because the laws surrounding them are ludicrously harsh.