[quote]doc_man_101 wrote:
orion wrote:
doc_man_101 wrote:
Anyhow, NOT having any exit controls is pretty rare - most countries have some kind of border control there: the US is exceptional in this regard (and Britain has been).
Really?
I can cross every border Austria has without even have to show an ID, with the possible exception of Switzerland.
Touche. Well, yes, but that’s only because you live in the proto-superstate of Schengenland. (And the Swiss have joined, so you don’t even need to show an ID to go there, I’ll wager)[/quote]
[quote]makkun wrote:
I agree with FightingIrish - this is not a party political issue;
[/quote]
Agreed, that it’s scumbags on every side of the spectrum that are the problem - and their collective grip on power, and propensity to blame others (“it’s all Europe’s fault”; “the Americans made us do it”; and so on). I don’t disagree that Europe occasionally provides a balancing force, too: though it’s a shame that it’s run by an unelected Commission.
It’s just that we’ve been ruled by a supposedly left-leaning government for twelve years, and they have turned out to be the most oppressive bunch of bastards in living memory: anulling bits of habeas corpus, removing the right to jury trials, increasing “on the spot” fines (with penalties if you go to court instead), ID cards, DNA retention DESPITE the ECHR saying it’s illegal, database upon database of information (“for child protection”), removal of the presumption of innocence (RIPA), 28 days’ retention without charge (they still want 90 days), and so on and so on.
It’s just that we’ve been ruled by a supposedly left-leaning government for twelve years, and they have turned out to be the most oppressive bunch of bastards in living memory: anulling bits of habeas corpus, removing the right to jury trials, increasing “on the spot” fines (with penalties if you go to court instead), ID cards, DNA retention DESPITE the ECHR saying it’s illegal, database upon database of information (“for child protection”), removal of the presumption of innocence (RIPA), 28 days’ retention without charge (they still want 90 days), and so on and so on.[/quote]
Right- but in America, it’s often Republicans who do the same thing- i.e. the Patriot Act (which included a facet that wanted to know who checked certain books out of the library), the defense of torture, issuance of a do-not play list for the radio after 9/11…
In Germany it was the super-right wing Nazis, in Russia it was the Communist Stalin… it’s all over the map. The want of power and control is not limited to one political spectrum.
It’s just that we’ve been ruled by a supposedly left-leaning government for twelve years, and they have turned out to be the most oppressive bunch of bastards in living memory: anulling bits of habeas corpus, removing the right to jury trials, increasing “on the spot” fines (with penalties if you go to court instead), ID cards, DNA retention DESPITE the ECHR saying it’s illegal, database upon database of information (“for child protection”), removal of the presumption of innocence (RIPA), 28 days’ retention without charge (they still want 90 days), and so on and so on.
Right- but in America, it’s often Republicans who do the same thing- i.e. the Patriot Act (which included a facet that wanted to know who checked certain books out of the library), the defense of torture, issuance of a do-not play list for the radio after 9/11…
In Germany it was the super-right wing Nazis, in Russia it was the Communist Stalin… it’s all over the map. The want of power and control is not limited to one political spectrum.[/quote]
That is only because your political spectrum is “left vs right” instead of “individualist vs collectivist.”
[quote]orion wrote:
Did you know that Brits are now expected to inform their government when they leave their country, where they will go to and what they will do there?
[quote]makkun wrote:
There is certainly a lot wrong with the British surveillance society. In a society which has gotten continuously safer, the amount of CCTV cameras and infringement of civil liberties has been astonishing. Frustratingly, good parts of the public feel ever more threatened in spite of evidence to the contrary, and support these measures, even though they give away of lot their freedoms with it. And it is fear driven politics. In the case of exit border controls (described in the Telegraph article), it’s basically a reaction to the fear of illegal immigrants staying in the country unchecked.
The Labour government has certainly not helped this trend by its blind actionist approach to appear ‘tough on crime’ (filling up prisons almost to breaking point with literally thousands of new offences), and in many cases complete ignorance of evidence on many underlying social issues and solutions. These issues do get raised though - quite regularly in the press. Just follow the Guardian’s or the Economist’s coverage of heavy handed policing tactics with regards to protesting (Kingsnorth, G20) and their systematic misuse of anti-terror legislation to avoid being blamed for what’s essentially racial profiling.
This is quite disheartening, as everyone knows here that I’m a pinko liberal - and the ‘labour’ party in government has been just as dogmatic and authoritarian as their conservative predecessors. Sad that - but unfortunately not expected to be reversed. I don’t necessarily imply a sinister motive though, just basically kackhanded policies trying to kowtow to the diffuse public fears. I gather, every electorate in a democracy gets the government it deserves (well given the lack of balance in the British voting system, that’s not entirely true). What’s worse, is that with all the data compiled, data protection fuck ups are the norm (storage media lost, in some cases releasing massive amounts of data into the public).
