@AC (Using footpaths ...) etc
Bang on. Merely having to pass through a public place absolutely does *not* imply your consent to being filmed and having those records kept for however long, never mind being used for analysis of possible criminal activity. Our only difference is that I flatly refuse to go anonymous about this; I'm sure I'm already an entry on some file of dissident thinkers somewhere, because I've dared express my opinion to them in exchanges of letters.
The essential point is that we evolved in a natural world where, once we've passed each other and gone our separate ways, there only remained the memory. Painting didn't change that much; unless you were specifically asked by the artist (or were rich enough to order your own portrait out of vanity) you would probably never be recorded at all.
Photography, until intrusive press photography arrived on the scene, was still relatively under your control: You didn't really care if you were passing by some famous building if there was a photographer there, or if you did, you'd see him before his lens was shoved in your face. Family and friends might share a laugh at one another in their pictures, but that was just a matter of private embarrassment.
Now we have a government which seems to think it is acceptable to video-record you wherever you go. To photograph you quite deliberately as you travel along public roads - mugshot, registration, where you were, going which way and when. To track where you are with your mobile phone, credit card, any other damn transaction where a computer can be involved so the data collection's easy. To analyse still further to see who you associate with, what you buy, what websites you visit, which one's your fingerprint or DNA or iris pattern or gait or ... To allow, nay, encourage every local authority, businesses large and small, travel companies, everyone, to be just as bloody unforgivably intrusive as they are, all under the grand nonsensical claim that this ubiquitous surveillance makes us "safer", and that "if you've nothing to hide ..." ... I'm sorry, I just can't make that grotesque parody of an argument come off my fingers. If you've nothing to hide, then you have the right to expect the authorities to get off your f*cking back and out of your face. We call them "civil" "servants". Hah. Clever name for insulting tyrants, that.
Okay, there are too many people arguing that it isn't a matter of "privacy". Maybe it is dignity, or respect, or something like. Whatever, the way we are expected simply to submit meekly to having every little detail of our activities recorded, with or without our knowledge, certainly with no consideration that we should give our consent, by people we probably don't particularly trust, or even know, for purposes which are seldom if ever to our benefit, shows a degree of casual contempt for the citizen which pervades our society and which ought to terrify everyone with a working brain.
But of course TV and advertising keep their brains from working, so no danger there. It's also a useful channel to keep the old "nothing to fear" propaganda pumping into their consciousnesses. Most efficient.
I'm sorry, this is turning into a rant. But I'm old enough to remember a world where we at least tried to treat one another with a modicum of respect so that we could all rub along most of the time. Where health and safety meant sensible diet and doing your job with due care. Yeah, bits of that world weren't perfect - the position of women being an egregious case - but we knew which bits needed mending and who seemed to have promising ideas, and problems did get solved. In our modern dystopia, problems are invented and encouraged for as long as they allow the extension of surveillance and control as a cure. Once the camera's there, "they'll get used to it", and don't they. "Oh yeah, I feel a lot safer now there's cameras," they twitter, and another level of control is quietly, mindlessly accepted into the neighbourhood. Nobody notices that the crime level hardly changes.
It scares the crap out of me. I think we should all club together and keep Wacqui Jacqui in really good skunk until the rubbish she talks starts making sense, if ever it does. There's still a horrible backlog of snooping Acts, mind, whose immediate repeal, should we ever be so lucky, would at least signal that the UK had woken up from its mightmare.
'Til then, mine's the goggle jacket with the balaclava and a load of cheap laser pointers in the pockets.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
