  |
|
 |
|
|
|
British use anti-terror cameras to spy on litterbugs David Edwards and Muriel Kane British civil libertarians are charging that local governments have gone too far in spying on their own people, particularly through the use of surveillance cameras that were intended to foil terrorists. Former British MP and civil liberties exponent David Davis complains that “public bodies have amassed 266 separate powers to forcibly enter the home. … Bugging is no longer the preserve of MI5 – hundreds of councils are entitled to exercise these powers. And it is not just bugging. Local councils increasingly hire neighbourhood spies to investigate petty misdemeanours, including dog-fouling, rubbish regulation and parking entitlements.” According to a British newspaper, local councils are even using anti-terrorist surveillance cameras to spy on people who litter or don’t scoop their dog poo. Some officials watch people with the cameras and then yell at them through loudspeakers when they see them littering. Sir Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association, has sent out a letter to the local councils suggesting there is a widespread belief that they are abusing their power. Milton points out that the councils are required to use the surveillance technology “proportionately” and only when “necessary,” and he notes dryly that “we do not consider dog fouling or littering as matters which fall within the test of ‘necessary and proportionate.’” Davis writes further about “the government’s fixation with ever-longer periods of pre-charge detention, its obsession with intrusive ID cards and its accumulation of the largest DNA database in the world.” He adds that “[Prime Minister] Gordon Brown has gagged his ministers from participating in any public debate on these issues during the byelection, which I am fighting against the relentless assault on British liberty.” Brown, however, insists that “the answer is not to reject the 21st century means of detecting and preventing crime,” although he does acknowledge that privacy laws could use strengthening. This video is from ITV, broadcast June 24, 2008.
|
||||
