Earlier in the week I was visiting family in the old family home, the nearest railway station to which is Egham. And just outside Egham Station, I spotted this rather remarkable sign, erected (I presume) by the local council, Runnymede.
It seems that Lucinda Campbell Jackson of St Cuthbert’s School (see the verbiage top right) did a really quite witty piece of art, on the theme of CCTV surveillance. But the odd bit is Runnymede Council (see the verbiage top left) – and yes that is Runnymede of Magna Carta fame – thinking that using this bit of school art on an official sign is a good way to publicise the fact that everything you do in public in Egham is being recorded on video.
For me, what this illustrates is that all those who still oppose public video surveillance in all public places in Britain (personally I am still rather undecided) have comprehensively lost this argument, insofar as it ever was an argument in the first place. These local councillors know their business. They know that, if there was any serious public opposition to ubiquitous CCTV surveillance, it would not be in their interests to make public jokes about it. As it is, they are extremely keen to advertise their enthusiasm for CCTV surveillance with a bit of humour, knowing that many will laugh, but that very few will grumble, still less complain out loud.
I mean, if you have nothing to hide, you obviously have nothing to fear. Right? Except looking badly dressed.
You were lucky not to be arrested for taking the photo.
Is the camera supposed to look like a little toothbrush mustache, or is that just something I’m seeing?
Perhaps the bowtie could be replaced by a little iron maltese cross?
Scooby, I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Some rather mixed messages being given out by the sign, I’m afraid Brian.
Top left. So for a safer Runnymede it is advisable to go about with a shield and a sword is it? And I thought it was such a posh and peaceable place when I was last there.
Imagine what will happen to you if the CCTV camera cops you going equipped with those!
So we have Adolf in the centre of the pic and a crusader on the top left.
So Runymede is the world headquarters of the fascist conspiracy.
And here’s me thinking it was Brussels.
I really dont know what to say about this problem that libertarians have not been saying for years, decades even. Yes, as i could our ages, it’s now decades. Very sad, really. We have been mentioning this sort fo threat, for nearly 40 years, parhaps longer if we coult those of us who are now dead, and nobody has been listening, clearly.
Perhaps we are all wrong, and perhaps people really- truly, madly, deeply, want to be slaves of pre-capitalist barbarian peasant-daughter-shagging war-lords. And the people want to be the peasants whose daughters are to be shagged while they are forced to watch.
Perhaps Mankind is not, after all, despite the brave and positive strictures of Dale Amon and co, destined to be the species which gets off this planet before the Sun fries it, laughingly laughing-off the recent periodic threats of iceball-earths every 120,000 years…
Sometimes I feel very sad about things.
Sorry about the typos….
‘I mean, if you have nothing to hide, you obviously have nothing to fear.’
BS
I do not fear them. It’s just that it’s NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS where I go or when or how.
I have developed the plans for a CCD killer. It involves a laser scanner which will easily find all lenses and a much more powerful laser to kill the camera. It’s all legal except the stronger laser.
I live in the woods in BC so it’s not like I have a problem with cameras. I just do not like the idea. When they bother me I’ll build the beast. I have the software roughed out and a little vehicle that slowly progresses scanning for cameras and then frying them is quite possible. I’m kinda surprised they are not everywhere actually.
PenGun, you should post the plans on the Internet. Let it go viral.
I listened on the radio today, to a right-wing pundit advocating for the fingerprinting of all Little League (U.S. some town in New Jersey) coaches and parental volunteers because any one of them could be a child molester and a parent cannot always be present to keep hir eyes on hir child to protect them so this is better than nothing even though many serial killers had never had their fingerprints taken before they got off on their killing sprees but at least we can protect the children from the monsters (already fingerprinted) amongst us.
Fingerprinting to be a substitute teacher or volunteer in the gov’t schools in the US is routine which is why I will not work for them anymore. I had hoped to make it through life without ever having been fingerprinted, it’s a privacy issue for me. Luckily one can still teach at a community college without fingerprinting. So far.
Ubiquitous cameras are only part of the story, but maybe a good reason to stay out of cities. :/
Back in the day, when the (American) Founding Fathers were writing the Bill of Rights, they wrote the 3rd amendment, against quartering troops in someone’s home. It is assumed that this is because the Brits were trying to foist the cost of the war on individual homeowners; this is partially true, but the real reason was that Brit soldiers were there to spy on the residents. So, at least in America, theoretically, the 3rd Amendment protects us from this…even tho in practice, it doesn’t.
Time for some guerilla action. Find a way to get access to the video files – bribe someone, tap them off, or “borrow” them. Set up a little embarrassing “play” with several of the most powerful folks in town ala James O’Keefe and post it on youtube. Be sure and advertise with fliers about the town for the show.
Pull this off a couple of times and the wonders of living under constant surveillance will quickly wane with the ruling clic.
What say the reeds at Runnymede…
Is this not ironical beyond imagining?
You may well have nothing to hide today. But rest assured that more and more of your activities are being criminalized daily – didn’t I just see someone arrested for burning a koran?
Nothing to hide today, everything to lose tomorrow. And please note that the cameras aren’t worth the spit on a traffic camera. No one sees anything until way after the fact. Good for the prosecution, not so good for the victim.
When seconds count, the police are minutes away. Take heart, thay also will coddle the criminal whilst arresting you for defending yourself.
Sheeple…………………….