Weds: most of the day on the train, Glasgow to London. Caught up with Craig for a couple, then Andrew and I had a quiet couple. Not the most exciting :)
Thurs: Quiet day, washed some clothes as the jeans were getting aromatic. Went to Windsor to lunch with Patrick, heading out to dinner tonight. All of which has given me time to think which, I think, has produced the first kinda thoughtful TT.
One thing I have noticed this time is a greater emphasis on security. CCTVs are everywhere, I think I read there are 4 million of them scattered throughout the british isles. That's a helluva lot. And it doesn't stop there. There are constant reminders on public transport, stations, posters - everywhere really - to be vigilant. To report left luggage, anything suspicious, odd behaviour, indeed people are told 'if in doubt, report it'.
There has also been a big furore, with just cause, concerning the length of time a terrorist suspect can be held. Apparently the UK has the longest period (24 days - sorry this is all from memory and I don't have web access at the moment) that police can hold a suspect without charging them. To put that in comparison, NZ is 2 days (but generally 1), the US is 1 day, Germany is 1-2. Some small tinpot country not known for it's human welfare record was 7 days. The leftie complaint is that Tony B wanted to increase this to 40ish days before charging. Gordon B has said that he's keeping a genuinely open mind.
So why am I blogging about this? Well in all honesty it feels like a police state here. And with recent statements about increasing anti-terrorism laws there are about to be a massive increase in police and other forms of watching. Apparently a training branch for anti-terrorism is going to be established whereby everyone in a position of interacting with the public will get training, examples of these include cinemas, theatres, museums etc etc.
In addition to the ad nauseum 'be vigiliant' comments, it also transpires that the British people, already some of the most watched people in the world on CCTV, are also frequently wiretapped or subject to surveillance.
One of the central tenets of the British legal system is habeas corpus which translates, in essence, as a safeguard to individual freedom against state intervention. This basic right of the individual appears to have been gradually eroded by a succession of anti-terrorism laws. The British implementation of these appears to have been more insidious than the US, where Patriot I and II swept away rights in the aftermath of 9/11. It is for that reason that conspiracy theorists have suggested 9/11 was a means to an end for the US government. Given Rudi G's presidential campaign has more use of "9/11" than I do of a certain four letter word starting with F and ending with K, one might be forgiven for reaching a conclusion ...
It is also much easier to spy on people with recent advances in technology. Your cellphone can be tracked to within a small region, internet access is monitored, wifi links, your bank withdrawls and eftpos/visa purchases can be used to track you, CCTV can identify you. It's not hard for a someone to know everything about you. In addition the British have the worlds largest DNA bank, with approximately 1 in 14 people represented. Scared yet?
So why do the British people put up with this? Firstly I think because they have freedom so deeply ingrained in their psyche (to reach into pop psychology for a minute) that they are genuinely not bothered by the changes. The slow implementation of the changes also means the public appears to have accepted them not realising how deep the changes have become. Secondly the surveillance is not obvious. Sure some of the cameras are quite visible, but they've been there for years. Surveillance of phones and people is again subtle, and internet tracking is invisible, meaning even if you were being 'spied' on the chances of realising it are slim.
What has really gotten to me is the constant be vigilant calls. These amount to a request to spy on everyone else and, I suspect, add dramatically to a populations racial stereotypes/profiling, 'he looks muslim, gotta be a terrorist'. I don't see that as helping to develop tolerance. The calls are also portrayed as a good thing, essentially if we don't spy on everyone the terrorists win (to paraphrase GWBush). So whats the patriotic Britain to do?
All of this reminds me of two movies (books too, but let's stick to pop culture), Children of Men and Brazil, and a police state (WWII Germany). Sure the German reference is a bit extreme and I'm certainly not suggesting the British police force is arresting people and hiding them for 24 days. But the similarities are there. Interestingly the German people have some of the lowest surveillance in the world. Given the lessons they've learnt, I can understand why.
Now I'm not saying there aren't terrorists out there. I'm sure there are. But surely giving up individual freedoms on the possibility they might strike isn't the way to deal with it - or at least it doesn't seem to be to me. Surely if any of the surveillance was more obvious, or if people knew about it, there would be more of an outcry. So in that respect have the terrorists gained a victory? Paranoia roams where the shadows play, to quote a favourite lyricist.
At the moment I can't come up with a solution to this, but I am thinking about it.
B (a bit disturbed by the sudden change in blog style)
5 comments:
Foreign Correspondent had a piece on that very subject a few weeks ago. They talked to a security dude who pointed out that Britain is practically unique in Europe in never having had a secret police or any other form of secret state nastiness. So Britons aren't immediately suspicious of surveillance the way that the Germans or anyone from Eastern Europe would be.
Hmm- I remember reading Jerry Adams's (leader of the Sinn Fein) bio and he had a quote from one Minister of Police in apartheid South Africa were the police had very extensive powers with respect to arbitrary detention of people who looked at them funny etc - Anyway the South Africans with all the powers they had were pretty envious of the "emergency regulations" pertaining in Northern Ireland.
My dad was living in London at the peak of IRA bombings and I gather there were quite of lot of reminders to be vigilant then too. I believe at one stage they got rid of all the rubbish bins at the tube stations because of the bomb risk.
I'm grossly, grossly speculating and generalising about the British psyche here but I think WW2 and the strictly controlled wartime way of life was quite a defining time for the British. The curtailment of liberty was accepted as necessary then and maybe that's part of why they have fewer problems with it now than other nations might.
There's no rubbish bins in Sydney train stations either.
Freedom! Justice! And somewhere to chuck your chippie packet!
The whole "be vigilant", CCTV, powers, etc. thing concerns, but nowhere near as much as when you point these things out to many a Brit they don't see this as in anyway concerning.
Who are you, mysterious writer of this post, and what have you done with Bruce?
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