Julia wrote:

2001, and everywhere I go on the rail network and the London Underground, there are security cameras "for the protection of our customers and staff". Large notices drew my attention to the presence...

Interestingly here in NZ, my brother was working on a camera surveillance system which operated for service stations. the camera's could flick between the activiation of the till, and the operator using it, to a system we have in nz called eftpos at pump. you put in your "eftpos"(electronic funds transfer point of sale) card and pay for it at the pump. the camera system would flick to that pump, recording all the transactions and general pedestrian movement. They looked at systems in the UK, as bench marks and were very impressed with the traffic system that oversaw vehicle movement in London. aparently you can not get, I forget exactly how far the radius is now, but i think it was 50 miles, within London centre "without" being seen by a camera. Naturally the system has proven itself, with stolen vehicles being tracked and the "biggie" for the authorities the capture of IRA bomb vehicles. the BBC will be wondering if the system was down a few weeks back, but I suppose you have to know the vehicle you're after before you can look for it in the camera system. it's all very interesting.

More to the snooping point I think, is the UK's government allowing MI5 to snoop on emails(i'm not sure if it's in law there yet). The NZ government is considering the same thing and a friend of mine has made a submission to the NZ parliament as a result. it's a fundamental invasion of privacy.(a bench mark case here in nz with regards to snooping, was a university lecturer who caught two SIS gentleman ransaking his house. He chased them over the back fence and he managed to get the licence plate number of the car they sped off in. they traced the vehicle back to an empty building here in Wellington, which had connections with the NZ Police. They wouldn not say anything and prosuctions for trespass aparently couldn't be brought. the court system had other ideas and a precedence was set...very very interesting, although individual SIS men (not to be confused with the SAS) were not convicted the court ruled that such ventures against private citizens was a breach of civil rights! . The SIS advertised for positions the other day, for field officers. one had to go through psychological testing and extensive background checks. I wonder if leaping fences 101 was part of the training course. I was going to apply for laughs, but I did that for another job instead and got it...I'll be more careful in future about which job I apply for for laughs next time.) Julia mentioned the definition of "criminal". This is precisely the justification given for the introduction of the email snoop legislation. One MP was quoted as saying that criminals are increasingly using email to conduct their operations and ordinary citizens need fear nothing...hello? Prove it and who decides just who is a criminalby definition? The whole bill is fraught with problems...infact its manifestly problematic and there's no guarantee that the ability to snoop on emails will increase the efficiency of the police to catch criminals anyway. where's the justification? If we're not careful it will be like East Germany. One third of the population reporting on the other two thirds and every phone call tapped and recorded looking for "key" words. the "snooper bowl" theme that you were referring to, i didn't realise that was occuring in the uk as well. I saw a doco on the technology used at the american super bowl to match a data base of known criminals...which was amazing. isn't it amazing how the fiction in SF suddenly parrallels real life. you have to admire SF writers like Terry Nation and Arthur C. Clark then... 'Open the pod bay doors please Hal.' Nathan.

Nothings so difficult as a beginning/ In poesy, unless perhaps the end. Byron.

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