So in essence, we’ve got a fear ridden society which ignores evidence when making policies, implements monstrous control mechanisms, amasses huge amounts of data on its citizens and then loses that data. I gather the ‘ever watchful eye’ is its own biggest enemy.
Makkun[/quote]
Pretty good summary of the situation. when I tell people here in Mexico about the system behind and supporting the London congestion charge they literally do not believe me.
The worst thing about the CCTV is that most of it is designed to generate revenue in the form of penalty payments for traffic offences and is therefore badly aligned to deal with violent street crime.
All the pictures from the CCTV of muggings are usually able to show is that it is an average height male wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. Great, that narrows it down!
[quote]krebcycle wrote:
Until you have lived in Britain, you cannot begin to comprehend how crap it can be at times! The stuff you posted is just the tip of the iceberg. I left for 2 years to travel, and the first thing that struck me when I came back was the general feeling of discontent that so many people have.
Unlike the US (from my experiences at least) theres no sense of community, no common feeling of what it is to be British and most importantly no pride in being British. It seems like people are too scared to show pride in their nation lest they be mistaken for the flag waving football hooligan stereotype which is bandied about so often, or people simply do not consider themselves to be British, even when multiple generations of their family have been born here (a common effect of the policy of “multiculturalism”). I think until some of these things change it will be all to easy for government to abuse civil liberties, as the general population seem to weary to do anything about it.[/quote]
Where do you live in the UK? I hear this over and over but I saw plenty of honest British Pride (also plenty of veiled racism but that is another story) in the Home Counties, London and Manchester.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
[…] Pretty good summary of the situation. when I tell people here in Mexico about the system behind and supporting the London congestion charge they literally do not believe me.
The worst thing about the CCTV is that most of it is designed to generate revenue in the form of penalty payments for traffic offences and is therefore badly aligned to deal with violent street crime.
All the pictures from the CCTV of muggings are usually able to show is that it is an average height male wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. Great, that narrows it down![/quote]
Thanks. And I know that it sounds a bit crazy that I’m agreeing with many posters whom I would normally consider to be too far on the right for my taste. I guess that’s the disappointment from seeing a positive start when the conservative rule ended to seeing the continuous fuckups it has turned into.
As for congestion charging and traffic control - having worked in the field and knowing what speeding accidents can do, I’m not opposed. It actually has a public health effect by both reducing speed and controlling traffic flow. I’ve got no problem with controlling cars - it’s controlling people that I have an issue with. Want do avoid a fine? Don’t speed. There is no right to speeding. But I have a big problem applying surveillance to every aspect of life, allowing cheaper private contractors to do it (check out private sector prisons and their ‘performance’) and then let standards slip, making it worse, losing the data etc.
But again, it’s less the evil oppressors that I fear, but rather the populists who decide and the morons who are put in charge.
[quote]makkun wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
[…] Pretty good summary of the situation. when I tell people here in Mexico about the system behind and supporting the London congestion charge they literally do not believe me.
The worst thing about the CCTV is that most of it is designed to generate revenue in the form of penalty payments for traffic offences and is therefore badly aligned to deal with violent street crime.
All the pictures from the CCTV of muggings are usually able to show is that it is an average height male wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. Great, that narrows it down!
Thanks. And I know that it sounds a bit crazy that I’m agreeing with many posters whom I would normally consider to be too far on the right for my taste. I guess that’s the disappointment from seeing a positive start when the conservative rule ended to seeing the continuous fuckups it has turned into.
As for congestion charging and traffic control - having worked in the field and knowing what speeding accidents can do, I’m not opposed. It actually has a public health effect by both reducing speed and controlling traffic flow. I’ve got no problem with controlling cars - it’s controlling people that I have an issue with. Want do avoid a fine? Don’t speed. There is no right to speeding. But I have a big problem applying surveillance to every aspect of life, allowing cheaper private contractors to do it (check out private sector prisons and their ‘performance’) and then let standards slip, making it worse, losing the data etc.
But again, it’s less the evil oppressors that I fear, but rather the populists who decide and the morons who are put in charge.
Makkun[/quote]
I was referring to the London congestions charging zone where you have to pay $8 per day to drive within central London.
This was not about safety or cutting congestion, it was about increasing revenues.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
[…]I was referring to the London congestions charging zone where you have to pay $8 per day to drive within central London.
