CCTV is an affront to our essential dignity and freedoms. To be kept under constant surveillance is to be held effectively in an open-prison. To combat this scourge of civil society, we would ask you to take the anti-surveillance pledge:
1) I shall work by lawful means and the appropriate democratic channels to safeguard society's inherent civil liberties.
2) I shall be willing to whistleblow against any misuse of public surveillance.
3) I shall not install or operate a CCTV system in any place where the public is at liberty freely to conduct their business (allowing exceptions for the insides of bank vaults, certain zones of MOD premises, warehouses closed at night etc.)
4) I shall not profit from the proceeds of this trade in human liberty.
5) I shall never work in the CCTV industry or for public safety partnerships that promote the use of routine public surveillance, save to subvert their illiberal aims.
6) I shall refuse to comment on CCTV images captured as part of routine surveillance of the general public and admitted as evidence into the trial proceedings.
7) I shall not watch television shows composed primarily of CCTV images used for entertainment and instructive purposes (including cop chase shows, rogue traders, dangerous streets) as these have the effect of inducing a fear of crime and normalising in the public's mind mass surveillance of society.
Monday 15 March 2010
Monday 18 January 2010
Eight-foot Alien
I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to prove? The author does make a good point, however, that CCTV gives its controllers the opportunity to decide what 'crimes' they want to follow up. Also, acting strangely is of course now a crime.
Coppers, not Cameras
Kirkcaldy against CCTV continues its campaign against the acceptance of public surveillance, and this week, one of the founder members found to his cost the dangers of taking this affront to our liberty too personally.
"Jogging along the High Street, in Kirkcaldy, I noticed the camera following me. I stopped and it stopped. Then I moved on again, and it moved on. I stopped and it stopped, all the time watching me. I was dog-walking for a friend, and went in to collect Rollo. At the top of the stairs, I noticed a flash of a yellow coat. Coming out of the front door, I saw a police van parked immediately in front of the flat's entrance hallway. As is my custom, I started the jog. Having progressed 100 yards up the street, I heard what could only be a Police Transit pull to a stop behind me. I turned around, and seeing that it was clearly me that the officers were interested in went back to speak to them.
Me: "Can I help you?"
Them: "Yes, we have had a complaint of someone breaking into a car matching your description."
Me: "This is because I run the anti-surveillance campaign, isn't it?"
Them: "No, no. Where have you come from?"
Me: "From the High Street. I am doing dog-walking. Look if it happened on the High Street then you will have images of it."
Them: "No, well, it happened just off the High Street. About 15 minutes ago. The youth was wearing a blue top, blue jogging bottoms, with white stripes down the legs."
Me: "Well, since I left my front door, I haven't been out of sight of at least two cameras for that whole time."
Them: "Can I take your name, please?"
[Takes my details.]
The officers did not detain me, or caution me. In fact, they were very pleasant and professional. I can almost guarantee that there will have been no one else down the High Street matching my description, and said as much, and yet the Police rightly let me go on my way. More likely this was just a little warning, a shot across the bows, for taking an interest in their work. There is no other sensible explanation."
As we say to anyone interested in the campaign, this is not an anti-Police campaign. If you have a grudge to bear against the Police then you will need to find alternative channels. We have always said that monies saved by dismantling the CCTV network, should be saved or ploughed back into neighbourhood policing, to put officers out on the streets. We must keep policing interpersonal.
"Jogging along the High Street, in Kirkcaldy, I noticed the camera following me. I stopped and it stopped. Then I moved on again, and it moved on. I stopped and it stopped, all the time watching me. I was dog-walking for a friend, and went in to collect Rollo. At the top of the stairs, I noticed a flash of a yellow coat. Coming out of the front door, I saw a police van parked immediately in front of the flat's entrance hallway. As is my custom, I started the jog. Having progressed 100 yards up the street, I heard what could only be a Police Transit pull to a stop behind me. I turned around, and seeing that it was clearly me that the officers were interested in went back to speak to them.
Me: "Can I help you?"
Them: "Yes, we have had a complaint of someone breaking into a car matching your description."
Me: "This is because I run the anti-surveillance campaign, isn't it?"
Them: "No, no. Where have you come from?"
Me: "From the High Street. I am doing dog-walking. Look if it happened on the High Street then you will have images of it."
Them: "No, well, it happened just off the High Street. About 15 minutes ago. The youth was wearing a blue top, blue jogging bottoms, with white stripes down the legs."
Me: "Well, since I left my front door, I haven't been out of sight of at least two cameras for that whole time."
Them: "Can I take your name, please?"
[Takes my details.]
The officers did not detain me, or caution me. In fact, they were very pleasant and professional. I can almost guarantee that there will have been no one else down the High Street matching my description, and said as much, and yet the Police rightly let me go on my way. More likely this was just a little warning, a shot across the bows, for taking an interest in their work. There is no other sensible explanation."
As we say to anyone interested in the campaign, this is not an anti-Police campaign. If you have a grudge to bear against the Police then you will need to find alternative channels. We have always said that monies saved by dismantling the CCTV network, should be saved or ploughed back into neighbourhood policing, to put officers out on the streets. We must keep policing interpersonal.
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