The dangers of state surveillance
The dangers of state surveillance
Encouraged by terror laws, the authorities are increasingly using surveillance techniques in trivial circumstances
The abuse of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Ripa, is by far the largest element in the revelation last August that 500,000 official requests to access phone and email records were made in 2008 – the equivalent of one in 78 adults coming under some form of surveillance by the authorities in the United Kingdom.
The issue here is about abuse and proportionality, not whether the law has been broken. Two recent reports suggest that the surveillance of people for misdemeanours is unlikely to decline despite assurances from the government and Home Office that local authorities were being reined in.
A freedom of information request by the Lancashire Evening Post has found that applications made by Lancashire county council under Ripa laws targeted cleaners who failed to show up for work and a care assistant who claimed too much on travel expenses. “A person in Chorley thought to be selling counterfeit goods via eBay, people pursuing false personal injury claims, and a retailer selling furniture not up to fire safety standards were among those investigated using powers granted under the act,” the paper reported.
In last year’s annual report, the surveillance commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, raised concerns about direct surveillance such as the bugging of public places, taking photographs of suspects and the use of covert human intelligence such as informants and undercover agents. Of course this has always been part of police investigation into serious crime, but it is frightening to see these tactics routinely deployed in trivial circumstances.
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Read very carefully. These are the types of things that can get you targeted, followed around and placed under full surveillance.
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cleaners who failed to show up for work and a care assistant who claimed too much on travel expenses. “A person in Chorley thought to be selling counterfeit goods via eBay, people pursuing false personal injury claims, and a retailer selling furniture not up to fire safety standards were among those investigated using powers granted under the act,”
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Again look at the types of surveillances that are being used.
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direct surveillance such as the bugging of public places, taking photographs of suspects and the use of covert human intelligence such as informants and undercover agents.
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So the next time some cheese head on some forum tells you how unimportant you are, and how much of a big ego you have to think that you might be under surveillance or being followed around, point out these examples.
As I have reported in the past, they can also under these anti-terror laws, move people into your borough. There is no end to what these people will do. You don’t have to be a criminal, the state is crazy. I mean who does this, some cleaner fails to show up for work, and it might lead to an anti-terror type investigation with full surveillance? Remember the mom who was placed under full surveillance, and followed cause they thought she lived in the wrong area and was trying to send her kids to school in a different area.
This is the mentality that is happening, and the sooner people understand this, the sooner they can understand the full scale of what has happened to our societies.
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