Britons Are Getting Wise To Them....

[Lost Cause]

The herd is now noticing the gate to the pen is almost closed.....

Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching.

That's the message of posters plastered along London's bus routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears.

But the posters are having the opposite effect on privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in George Orwell's 1984.

The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The eyes' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider.

"Secure beneath the watchful eyes," the poster says. "CCTV and Metropolitan Police on buses are just two ways we're making your journey more secure."

The eyes-in-the-sky imagery startled Perry de Havilland, who ran across one of the posters at a bus stop in his Chelsea neighborhood.

"I saw the bloody thing, and it boggled my mind, the sheer audacity of it," said de Havilland, who runs a blog on libertarian issues. "Basically what they're saying is that we're watching you and you should be happy about it."

De Havilland's observations about the poster have generated a lively discussion.

The posters had a similar effect on Simon Davies, the head of Privacy International, who also lives in London.

"I thought it was a powerful piece of political satire from a disruptive citizen's group, but then it dawned on me that they were real," Davies said. "It's acutely disturbing."

The posters are part of a larger campaign to make London buses safer for riders, a spokeswoman for the Transport of London said. City officials are also installing video cameras on the city's entire fleet of buses, which log 4 million trips a day.

According to the transportation agency's website, the CCTV rollout "not only protects drivers and conductors, but (it) also plays a major role in keeping passengers secure. It provides evidence in the event of an incident and acts as a deterrent to likely offenders."

British authorities have placed great faith in CCTV as a crime control device, installing an estimated 1.5 million police cameras along the country's streets, buildings and mass transport systems. Still shots taken from video feed are used to identify protesters and hooligans.

But while the government insists CCTV has reduced crime, critics say the technology has merely displaced crime to areas without cameras and that the mechanical eyes -- which are frequently disguised -- are easily evaded by wearing baseball caps or other headgear.

"There is a mentality that everyone is potentially a criminal," said Davies. "I resent the idea that I should be subjected to the scrutiny of invisible cameras just to satisfy someone's crazed idea of that way society is."


Baaa,baaaaa!

 

[Lost Cause]

We won't be laughing for long in the US either...

The cameras are going up, and a new suprise for DC protesters in the future, hate & bake!

Britain has been involved in secret talks with the United States over the development of so-called non-lethal weapons, including lasers that blind the enemy and microwave systems that cook the skin of human targets.
The Observer has established that British and US military leaders met at the Ministry of Defence HQ in London to discuss the operational benefits of such technology when used as a 'persuasive tool' against people from enemy regimes.

Documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act detail talks about battlefield uses of the weapons and whether they could be used to back up economic sanctions against target countries. The weapons include lasers that can blind and stun an enemy and cut through metal to disable vehicles.

Another weapon discussed was a system that uses microwave beams to heat the water in human skin in the same way as a microwave oven cooks a meal. The third category of weapons was the use of gases similar to those deployed to end the terrorist siege in a Moscow theatre, which killed more than 100 hostages.

British personnel at the secret meeting with the US military included Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham and Dr Martin Hubbard, who heads the non-lethal weapons research programme at Porton Down, Wiltshire. US officers included Major General Bice, deputy commander of the US Marines in Europe, and Brigadier-General Richard Zilmer, deputy director of US operations at European Command Headquarters.

The documents reveal the full scope of the new weapons programmes that the US military is developing. The first was high-power microwave technology that cooks an enemy's skin. Its military name is the Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System (V-Mads), but it has already been nicknamed the People Zapper. It works by harnessing electromagnetic power to fire an invisible pulse of energy at light speed towards a target. The beam causes the water molecules under the skin to vibrate violently, producing heat and discomfort. Scientists believe the system could heat a person's skin to about 130 degrees in two seconds.

The US delegation admits there might be problems with legal claims by victims.

The documents reveal that both the British and US military believe laser beams have a 'number of potential applications and desirable attributes as a non-lethal weapon'. They are impressed that laser guns can be 'tunable' either to stun or kill. Although laser weapons that permanently blind are banned under international law, the documents show officials are studying low-energy lasers that blind temporarily and others that produce a stunning effect.

Baaaa,baaaaa

 

[horny_giraffe]

It sounds like a great idea to me. Their only fault is their advertisment campaign. I wish somebody would monitor our buses--I'm sometimes quite nervous when a rowdy passenger is shouting obscenities in the back of the bus, late at night.

But the U.S. is so huge that the government can only afford to spy on people who they determine are significant in some way. Stay irrelevant, and you won't be watched.

Perhaps it's different in Britain and the government can afford to be more intrusive.

Regarding non-lethal weapons--it also sounds like a great idea. Maybe the police can stop killing suspicious looking people. God knows, we seem to have more unfocused and senseless rioting every year. Good game riots. Bad game riots. Rumor riots. Does anyone even need a reason anymore?

 

[A Desert Rose]

Re: We won't be laughing for long in the US either...

They are impressed that laser guns can be 'tunable' either to stun or kill.

"Cap'in, I'm givin' ya all the power she's got."

Okay, thanks to you it's going to be a Star Trek marathon night for me.

 

[SINthysist]

A naval person recently won permission to sue the Russians, I think it was, over being hit with a lazer and sustaining eye damage...

I wish I could remember the details better.

I've been referring and hit with just one of those pointers in the eye and it burned like hell...



I went up into the crowd and grabbed that fawker and shook him like nobodies business. His mom and dad were quite shocked, but remained speechless while I disarmed the little begger...