Britons named world's biggest emitters

[ZenGum]

This may be the line Cicero is looking for:
CCTV cameras only film public places. (Checks "L" is correctly used in that phrase )

On the street, if there were a police officer, they could stand and keep an eye on you. I have no problem with that. Inside your home, the police need a good reason (or your permission) to enter.
I am fine with CCTV in public places. I am opposed to it if it is used inside peoples' homes, especially against their will.
This gives Dana her protection from street hoodlums, and Cicero her privacy - inside her own home. You can't expect privacy on the public street, can you?

Cicero, your arse-scratching is indeed your own business, but throwing out your garbage is, I believe, public business. Once it leaves your home, you expect the city to deal with it. What if Mr Burns decided to start putting nuclear waste in the domestic garbage?
Mind you, that can go pretty extreme. In Japan, you must (a) sort your garbage into appropriate categories and (b) put it out in transparent plastic bags, so that people can see if their neighbours are doing the right thing. Not shocked yet? When this was first introduced, you had (by law) to write your name and address on all the garbage you threw out! Even in Japan this was going too far, and they fell back to the clear bags bit, figuring that shame and neighbourly disapproval would do the trick. Mostly it does.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I dunno. When will it enough be enough in America? In another thread we see that your president and whitehouse can act outside of the law, on such things as phone tapping without a warrant. Yet Americans consistently point to our law enforcement and cameras and tell me that this is an invasion of our privacy.

If the people are requesting, nay demanding, more cctv, who are the police and politicians to deny them that? If the police have enough evidence to suspect a criminal, but not enough to issue an arrest warrant, should they just throw up their hands and say "oh well, let him go, don't bother watching him or attempting to gather evidence about his activities"?

Honestly Cicero, I think you guys have a strange view of freedom. There's a real double standard in what you allow in your own country and what you perceive as amiss in mine.

I'm not imposing these double-standards. I don't like it going on in my country, and it happened without my vote, so I have to sit around and work with people here of like mind that want the Patriot Act destroyed. I also don't like a lot of the policies in my own country, and it's hard for me to watch other countries adopt, and adapt policies we created that we won't even follow through with. Or are trying and haven't managed yet...This is a global situation and calling me an American with double-standards doesn't illuminate any fact about that. I watch this happen to myself without my consent, and it's just strange to watch people that adopt these policies on purpose. The "watch you scratch your butt" comment- well it stems from what is actually happening in America. I've been saying enough is enough before W got to the White House. I knew of the electronic surveilance before the patriot act and I stood in the streets and said enough was enough then too. Unfortunately...no one gives a shit.

My president? Well it's uncomfortable (that you put me and that guy in the same sentence), but it's true, he's "my president"...our president here has done tons of things I don't agree with and I traveled to his ranch to tell him so. I didn't vote for him, but then again, neither did a lot of people. I actively helped to campaign against him. That also didn't work. Don't tell me I have double-standards. I don't agree with these new surveillance societies straight across the board. Especially where I live.

Again, when is enough going to be enough? Do you have a direct answer for this question? How much of your privacy will you give up before you will say "this is enough for me to feel safe"? Is it what is in place now in your country, or do you think you guys need to take it further? This is an honest question I have here....I'm not trying to trash England and the vote of it's citizens! Seriously! I am trying to understand it. Genuinely.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Again, when is enough going to be enough? Do you have a direct answer for this question? How much of your privacy will you give up before you will say "this is enough for me to feel safe"? Is it what is in place now in your country, or do you think you guys need to take it further? This is an honest question I have here....I'm not trying to trash England and the vote of it's citizens! Seriously! I am trying to understand it. Genuinely.

Okay, if it's an honest question I will give an honest answer, but this is only my opinion. We Brits live cheek by jowl, we're a small and rather crowded island. There is a certain mentality that is bred into small island dwellers - they put a higher premium on consideration for others than they do for what Americans call "freedom". We have a different view of freedom here, and a lot of it is to do with feeling protected and knowing that if you have to obey the laws then someone or something is going to ensure that your neighbours observe it too.

I haven't spoken to a single Briton who has a problem with being filmed by CCTV. And I don't know many who believe this is the thin end of the wedge and eventually we will have cameras in our homes or any other of the outlandish predictions. While we have cameras on the streets it makes sense to use them. Note the policeman in Gloucester was referring to a criminal, not a member of the public. This is someone with a criminal record, known to the local police, perhaps on parole and suspected of breaking his parole conditions etc etc. Not Ms Cicero headed down the street to get a McDonalds with her two kids. Am I bothered that the police have some people under surveillance? Nope. They could watch me for years and not have anything on me - and if they did it would be tough luck on me for breaking the law.

