CCTV cameras - don't even look at them

Its been weeks now that the thing about the Met Polis insisting that CCTV cameras are installing in pubs before approving licences, I was just reading about the Guardian's poll on the subject on Charlie Kiss's blog.

So the Information Commissioner says it raises serious privacy concerns.

What's perhaps more alarming is the new counter-terrorism posters from the Met which suggest people should be reported for looking at the CCTV cameras.


Its almost like the terrorists have won. Can't the Met Polis just fuck off and stop taking 1984 to be an operations manual.

Yes, I am suggesting that the Met have used "I bomb won't go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras" purely to stiffle debate on the subject of CCTV privacy intrusions.

Don't suppose whoever gets to control these things could cut the Met Polis's budget by exactly the same amount of money they've spent on this publicity campaign?

This campaign utilises London specific media: radio and press, posters at tube and rail stations. As part of the national campaign there will also be national press and national commercial radio advertising, large outdoor posters and advertising on the rears of buses. To ensure the campaign reaches minority communities, there will also be advertising in minority media press titles.

Press advertising will appear in national newspapers and on main commercial radio stations. In London, this includes the Evening Standard, Magic, Heart, Total LBC, Smooth and Capital FM.

And perhaps that cost-saving can be passed on to the taxpayers?

Here's SpyBlog taking apart the link between studying CCTV cameras and terrorism

There is no evidence that any Islamic extremist or Irish terrorists or Animal Rights extremists or neo-Nazi extremists, who have exploded, or tried to explode bombs, or set off incendiary devices, have been deterred from doing so by the presence of CCTV cameras. Some may have been tracked down partially through the help of CCTV footage, after their attacks or attempted attacks, but that is not what this poster is implying.

There is no evidence that any of them who have actually had access to any explosives, have ever been caught in the act of "terrorist reconnaissance" of CCTV cameras, neither by members of the public (which is what this poster misleadingly claims), nor by regular Police street patrols, nor even by any covert surveillance of known suspects.

In other news, here's a view of a post box on Corporation Street in Manchester from Google Maps Street view.