yet another blog

Who remembers this little tale? Of course you do! Cos it was only a couple of days back that I was rumbling on about it.

About how our local Council plans on spending shedloads of public money on a snooping system for use outside schools in the area. In the hope of catching motorists parking illegally who thereby, so the Council claims, endanger the lives of the schoolkids.

(It’s always and inevitably the motorists’ fault of course. When I was a kid I was taught how to behave safely near roads. But that’s another matter entirely. And best I don’t get started on all the other things kids were taught in those days… that no-one seems to have heard about nowadays.)

I picked the story up from one of the local freebie papers, interest aroused by its relevance to a favourite soapbox topic of mine: the increasing surveillance of joe public by various “official” bodies.

I touched upon three general areas of concern about this particular instance. You can read the whole thing for yourself of course as it’s all in the immediately preceding post, but to briefly recap:

• The cost of the scheme, suggesting that this may not be the best or most sensible use of local taxpayers’ money in these difficult economic times
• The possibility of abuse of the system given it entails cameras being deployed in the vicinity of children
• The worrying trend of surveillance creeping into ever more areas of our lives and being regarded as acceptable

Now it could be that my concerns re the second point were misplaced, for it seems there’s a possibility that the kit the Council proposes to deploy may not function as I originally thought, but focus solely upon car registration plates. Maybe. Or maybe not. It’s not at all clear from that first report. And all this new-fangled technology confuses the hell out of me anyway.

Doesn’t change the fact though that whilst joe public’s accepting of various “official” bodies bringing ever-increasing numbers of different types of cameras into play, ordinary innocent photographers are still getting loads of harassment… often by those same “official” bodies.

Well, seems this little yarn has now been picked up by the second of our local freebies, the Bedfordshire on Sunday (of which the pic at the start of this post). And they have been obliging enough to publish the full article on-line as well (unlike the other freebie).

And provided some rather different figures to chew over. Like, for example, quoting an initial cost of £98,250. With an additional cost of £42,800 per year to run the damn system! Hmm.

Moreover, it seems I’m not the only one to be a tad concerned about this little project. Apparently Big Brother Watch has picked up on it too, and sums the whole thing up rather neatly in the following way:

Bedford’s bureaucrats have put more plainly than most their intent to use surveillance to force drivers to stop using their cars. Social engineering via snooping

Yes. Quite so.

(Also published at Adventures of an Idiot)

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Just spotted in one of this week’s freebies (the Bedfordshire Times & Citizen) that the local Council is to splash out £100,000 on yet more snooping devices… adding to the constantly growing list of such stuff that already burdens our over-surveilled society.

Apparently this is a thing called a “Roadflow mobile camera” that they’re proposing to bung in a Council car to patrol outside schools. Not a police car be it noted, but a Council vehicle. Seems the plan is to monitor the parking of vehicles outside schools, with the intention of nabbing motorists that are parking illegally.

They say its to deal with an “anti-social menace” caused by such illegal parking that they say represents an “absolute disregard for the safety of the children.” Ah yes. So its nothing whatsoever to do with the extra dosh (quoted as being somewhere in the region of £2,600-£3,150 per year) that they’re hoping to raise from parking fines?

Well, obviously not. Cos if it were then it’d take (by my possibly faulty reckoning… for I’ve never been very handy with figures) at least 31+ years just to recover the initial outlay. And that’s not allowing for the wages of the people manning it. Or other admin costs. Well, no doubt all the Council Tax payers of the area will be highly delighted by the Council blowing their hard-earned money in this way.

And is the camera likely to last that long, I can’t avoid asking myself. Or will it need to be replaced in, what, say another 5-10 years? At even more expense. Hmm.

Just what’s needed in these difficult economic times.

But, and this is the thing my mind keeps coming back to… these cameras are going to be monitored by Council people are they? Outside schools. Where kids are. So does this mean kids are going to be caught on camera as well? Now I wonder how parents will be feeling about some faceless anonymous Council snooper capturing their kids on camera when parents themselves are all too frequently prevented from or hindered in photographing their own children?

