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Opinions/Editorials Title: Surveilled Brits Reduced to the Sum of Their Profiled Parts? The barrage of invasive police state measures of surveillance have, of course, been ongoing with the pace of technology. Yet, in the UK the eyes and ears piecing together a total 'electronic footprint' has accelerated furiously-- and with a frightening sense of inevitable entrapment. BRITS NOW STAND COMPLETELY SURROUNDED... The entire citizenry are now surrounded by nearly omnipresent surveillance by way of 4.2 million+ cameras in the streets of London, some of which now have microphones to eavesdrop on conversations and even speakers to shout back at individuals in an effort embarrass and correct behaviour. Not to mention a phasing in of face-scanning cameras and other monstrous technology. AND THAT IS ONLY THE BEGINNING... For instance, surveillance also intends to utilize CCTV to detect violent behaviour and even spy on rubbish bins to report improper recycling and waste management!! The steady stream of eroding privacy has been outdone now by a landslide of announcements-- all at once-- that are clearly meant to overwhelm any sense of individuality, freedom, self-respect, trust in society or sense of involvement in any part of government-- beyond being a comprehensive profile in a paranoid database. Of course, the UK has repeatedly told its citizens they will be 'microchipped like dogs' within a decade. If the subjects of the digital crown have any nerve to buck the tyranny closing in around them, they had better reach their breaking point soon; if significant dissent doesn't stop some surveillance and slow down even more, it may simply be too late to prevent an absolute surveillance society-- backed by an army of computers and other sophisticated technology beyond control. Only in the last week and a half, British news has revealed that its people have been taken from ALL sides: MANDATORY DNA DATABASE EXPANDING -- a DNA database has already been in place for those arrested-- regardless of whether or not they are charged, or guilty for that matter. Now SUSPECTS' FAMILIES will be forced to give up their DNA. 'Victims of crime and others who have volunteered samples to help criminal investigation' are also subject to the database, which permanently retains the information. THOUGHT-CRIME LIST OF POTENTIAL CRIMINALS -- Where DNA, thumbscans, cameras and other surveillance falls short of aiding 'authorities' hoping to stop crime, a Minority Report-esque pre-crime list of potential murderers may help. Psychologists across the island are cooperating with police-- in the face of patient confidentiality and other passe concepts of privacy-- to compile a list of most likely murderers and rapists (and other crimes). Homicide Prevention Unit senior criminal psychologist Laura Richard said, "My vision is that we know across London who the top 100 people are." GIVING 'THE FINGER' A MUST FOR COPS, FLIGHTS, BARS, CAR RENTAL, STUDENT EXAMS & MORE -- Motorists will have their fingerprints taken on the roadside-- for now on a voluntary basis-- as a means of verifying identity. Supposedly, some 60% give false identity when pulled over, necessitating the new system. Any driver who does not convince police of their identity will have to either voluntarily fingerprint on the spot or be taken to the station for mandatory fingerprinting. Here are the key quotes of the article this comes from: "The encounter can be 15 minutes on the roadside rather than three hours in the police station," Inspector Steve Rawlings said. The device has an accuracy of 94-95% and will be used for identification purposes only, say police, and there are electronic safeguards to prevent misuse. Mark Wallace, who represents the civil liberties group the Freedom Association, told BBC Radio Five Live that he had "concerns" about the scheme. "I don't think we should be reassured by the fact that at the moment it's voluntary and at the moment they won't be recorded," he said. "Both of those things are actually only happening in the trial because the laws haven't been passed to do this on a national basis compulsorily and with recording." -- Renting a car will also mean a required fingerprint identification. --At the same time, speed cameras are used in an absolute crackdown on any offense that can be criminalized. The technology scans license plates, of course, so it knows who it has caught. The same technology is used in patrol cars, as in the above scenario. MPs are loving the use of these speed cameras and have called for even more of them to be put in use. -- There was also support for the increased use of “alcolocks”, which would immobilize a car if the driver had been drinking. --In