This was not about safety or cutting congestion, it was about increasing revenues. [/quote]
I know what you meant - I cycle through it every day. It has cut congestion (until the City of London decided to go crazy on roadworks and replacing waterpipes - which has considerably clogged up roads again) - and road pricing basically is going to happen to many more places, whether we like it or not. I’d rather have a local, consumption based pricing system than an increased tax regime.
Is the way they set it up spooky - number plate reading systems for sure is. Especially as they are now also used to log journeys outside of the remit of traffic control. I give you that.
I can recall in during the past year, being so fed-up with the systematic destruction of civil liberties, that I (for a second) considered voting Conservative. I actually think the Tories would be better than Labour on this matter but that doesn’t say much…
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
I was referring to the London congestions charging zone where you have to pay $8 per day to drive within central London.
This was not about safety or cutting congestion, it was about increasing revenues. [/quote]
Quite right. Stealth taxes.
I LIVE in Central London and I have to pay for the congestion charge, and a parking permit to park outside my house and receive about 4 penalty charges a month - that is 240.00 British pounds for a 1 minute, 30 seconds mistake - from parking “offenses” which are often errors of their system’s own failing. I know this because my company has a department hired to dispute the penalty charges and most of them are wrongly issued -they are making obscene amounts of money with this and using cctv to charge you over minor traffic mistakes, often caused by the third world road works and confusing signage.
The civil officers on the street have the power to issue penalty charges of 60.00 GBP, increased to 120.00 GBP if not paid within 14 days, without a retraction though you have proved there has been a mistake. You are then instructed to take your case to court if you want to dispute the ticket. A further waste of our time and money.
Master and servants.
They act with utter entitlement of power over the people and this is why I am leaving this country.
You stand completely powerless before this fascism masquerading as a democracy and the British are completely ballless by now and I don’t blame them.
[quote]majicka wrote:
I can recall in during the past year, being so fed-up with the systematic destruction of civil liberties, that I (for a second) considered voting Conservative. I actually think the Tories would be better than Labour on this matter but that doesn’t say much…[/quote]
The same thing has crossed mind on more than one occation, its a scary thought. However, i can’t see any party reducing CCTV cameras, their here to stay. Hopefully the next government will stop DNA sampling and storing on arrest and get a better speed camera policy, my license is filling with points fast!
[quote]Clean and West wrote:
majicka wrote:
I can recall in during the past year, being so fed-up with the systematic destruction of civil liberties, that I (for a second) considered voting Conservative. I actually think the Tories would be better than Labour on this matter but that doesn’t say much…
The same thing has crossed mind on more than one occation, its a scary thought. However, i can’t see any party reducing CCTV cameras, their here to stay. Hopefully the next government will stop DNA sampling and storing on arrest and get a better speed camera policy, my license is filling with points fast!
[/quote]
Probably true, and this is one very, VERY good reason to piss all over anyone who tries to start the CCTV craze over here. I’m already sick of what I have to deal with, which is nowhere near as draconian as that ridiculous political engine you call Labour. I very seriously can’t imagine living in England any more, and it was one of my dreams growing up to live on the Isles. I’d be in jail within a week for losing my temper as it currently stands.
During an engineering seminar the professor was discussing the ethical implications of inherent design flaws which could cause injury or death. His point came down to this- The ethical rule of thumb when designing something is “Would you allow a loved one to use this?”. If the answer is No, you should not create it.
It’s just that we’ve been ruled by a supposedly left-leaning government for twelve years, and they have turned out to be the most oppressive bunch of bastards in living memory: anulling bits of habeas corpus, removing the right to jury trials, increasing “on the spot” fines (with penalties if you go to court instead), ID cards, DNA retention DESPITE the ECHR saying it’s illegal, database upon database of information (“for child protection”), removal of the presumption of innocence (RIPA), 28 days’ retention without charge (they still want 90 days), and so on and so on.
Right- but in America, it’s often Republicans who do the same thing- i.e. the Patriot Act (which included a facet that wanted to know who checked certain books out of the library), the defense of torture, issuance of a do-not play list for the radio after 9/11…
In Germany it was the super-right wing Nazis, in Russia it was the Communist Stalin… it’s all over the map. The want of power and control is not limited to one political spectrum.
That is only because your political spectrum is “left vs right” instead of “individualist vs collectivist.”
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
[…]Are you one of the cyclists I want to run over?
Stick to the curb…
: )
[/quote]
How about I’ll just stick to the highway code and use the space I’m allowed to. I’ll use lights though, I’ll signal properly and I won’t jump red lights - unlike some of my brethren.
(And the Swiss have joined, so you don’t even need to show an ID to go there, I’ll wager)[/quote]
I guess that’s the disappointment from seeing a positive start when the conservative rule ended to seeing the continuous fuckups it has turned into.