|
Britain:
An “Endemic Surveillance Society”
are
no longer counted in the official total.” continued from previous page19
Earlier, the Independent (17 February) informed us that schools will be
very much preparing kids for life in the police state, where cops have
increasing powers. An article on knife crime in schools commenced:
“Parents will be told that they must allow their children to be
searched at any time within school premises if they want to get them
into the schools of their choice, under new plans to rid Britain's
classrooms of the scourge of knives.
The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will put the battle against illegal
weapons at the top of her agenda when she unveils her Tackling Violence
Action Plan tomorrow. The blueprint for tackling knife-related violence
will include a radical move to give police hundreds of metal detectors
to catch young people carrying hidden weapons in schools, clubs and
pubs.”
Three days later the Independent reported that teachers had backed the
introduction of metal detectors in schools:
“Although the initiative carries disturbing echoes of some US cities,
where high-school pupils are routinely scanned for weapons, head
teachers said it could help to tackle violence in high-crime areas.
Metal detectors are still relatively rare and hugely controversial in
US schools, but they have been used, particularly in rougher inner-city
neighbourhoods, for at least 20 years with some success.”
This is a disturbing vision of the future. Not only does your kid get
to be fingerprinted at school, as now, their details stored and their
having to have their dabs scanned before even getting a school meal (as
was done by stealth at my son’s comprehensive school, without the prior
knowledge of parents) but they will face spot searches, yanked from
class to be frisked by some over-zealous teacher, as well as having to
go through metal detectors.
How long before kids are urged to report to staff on any subversive
comment heard at home, being rewarded with a medal when they do? If
you’re aiming on implementing a total surveillance society, then what
better way than to start with kids and acclimatise them to incessant
surveillance from an early age.
And if you can target kids, who are all too ready to accept the
‘wisdom’ of their elders and superiors, and who are in no position to
object, then why not also target another section of society who have
fewer rights – prisoners – who can be conned into having their
movements monitored if they think its will result in a non-custodial
sentence?
Less that two weeks after Privacy International announced that Britain
was an “endemic surveillance society” we had the Independent on Sunday
(13 January) reporting with a front page headline: “Prisoners to be
chipped like dogs”. All that was missing was the subheading: Welcome to
the police state Britain.
In a bid to implement home curfews on the more ‘errant’ members of our
society and to create more space in Britain’s overcrowded jails,
ministers have come up with plans to implant ‘machine-readable
microchips’ beneath the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an
expansion of the electronic tagging scheme.
The system is already in place for dogs and cats, cattle, cars and
airport luggage, for instance, so it was really only a matter of time
before someone came up with the bright idea of using ‘spychips’ on
humans. Said one senior minister: “We have wanted to take advantage of
this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution
to the problems we are facing in this area…We have looked at it and
gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics,
but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system,
it's time has come.”
So much then for the battle cry of the Labour Party when it came to
power: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” The latest move
is tantamount to admitting Labour policies have failed, that crime
cannot be controlled within the context of capitalism and that class
inequality will forever throw up a “criminal element”.
The Independent observed:
“More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects
released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time,
under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But
official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape
monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off. Curfew
breaches rose from 11,435 in 2005 to 43,843 in 2006 – up 283 per cent.
The monitoring system, which relies on mobile-phone technology, can
fail if the network crashes.”
The idea now is for offenders to have tags, consisting of a toughened
glass capsule holding a computer chip, injected into the back of the
arm with a hypodermic needle
It goes without saying that human rights campaigners should be the
first to expostulate. Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti commented: “If the
Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is
worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer;
they need a common-sense bypass.”
Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association
of Probation Officers, said: “This is the sort of daft idea that comes
up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the
same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead. Treating people like
pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system
to me.”
One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the
implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit
conversations. What is being proposed, then, in some quarters is the
tasering of offenders, via satellite, from outer-space. Step outside
the confines of your curfew area and ZAP! How long before we find
Gordon Brown and Co. contemplating the idea of each and every one of us
carrying a vein deep implant, with defenders of the idea regurgitating
the old line: “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to
worry about?”
Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said: “Some folks might foolishly
discount all of these downsides and futuristic nightmares since the
tagging is proposed for criminals like rapists and murderers. The rest
of us could be next.”
Most workers are totally oblivious to the creeping surveillance
society, the full police state, where people with powerful interests to
defend can track us 24-7. It is done so slowly, so subtly, that the
majority of people don’t realise what is going on. Indeed, many who are
cognisant of future surveillance proposals believe it is harmless and
is done with their best interests at heart – so wise are our leaders.
Little by little, workers are becoming acclimatised to the Big Brother
Society, in which they will have your DNA, your fingerprints your
credit card details… everything… Everything will eventually be known
about everyone.
They’re telling us all that we are not to be trusted - none of us – and
that we need to be surveilled constantly and that it is all in our own
interests, for the good of society. They want our genetic profiles
logged, our financial transactions, our medical history, and our
telephone, email and web-surfing habits catalogued and shared with
security agencies all over the world. Well, trust is a two-way thing,
so why should we trust them one inch?
JOHN BISSETT
|
|