REINING IN THE SURVEILLANCE CULTURE
I must applaud the statement by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on Friday: “The Government has absolutely no interest in spying on law-abiding people going about their everyday lives. I don’t want to see these powers being used to target people for putting their bins out on the wrong day or for dog fouling offences.”
This is a literally Churchillian quote by the way, with a nod to the language used by the former Prime Minister’s opposition to ID cards back in the 1950s – I hope that Jacquie Smith thinks through the logic of her pronouncement and rethinks ID cards herself.
The Home Office has called for local authorities to be reigned in from secretly filming the population. Last July I was interviewed by the Swindon Advertiser about the use of surveillance cameras by Swindon Borough Council.
Andy Newman, a spokesman for Swindon Stop the War Coalition, says Swindon Council should think twice before they create a culture in the town where the local authority criminalises youths by spying on them.
He says he decided to speak out after reading an Advertiser investigation that found the council had used a law passed under anti-terror legislation, called Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), to conduct 13 separate spy missions on suspected tagging teenagers last year.
He believes that because the council passes on photographic and video evidence of teenagers onto police they are unnecessarily putting children on the ‘wrong side of the law’.
He reckons the strategy may end up making things worse for everyone by turning ‘teenage hijinks’ into criminal behaviour.
He said: “Everyone does bad things when they are kids but it is a phase most grow out of.“But now the council seem to be criminalising these kids by trying to catch them in the act and turning them over to the police.
“This isn’t a deterrent like speed cameras, because these cameras are not visible – it seems like they are more about catching people in the act.“The question is, as a society do we really want to be putting our children on the wrong side of the law by spying on them?
“A lot of the things like graffiti that the council are spying on kids for were considered teenage hijinks 10-years ago but now we are trying to convict teenagers in the criminal justice system for it.“These civil rights infringements are being justified by telling us they are there to protect society from bombers and terrorists.
“But look at our local authorities, now they are using them to hide cameras around town in an attempt to catch teenagers spraying paint on walls.”
The powers granted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). RIPA was enacted to provide councils with powers to combat terrorism or to help investigate serious crime.
But instead some councils, including Swindon Borough Council, have been using it for investigating graffiti and fly-tipping. There is of course a massive contradiction that Swindon Tories have voted to remove speed cameras that try to prevent unlawful dangerous driving, but advocate using cameras to spy on people to prevent the rather less serious social problem of grafitti.
For example, Tory councillor Peter Greenhalgh, head of highways, transport and strategic planning for Swindon was quoted by Virgin Media last year saying:
“I think enough is enough. There are much more important things we as a council should do instead of acting as a law enforcement arm of this Government.”
To be fair to Peter, he is not a hypocrite here, as I understand that he personally doesn’t support the use of surveillance cameras under RIPA either. But his conservative colleagues who voted to scrap speed cameras, but who also support covert filming of Swindon’s citizens are indeed hypocrites.
The intrusion here is that the surveillance is indiscriminate: they site cameras so that they film everyone in view including law abiding citizens going about their legitimate business, in order to try to catch a minority of anti-social people.
It should not be the role of the state in a liberal democracy to spy upon the private but lawful activities of citizens, unless there is an overriding public interest in doing so – such as protection of public safety.
This is another example of how poorly drafted legislation rushed through on the back of public panic about terrorism has led to an erosion of civil liberties far removed from terrorism or public safety.
Also on Swindon Roundabouts
Churchillian maybe, Orwellian certainly. Especially when you consider how narrow the government’s definition of “law-abiding” is.
Comment by milgram — 20 April, 2009 @ 10:29 pm
Uh, Andy, to me Smith’s statement sounds like “you have nothing to fear if you got nothing to hide”. How is that worthy of applause?
Comment by christian h. — 20 April, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Christian
Because she is telling local authorities to stop using theie RIPA powers inappropriately.
i don’t really have a prpblem with the police investigating serious crime or possiblee terrorism - that is their job.
I do have a problem with my local council undertaking covert surveillance on the whole town’s population just in case someone does some grafitti,
Comment by Andy Newman — 20 April, 2009 @ 11:12 pm
Craig Murray has posted this on Jacqui Smith today: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/jacqui_plays_th.html#comments
“So Jacqui Smith has played the terror card in a wild bid to save her job. It is extraordinary she can warn us of grave danger and at the same time look so smug about it. She spoke in the House of Commons of a “Suspected bomb plot” despite the absence of certain key elements normally associated with the phrase “bomb plot”.
Like a bomb.
Or a plot.
This was not pointed out to her, because she was faced by a Tory idiot, Chris Grayling, who believes that the Tories can win votes by being even more resolute looking in the face of danger than Jacqui Smith. And watching less porn. You might expect a real opposition to ask questions like: “You told us that a serious bomb attack was planned for Easter, ten days ago. Where then is the bomb? Where are the explosives, the detonators? Are they in the same metaphysical space as the Iraqi WMD?”
“…Meantime we have this from the police:
‘Manchester’s counter-terrorism unit said most of the searches relating to the terror arrests had been completed and material collected was now being assessed. “As this complex and detailed investigation continues, officers are sifting through the extensive amount of information so far received to assess its relevance to the investigation,” a spokesman said.
That is police speak for “We’ve found bugger all, but under New Labour legislation we can still hold them another fortnight to pressurise confessions or turn one against the others to make stuff up in terurn for getting out, or we can always bring in a paid supergrass from Pakistan again.”
So I think of this guys arrested & hauled in from their university library who’ve got another twelve days of custody with police trying to grind or scare (or torture, I don’t know) and confession out of them to make up for the complete lack of evidence, and I don’t applaud Jacqui Smith, myself.
Comment by Strategist — 20 April, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
Oh yeah, and it’s “rein in”
Comment by Strategist — 20 April, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
#5 thx
Comment by Andy Newman — 20 April, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
““The Government has absolutely no interest in spying on law-abiding people going about their everyday lives. I don’t want to see these powers being used to target people for putting their bins out on the wrong day or for dog fouling offences.””
But what is meant by ‘law abiding’? Is this NL’s own interpretation
of law abiding. Their definition of ‘terrorist’ and ‘extremist’ is becoming ever wider. And it is also meaningless when she says it is not about ‘putting bins out’ etc, sounds glib as well.
Erm, more seriously, what about MPs and their assistants who include watching different kinds of genre films twice and slapping it on their expenses…? But hey, I am being unfair cos it was one big mistake, wasn’t it…along with a 88pence bath plug….
can anyone take Jacqui Smith seriously now…? And she certainly doesn’t deserve appaulse…she’s a social authoritarian NL apparatchik.
Comment by Louise — 21 April, 2009 @ 9:07 am