Orwell's England

Orwell's England [align=left] Christopher S. Bentley
JBS
Tuesday April 3, 2007 [/align]
Within 200 yards of flat number 27B, an unassuming fourth floor North London apartment, there are 28 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, their unblinking electronic eyes keeping a watch on everything that happens in nearby Canonbury Square. According to the British entertainment guide This Is London, the apartment's "rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre" nearby.
The chilling irony is that the apartment is the former home of prescient novelist George Orwell. And it's a sign that the all encompassing surveillance state envisioned by Orwell is all too real in today's England.
The cameras outside of Orwell's home are part of a much bigger problem. According to This Is London, "Britain has a staggering 4.2 million CCTV cameras â?? one for every 14 people in the country â?? and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily."
The British fetish for surveillance cameras is not unique. While that country is home to some 20 percent of the world's CCTV cameras, the United States has been installing them fast and furious. They are already in practically every convenience store, hotel, and big box retail store in America and police departments nationwide are rushing to install traffic cameras and surveillance cameras in as many locations as possible. In New York City, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) points out that a 2005 "survey found 4176 cameras below Fourteenth Street, more than five times the 769 cameras counted in that area in 1998."
The New York system is still expanding. According to the NYCLU, "The New York City Police Department, spurred by the promise of $9 million in Federal Homeland Security grants and up to $81.5 million in federal counter-terrorism funding, announced this year that it plans to create 'a citywide system of closed-circuit televisions' operated from a single control center." Other cities, large and small, are following suit.
Meanwhile, back in Canonbury Square, dozens of security cameras installed by the encroaching police state are keeping a close watch on the plaque that identifies the home where Orwell wrote 1984, his classic novel warning of the dangers of the totalitarian state.

Children to nag adults through CCTV [align=left] Mark Ballard
The Register
Wednesday April 4, 2007 [/align]
CCTV cameras will bark orders at people who misbehave in the streets of eight major British cities as part of a government scheme to cajole people into respecting authority.
Faceless bureaucrats will tell people off when they are being "anti-social" by dropping litter, behaving drunkenly, fighting, and, presumably, smashing up CCTV cameras and otherwise dismantling the apparatus of the nanny state.
But these bureaucrats will be voiceless too - CCTV operators taking part in the scheme will use recordings of children's voices to browbeat wayward adults.
Cameras will be fitted with loud-speakers, but it is doubtful they will be fitted with microphones so people can answer back.
Using recordings of children's voices will make it harder for those in opposition to the surveillance society to be defiant of the talking cameras. Moonies and rude gestures will most definitely be a no-no.
Children will be recruited from schools to take part in the £0.5m scheme and shown round CCTV operating rooms on school trips.
Louise Casey, the government's "co-ordinator for respect", said in a statement this morning: "We are encouraging children to send this clear message to grown ups - act anti-socially and face the shame of being publicly embarrassed."
Graeme Gerrard, chair of the CCTV Working Group of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said a Middlesborough trial of the scheme had been used for "dispersing intimidating groups loitering in shopping areas, parks and housing estates". He did not say where the youths went when they'd been moved on.
A Home Office statement on the matter said the government would use the "power of pestering" to teach people what was unacceptable behaviour. ®

Talking CCTV cameras 'set to slash crime figures' [align=left] Andrew Thomas
The Inquirer
Wednesday April 4, 2007 [/align]
IT WAS a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Winston Smith and his posse were sniffing glue in the litter-strewn shopping mall, waiting for a hapless mugging victim to stroll by.
High overhead, a desultory, mangy pigeon was disturbed by the whine of a servo motor as the cameras tracked lazily across the scene. Suddenly, the silence was shattered as a shrill voice, distorted by cheap electronics, crackled: "Excuse me, would you mind picking up that piece of paper you've just dropped?"
Gripped by terror at hearing the voice of Big Brother, the gang ran as if their very lives were at stake. Law and order had been restored.
It's a funny little world Home Secretary John Reid must live in. According to the BBC, he's just signed off half a million quid to equip 20 town centres across England with talking CCTV cameras, claiming that people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour will stop immediately if someone in a cosy control centre ten miles away and has no way of posing any physical threat whatsoever tells them off. No doubt they will also be so ashamed that they will immediately sign up for Bible study classes and become model citizens.
Reid is planning competitions at schools across the land to find kids to provide the voice of Big Brother. Now, if there's one thing certain to put the fear of God into a gang of knife-wielding teenage crack addicts, it's the voice of little Susie from Year Four telling them off.
"By funding and supporting these local schemes, the government is encouraging children to send this clear message to grown ups - act anti-socially and you will face the shame of being publicly embarrassed," said the Home Secretary. "It helps counter things like litter, drunk or disorderly behaviour [and] gangs congregating."
Law and order experts point out that a couple of policemen on the street might also achieve the same result, although this would obviously distract them from the vital tasks of shooting Brazilian electricians and setting up roadblocks to catch motorists with expired tax discs. µ
Inq Factoid
There are over four million CCTV cameras in Britain.
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