4 Million CCTV Cameras Spy On British Citizens

Source: OhmyNews [1]

The British [3], are now the most spied-upon citizens on earth. In an average day, a Brit will be surveyed by around 300 cameras.

Four million cameras watch them in the lanes, streets, public squares and highways across the land, more than in any other Western democracy [4].

The closed-circuit television [5] cameras (CCTV [6]) are mounted on high, fixed to buildings, or sometimes on poles. The pictures relayed day and night by the cameras are monitored by the police [7], or civilian firms acting for the police [7].

Most Brits are blissfully unaware that they are being constantly spied upon. If they do look up and notice a camera, the majority think that being monitored is a small price to pay [8] if surveillance deters criminals and terrorists [9].

CCTV [6] cameras are also widely used in areas where [so called] "security" is essential, such as banks [10], casinos, airports and military installations.

In London there is roughly one camera for every 14 people. The authorities say citizens should not worry about being closely surveyed -- unless they are doing something wrong [11].

"Talking [12]" CCTV [6], which tells people off for dropping litter or behaving in an antisocial manner, are in use in the city of Middlesbrough. Plans are afoot to use talking cameras in other parts of the country.

In Middlesbrough loudspeakers have been fitted to seven of the city's 158 cameras. When "misbehavior [11]" is spotted a warning message goes out.

The manager of the warning system said, "It is one hell [13] of a deterrent. It's one thing to know that there are CCTV [6] cameras about, but it's quite another when they loudly [12] point out what you have just done wrong [11]."
"This isn't [is] about keeping tabs on people, [and] it's about making the streets "safer" for the [brainwashed [14]] law [11]-abiding majority and helping to change the attitudes of those who cause trouble. It challenges unacceptable behavior [11] and makes people think twice."

[Additionally] Requests for "misbehavior [11]" to cease are [not [12]] made in a polite manner.

Home Secretary John Reid, supporting the introduction of talking CCTV, told BBC News that some people may be concerned about what they claim to be civil liberty intrusions, but the vast majority of people were more upset because they [have been brainwashed [14] to think that they] can't go out and feel "safe" and secure in a healthy [15], clean environment [16] because of a minority of people [9].

Critics of Britain's ever-growing "regiments" of spy-on-high CCTV cameras claim that their homeland has become the Big Brother state [17] imagined by author George Orwell [18]. Orwell's famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, first published in 1949, tells the story of citizen Winston Smith, who works in the Record Department of the Ministry of Truth, rewriting the past to suit the needs of the ruling Party. He rebels [19] against the totalitarian world in which he is trapped, a world controlled [20] by a Party that demands absolute obedience and enforces it by monitoring every citizen through all-seeing telescreens, and the watchful eyes [21] of Party head, Big Brother [22].

Civil liberties campaigners say that the general acceptance of millions of surveillance cameras suggests that Brits are sleepwalking [23] into the nightmarish Big Brother world envisioned by Orwell.

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Tired of being watched everywhere you go by CCTV cameras [2]?