the U.S., Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) recently called for breathalyzers in every car. More of the 'guilty until proven innocent' routine. AT BARS, IT'S FINGERS DOWN BEFORE BOTTOMS UP -- Drinking in bars currently requires a fingerprint at many local pubs. The British government has announced its intentions to make this a nation-wide policy. See also: Beer fingerprints to go UK-wide -- British citizens have also been told that is only a matter of time before fingerprints replace cash and credit cards. -- FINGERPRINTING BEFORE THE BIG TEST... A Government-backed report recommends "tougher measures such as fingerprint or retina scanning" to prevent students cheating on exams or posing as someone other than themselves. Furthermore, the report also calls for "widespread trials of 007-style detectors to trap pupils using mobile phones to cheat in exam halls." In the name of stopping the horrible epidemic of testing malfeasance, the concept, of course, goes on: --"There are fears youngsters could evade the devices by using phones as "electronic crib sheets" and bringing up stored text messages rather than triggering the detectors by making active connections." --"The exams watchdog should also investigate whether schools could legally cover the walls of exam rooms with mobile phone shields or "blocking paint" or use signal "jammers" to thwart cheating pupils." --"It means schools will find it harder to stop pupils using impersonators since they will be forced to rely on teaching assistants or bring in teams of seasonal invigilators drawn from the ranks of supply teachers." --"Other recommended measures to stamp out cheating include using different versions of tests to prevent pupils copying over their shoulder and insisting students stick to seating plans." This shocking example has to be the grossest imbalance of prevention vs. problem since the reaction in airports and elsewhere to the false and extremely exaggerated War on Terror. -- OF COURSE, AIRPORT SURVEILLANCE IS WELL KNOWN, BUT UPGRADING... Airline passengers are now to face routine fingerprinting. Of course, it won't be required just yet, but those who voluntary will benefit by way of convenience. Heathrow airport began-- today-- biometric trials. Those who agree to fingerprint get to jet ahead of notoriously long lines. Luddites will have to wait patiently, and with increasing suspicion. Of course, the invasive terror-prevention system is being billed quaintly with P.R. terms like "electronic key"-- which makes everything faster and more secure. Or maybe its just the mobile age we live in: "Biometric ID systems are fundamental to securing our borders in a more mobile age," Mr Byrne said. "They are crucial to our plans for counting everyone in and out of the country." It is hoped that, if successful, the system will be adopted at airports around the world. -- Where Thumb printing fails, X-RAY Body Scanners Will Prevail Of course, hand-in-hand with a secure identification is a secure person himself. For that purpose, metal detectors are on the way out as X-Ray body scanner are on the way in. --London announced the trial period of this device back in January for Underground rail platforms and already in place in some airports. --The same system is now being announced for use in the United States, who are in nearly as much surveillance trouble, but perhaps one or two steps lagging behind its ancestral mother state. MEANWHILE, THE WAR ON TERROR, STILL FOCUSED ON AIRPORTS, GETS MORE RIDICULOUS: -Man is prevented from buying jelly doughnut from airport store due to liquids ban. -Plane lands after scare from burnt matches in flight-- lit by elderly woman to cover flatulence -Muslim Imams are pulled from flight after passengers suspect them based on seating arrangement -The U.S. has revealed that federal agents have-- secretly, for the past four years-- assessed a RATING TO TRAVELERS BASED ON RISK, while maintaining a database of varied info, ranging from flight history, to payment methods and even MEAL CHOICES.... They intend to continue this practice, but do not allow passengers to see their ratings or any of the other information. -- WHAT 'WORKS' FOR AIRPORTS WILL WORK FOR SUBWAYS AND TRAINS Or so it goes, as increasingly thorough checkpoints take-over the underground and more in London. -- Anti-Terrorist Technology Scans Faces on Crowded Train Platform --Train scanners 'backed by public' --CCTV, Body Scanners, Thumbprints, Iris Scans et. al ad nauseam to be REINFORCED BY RFID AND E-PASSPORT RFID and the now required E-Passport are fairly well known by this point, so they won't be discussed in any detail here. Regardless, they are a convincing 'doorway to the panopticon' and other intrusive, redundant surveillance system. HAND-IN-HAND WITH OUTRAGEOUSLY-OVERDEVELOPED SURVEILLANCE COMES THE IMPOSED MORAL STANDARDS OF THE NANNY STATE --In a different sense, the UK is quite literally becoming a nanny state: "Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said." Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said. Mrs Hughes has established a national curriculum to set down how babies are taught to speak in childcare from the age of three months. Tony Blair has backed the idea of 'fasbos' - efforts to identify and correct the lives of children who are likely to fail even before they are born - and new laws to compel parents to attend parenting classes are on the way. Jill Kirby of the centre right think tank Centre for Policy Studies said: 'This is the micro-management of family life. 'They have told us the books that our children should read and how to brush their teeth. Now they tell us what we should sing to them. OUTRAGEOUS? ACTUALLY, QUITE A BIT IS BEING DONE IN THE NAME OF PREVENTING 'ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR' -- Unmanned aerial drones could now monitor neighborhoods watching for Anti-Social behavior on the streets. --Some mothers will now be required to pass a test before they can take home their babies from hospitals. (Newborns are also not released before DNA is taken and their new life begins, parallel, in an increasingly complex database keeping tabs on records of all sorts... which also goes alongside an 'electronic footprint' a member of society will leave in commericial interactions of all sorts.) -- Other mothers with infants-- for example those suspected of drug abuse-- might have to pass a ten-minute exam by health visitors who come to their door for a check-up. This overview is in no way exhaustive-- what our nations face is even worse. The examples from only the last two months of oppressive surveillance and imposed decisions is simply far too voluminous to include here. Obviously, it is a reluctant phenomenon that has been a long-time coming. Society had better take a long, sober look at its surroundings. It had better act quickly and forcibly if intends to stop or even slow down the trends sinking us all into an absolute surveillance society. Big Brother has indeed arrived with certainty in the UK. The United States is only slightly buffered from the current UK state-- mere months, or at best years behind. Most of the technology that threatens to swallow up humanity is already there as well-- what isn't yet is definitely finding its way in. The last vestiges of the autonomous individual with free will have done more than eroded slowly over time. What naive, well-intentioned average citizens have allowed their elites to bring in during the cover of night and on flimsy, over-general pretenses is appalling. We face the absolute undoing of personal rights and even human dignity. Henry Porter, of the London Observer says, "There's just no escape from these snoops." Big Brother has announced that he is watching, listening and shouting at you. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has warned, "Machines will rule if we don't curb surveillance." Steve Connor, of the London Independent, has concluded that the growing DNA database is "turning Britain into a nation of suspects." Jason Bennetto, of the London Independent, reports that "We are waking up to a surveillance society all around us." Quite simply, Britain IS-- or rather, has become-- a "surveillance society." With every particular of a human's life watched, scanned, verified, encoded into 1's and 0's and flung into an abysmal and unending database, humanity itself is undone. A man is no longer a man, but a mere sum of his parts. That which was once intriguing about intelligent life was the synergy of thought, of trial and error, of common bonds, of personal attributes. Life is supposed to be more than law and order, but also honor, honesty and lies, risk and security fought for with personal planning and sacrifice. What man has built to keep track of himself has degraded into that absolute low-point in the cycle of societies-- the metaphoric and literal 'mark of the beast,' where none can buy or sell-- or board an airplane or drive a vehicle or dispose of waste or walk down the street unless he bears the mark. May God help us all when the sub-dermal chipping begins...
Poster Comment: I support the overthrow of the British Government.
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#2. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Before the Brit gov't is overthrown, I'd like to see Scotland completely secede. They would have more reason to do it now than if the Brit gov't is reformed.
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