Miles Cooper Bombed Surveillance Organisations.....

[OC 1645]

Miles Cooper in pensive pose.

A statement from Miles Cooper's solicitor.........

These actions were motivated by, as he perceived it, the Government's concerted and ongoing efforts to control its citizens, eroding their civil liberties and hard-won freedom.

"Of particular concern to him are the recent Government proposals in relation to ID schemes and an extended DNA database. He cant explain why he chose to register his protest to this in such an extreme manner - all he can say is that he felt compelled to after peaceful methods that he employed were not successful."

Miles Cooper said that his targets - including forensic science laboratories and the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency - were responsible for turning Britain into a "surveillance society". He admitted sending seven bombs, five of which exploded, showering victims in glass and nails.

Academic comment......

Sociologist Professor Nigel Gilbert, of the University of Surrey, an expert in surveillance technology, told a BBC News website that a sense of being watched can create fear in people.

"This person's views are exceptional and extreme but I think in general there is well known to be a relationship between surveillance and trust," he said.

"If there's a lot of surveillance going on it leads to uncertainty. People don't know what is being watched, what is going to be done with the data that's collected - so they're uncertain and perhaps fearful.

That fear and uncertainty can lead to loss of trust in government and society.

Obviously in this particular case it is extreme but I think it's generally the case that the more surveillance people can see the more uncertain people are."

Royalist Gestapo Police causing uncertainty at Ashton Gate with their totally OTT surveillance.....

[fka dagest]

I agree with the guy's sentiment -we are being coerced into a police state (hello plod!). Inflicting misery on ordinary workers isn't the answer though is it? Mind you, I'm not sure what is allowed anymore, given that peaceful protests result in police detention. God, I hate politicians.

[zookeeper]

I don't agree with his sentiments nor do I agree with his actions.

What a sad loser. I bet he was just annoyed that his "peaceful" protests didn't give him the limelight and then went out and gave the police a reason to actually employ surveillance.

CCTV has helped to catch criminals which I am all for. I don't have anything to hide and big brother can keep on watching.

[OC 1645]

I agree with the guy's sentiment -we are being coerced into a police state (hello plod!). Inflicting misery on ordinary workers isn't the answer though is it? Mind you, I'm not sure what is allowed anymore, given that peaceful protests result in police detention. God, I hate politicians.

One thing's for sure, we're all sleepwalking our way into a surveillance dictatorship in this country with there being so many cameras watching our every move.

George Orwell did warn us !!!!!!......

June 8th 1999 was the 50th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's book "1984"

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinised."

N.B. Todays CCTV cameras use infrared technology and can see in the dark and can zoom in beyond normal human visual range, and no longer need a wired infrastructure, but can work over mobile phone networks. The video and audio signals can be processed electronically to automatically attempt to pick out your face from a database of suspects. There is even research ongoing into classifying "suspicious" behaviour automatically from video images. Such CCTV systems have already been linked to automatically fire military weapons systems.

This imperfect technology, fraught with false positive matches, is being rapidly deployed in the civilian world, without any enforcable, consistent rules or means of appeal to correct the inevitable persecution of the innocent.

Can we trust future politicians not to abuse such mass surveillance infrastructures to crush us under a repressive dictatorship ?

Please make sure that any mass surveillance infrastructures which you intend to construct, or allow to be set up on your behalf, have adequate consultation with the public in general (not just "stakeholder" quangos) and that there are technical and legal safeguards, with criminal penalties for those who use these systems to abuse our fundamental human right of privacy.

Source: http://www.spy.org.uk/1984.htm