If you believe our surveillance culture is a good thing, does that mean you trust politicians?

Question

I wouldn't like to tar all politicians with the same brush, but the job does have a notorious image of drawing in people who are unscrupulous in their pursuit of power and abusive of their position.

If you think the state having the power to monitor individuals behaviour as a matter of routine is a good thing, does it necessarily follow that you trust the politicians who are implementing this system, both now and in the future?

Jacob W - Hi, I used the term 'surveillance culture' to refer to the way the government has given itself the power to monitor your emails, phone, where you go, who you meet, how much money you spend/withdraw and where, what post you send/receive etc. etc.

I didn't want to list everything that they are allowed to have access to in peoples everyday lives, as I only had 1000 words for my extra information on the question.

The police are allowed to use this surveillance information as a matter of routine, it is now established practice in solving and preventing crime. The police are the mechanism used by the governement to enforce law and order.

Answer 1

Politicians are by their nature devious and untrustworthy. Orwell may have got his year wrong, but "1984" is coming very fast.

Answer 2

I am a little confused about what you are asking. Please define "the state having the power to monitor individuals behavior as a matter of routine,". In what way is the state monitoring individual behavior? In order to give you a thoughtful answer, I need to know specifically, what you are talking about.

The term is too broad. Thanks for the clarification.

Much of what you have here is more a product of our computer based systems than some dark government intrusion. Email, for instance, can be read anywhere along the route it takes by anyone who has the expertise and desire to do so. The sheer volume of would causes the government to require programs to seek certain key elements in an email message before it would draw any specific attention.

But we are told this when we sign up for email accounts. Email leaves a trail. In fact just logging on to the internet does that. We must either accept that or not use the internet which, BTW, belongs to the government.

Telephone call monitoring is restricted by current law. There is a lot of misinformation about the Patriot Act intruding on phone conversations. In reality, monitoring who is receiving and making calls to particular areas of the world such as Iran, Syria etc. are of interest to Homeland Security. Not every call made by everybody. The actual wiretapping changes it allows (the so called warrantless taps) were already made legal for such things as organized crime investigations.

You see, the law required a judge to specify a particular phone to be tapped. By using public phones or multiple cell phones a gangster could defeat the wiretapping process. The change was that a court could specify a particular person to be tapped regardless of which phone he was using. Technically, that means law enforcement could tap any phone without a judge's consent but that is not exactly accurate.

There is much more to this issue than a simplistic answer claiming that we are losing our rights. We also have a right not to be blown up while going about our business. True, some of our activity may rub up against those seeking to protect us from attack but you must admit, there have been plenty of wild claims about people having their rights violated, yet there have been precious few people actually making such claims in court. You would think there would be if rights were actually being abused.

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Answer 3

Cameras do not protect people , it is the person monitoring that camera that does or doesn't and since its a proven fact more surveillance does nothing in terms of a country's security , I find them to be a terrible invasion of privacy . For example - The 911 hijackers were caught on 12 different cameras , the people who did the 7/7 bombings in London were caught on camera and Princess Diana , she wasn't caught on camera because the camera stopped working - I could go on and on but I think you see the point .

Answer 4

Firstly, I think our surveillance culture is by far "over the top" but that's not too say it's unnecessary.

Secondly, I don't trust politicians (The majority at least), their interests are those of corporations and banks, people second. That shift has become far more evident and transparent over the years.

The general concept of the surveillance system is to control people rather then liberate them, that's where its going wrong.

Answer 5

One picture is worth a thousand words. If a perp is caught on tape, stealing a woman's purse, how would a politician use that to his advantage?
Secondly, surveillance tapes are controlled by police. The police are a part of the administration. The tapes would not be available to the legislative branch.

Answer 6

Nope I think it is a stupid idea!
I hate the fact that they are trying to get everyone to have ID cards and to monitor individuals,it's ridiculous!
I hate the fact that they have surveillance cameras everywhere!!
Talk about England becoming Big Brother!
F@#K the police, I hate them all.....never done me any good, only bad.....w@#~+*s!!!

Answer 7

Read your history books or watch History channel and learn how the people of Nazi Germany and their occupied countries felt under Fascism in the 1930's & 40's. Getting scarey my friend. And the scariest thing as that the people of today are accepting it just like they did back then !

Answer 8

Trusting politicians is about as sensible as committing suicide. Surveillance should be used on politicians first!

Answer 9

I reckon street level CCTV is alright, but not keen on ones with audio and xray capabilities too.. For a start, its harmful to xray girls ovaries and boys testicles. It makes them infertile.

Also, not keen on satellite tracking for vehicles (thats intrusive spying) and hope they never get serious about cctv surveilance in ordinary homes..

Answer 10

if the public were allowed to scrutinise the devious crooks that we have in power. if we could set up our own cameras to watch their criminal activities then i would say its a good idea. but on not doing that SURELY!! we are missing an opportunity to catch the biggest and most powerfull criminal gang that Britain has ever had....(((((new labour))))