I know how frustrated the police get, when they know someone is responsible for a one person crime wave but they don't have enough to convict. They are using tools already in place to try to redress this - surely better than fitting up a usual suspect for a random crime, knowing that he was at least responsible for others they didn't get him for.

And speakers identifying people breaking the law? I'm all for it! I would have personally hidden in a rubbish bin on the pedestrian-only New Walk and shouted at the cyclists with a megaphone if I could - it was a steep hill and the freewheeling bikes caused so many near-misses (and accidents apparently, I just never witnessed one). And littering... well let's put it this way, if I was a 6 foot 2 imposing bloke I would never suffer to see anyone drop litter in front of me. It's disgusting and anti-social and I'm all for people being reminded of that.

We are a stubborn race. If there's something we're not happy with we complain in big enough numbers for it to be changed. It generally works. The reason the bin monitoring didn't go ahead was public disapproval. When is enough? I don't know yet, but if we get there you'll hear about it.

Probably didn't help any, but that's my two penn'orth.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

But then, we literate people, both sides of the pond, just can't help but remember a word, from a different guy named George...

...telescreen.

[Sundae]

For me, the big issues in 1984 were the restriction of everyday goods and the manipulation of information in order to manipulate the populace. Not the telescreens - which I do not believe will ever happen.

And it's not literate people in this country who reference Big Brother, it's the same people who say, "political correctness gone mad!" at every story the newspapers put that spin on. Most people who make Big Brother comments don't even realise it's not the title of the book, let alone have read it (this is not referring to you, UG, it is my personal experience in this country)

[Cicero]

Obviously you can be perfectly literate and not get the moral to a story.

We can go ahead and nail down specific details and lose sight of the "big picture".

If everyone drowns themselves in obscurities and in details about said, obscurities, (literature or not) we will all be comfortable and not half as confused as I am right now.

I am going to go stick my head in the dirt, bury it, and leave my ass in the air. Wait....no I'm not.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Cicero

SNIP

I am going to go stick my head in the dirt, bury it, and leave my ass in the air. Wait....no I'm not.

Please? Would you scratch it too? I've got my CCTV camera all lined up...

[Cicero]

I sure will Zen, because that is my new angle on how to break all the cameras and not get charged with anything.....lol!

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Cicero

I sure will Zen, because that is my new angle on how to break all the cameras and not get charged with anything.....lol!

Did you ever wonder if the popularity of large-brimmed hats and caps, and big dark glasses, corresponded to the density of CCTV cameras? Or am I attributing way too much rationality to urban bad boys? These people get tattoos and wonder why they are identifiable.

[Cicero]

Oh yea....what are they going to charge me with?!? Destruction of public property by way of ugly butt?!?

Sure, I'll be identifiable...But cite the law that says it's illegal for my clothed butt to be so ugly that it breaks cameras!!

Hah! CCTV cameras would be lucky to distinguish between my butt and my face in the first place...... Hell, most people on the Cellar can't even do that!!!

lol!!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

And it's not literate people in this country who reference Big Brother, it's the same people who say, "political correctness gone mad!" at every story the newspapers put that spin on. Most people who make Big Brother comments don't even realise it's not the title of the book, let alone have read it (this is not referring to you, UG, it is my personal experience in this country)

Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

That happens all the time. "1984!" was a punchline in a Peanuts strip from the earlyish Sixties. Charlie Brown was figuring when he'd be an adult...

The novel itself quite completed my allergy to communist totalitarianism. It's more than any other single thing why I so often visibly desire to feed a busload of fascisto-communists, brothers under the skin as we all know, into Room 101. Perhaps after dragging them down U.S. 101. It being just the other end of town. "My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time..."

[DanaC]

You do know that Orwell was a socialist right?

[Aliantha]

And you do know it was just a story right? lol

[Cicero]

[quote=Cicero;399400]Obviously you can be perfectly literate and not get the moral to a story.

QUOTE]

hey- it's a good time to quote myself.



*side-note*
Dana...are you going to answer my question?

[DanaC]

When will enough be enough? How do I know? Enough of what? CCTVs specifically? Or is there some meta problem/direction of travel encompassing CCTVs, police drug tests, monitoring of suspected criminals etc ?

I get the impression you think the latter...I don't necessarily group those things into a single journey. They are societal and/or systemic responses to specific problems or needs. They are entirely contextual.



[eta. I didn't answer earlier because I haven't really had the headspace to think through my reply. In some threads that doesn't really matter...but in this one I wish to be cogent, or at the very least clear. This issue is difficult to argue...as there seems to be a very distinct cultural difference in our thinking. Though we use the same base language, some of our base assumptions are alien to each other, I think. Only some, in many ways we are culturally alike. But this is one of those areas.*smiles*