And presumably these anonymous Council people will be fully trained/qualified and, hopefully, trustworthy around children?

In fairness it is mentioned that motorists will be informed of this mobile snooping operation by the erection of road signs at the appropriate places… but how many non-motoring parents will actually notice those signs? Thus being unaware that their kids could appear in camera footage.

What I’m actually seeing here is yet more evidence that our society is encouraging of the deployment of cameras by local authorities, agencies of the State and suchlike, whilst at the same time hindering to an ever greater extent the activities of ordinary innocent photographers.

Unfortunately, the freebie reporting this story doesn’t appear to have included it in their on-line edition so I can’t provide a link to it… not at the moment! But they do invite local residents to contribute their views on the matter via email… just send ’em to editorial(at)timesandcitizen.co.uk

(Also published at Adventures of an Idiot)

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Wandering into town this morning what should greet my eyes as I alighted the bus?

One of the Greyfriars apartment tower blocks (the Patteshull Court flats, opposite the Bus Station) that have been so much a part of the town centre scenery ever since I’ve been here (1991) being demolished!

Is this, I wonder, first signs of the much awaited and long overdue redevelopment of the Greyfriars area?

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“Stop and Search Us”? The Police? Surely they don’t mean that? I wonder who will be the first to take them at their word; and likely end up getting arrested for the effort?

Well, no. They don’t actually mean that. This slogan appears on billboards that have started appearing in various places around Bedford over the past couple of weeks or so, and is in fact part of a recruiting campaign for Bedfordshire Police.

However, it strikes me it’s rather a curious choice of words. Curious? How so?

Because it follows so quickly on the heels of an announcement just about a week ago that police powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 are to be curtailed (see the British Journal of Photography for a report).

So I’m left pondering which scenario accounts for the choice of this particular slogan.

Is it that the Police are totally unaware of the Home Secretary’s announcement regarding the use of stop-and-search powers under Section 44? Or do not see the coincidence of wording between that announcement and this slogan? Well, nothing would surprise me where cops are concerned, though I suspect this is unlikely.

Or is it that they’re sensitive to the damage their abuses of the Section 44 powers have caused them in the eyes of the public, and this is their way of seeking to apologise and to help improve their image, cultivating a “friendlier face” for themselves? Using the slogan to deliberately emphasise the connection?

Or is it that they’re supremely uncaring of whatever the Home Secretary may have to say, and regard the outcry caused by their abuse of Section 44 powers as trivial? And this is a not-so-subtle way of their taking the piss? In other words a testament to their systemic arrogance?

Alas, I rather suspect the latter to be the case.

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Seems there’s a couple of photojourno types that have just received a few grand apiece damages from the Met Police for having been prevented from photographing (and filming) a protest outside the Greek Embassy in London in 2008.

The story’s here.

Why does this interest me? Because that’s exactly the sort of event that I don my photojourno hat for as well.

Although occasionally I’ll play around with other stuff. Like the recent celebrations in Bedford over the Slovenia vs England football match. That I thought may have presented me with the opportunity of some newsworthy pics.

It didn’t, unfortunately.

But whilst I was about my recce of the High Street prior to the match ending, and when the police were all positioning themselves in readiness for whatever, I was approached by two WPCs who politely enquired what I was photographing. (Which happened to be some “before” shots of the High Street, as in a possible “before and after” type scenario. Shots that I never actually used because nothing much happened.)

Anyway, a quick explanation and flash of the Press Card and they left me to carry on.

No attempt at stopping me photographing whatsoever. Either then, or even later when I was near the Litten Tree and Harveys with loads of police milling around.

I think I feel vaguely miffed. Deprived in some sense. Deprived of the chance to complain about being prevented from doing what I was there for. I may just complain.

(I’ve written a bit more about this here as well.)

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