White Rose is a protest blog collective focusing on civil liberties in the UK.
It was set up to point a finger at the erosion of personal freedom in the UK.
Government's active measures introduce new means of control such as identity cards and surveillance cameras, the passive measures such as weakening of double jeopardy and presumption of innocence.


The arguments
The resistants
Gabriel Syme and Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net to rally the Anglosphere behind the UK.
White Rose contributors are those bloggers and non-bloggers who oppose restrictions on personal liberties.

To find out how to become a White Rose contributor, please go here.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Big Brother goes to the Olympics
Gabriel Syme (London)
(0)   Big Brother • Surveillance

New Scientist has an article looking at the US$312 million surveillance system installed for the 2004 Olympics in Athens. The eyes and ears consist of 1,000 high-res and infrared videocameras peppering the city. Cell and landline telephone calls are being recorded, converted into text, and "scanned for phrases that could be linked to terrorist activity." The software's developers say it speaks Greek, English, Arabic, Farsi, and other major languages.

John Pike [a defence analyst] believes other undisclosed measures are undoubtedly in place, such as face recognition from video footage. He says such surveillance technology has already proven its worth in intelligence gathering. "They're basically the sort of stuff the National Security Agency has been using for some time," he told New Scientist. "And they seem to place great faith in it."

via Boing Boing


Comments

Not that even half-way compentent terrorists would be conducting conversations en clair in English, Arabic or Farsi. Sometimes one feels sorry for would-be terrorists who aren't good enough at it to trouble the dumb-weight of much so-called security. Their failure to do so provides a most unfortunate record of "success" for mass surveillance.

This is the circular proof of the merit of Big Brother. If there's no terrorism (crime, anti-social behaviour, ...) it's because of the surveillance, and so we need more surveillance to make sure it will continue to work. If there is something--anything--undesirable, we need more surveillance in order to suppresss it.

Posted by: Guy Herbert on August 21, 2004 07:44 PM
Post a comment








    


    •