Minority Report comes to Britain: The CCTV that spots crimes BEFORE they happen
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DailyMail.co.uk
By JAMES SLACK
CCTV cameras which can ‘predict’ if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain’s streets.
The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer.
The move has been compared to the Tom Cruise science-fiction film Minority Report, in which people are arrested before they commit planned offences.
It will also fuel fears that Britain is becoming a surveillance society. There are already 4.2million cameras trained on the public. The technology could be used alongside many of these to allow evermore advanced scrutiny of our movements.
Last night, civil rights campaign group Liberty was sceptical. A spokesman said: ‘Bringing expensive Hollywood sci-fi to our car parks will never be as effective as having police on the street leading the fight against crime.’
The cameras, trained on public places, such as car parks, are being tested by Portsmouth City Council.
Computers are programmed to analyse the movements of people or vehicles in the camera frame. If someone is seen lurking in a particular area, the computer will send out an alarm to a CCTV operator.
The operator will then check the image and – if concerned – ring the police. The aim is to stop crimes before they are committed. If a vehicle is moving too fast or slow – indicating joyriding or kerb-crawling, for example – a similar alert could be given.
Councillor Jason Fazackarley of Portsmouth Council said: ‘It’s the 21st century equivalent of a nightwatchman, but unlike a night-watchman it never blinks, it never takes a break and it never gets bored.’
But the danger is that the innocent could be forced to account for their movements despite doing nothing wrong. Nick Hewitson, managing director of Smart CCTV, which has created the technology, denied it was a further infringement on privacy.
He said the final decision on whether to send police to question a suspect would still rest with the CCTV operator.
Mr Hewitson added: ‘Although we are a long way off Minority Report, it is a step closer.
‘But what it cannot do is say whether a guy is waiting for his girlfriend or about to commit a crime. That is for the operator to make a subjective human decision on.’
The system has been run successfully in several U.S. cities, including New York. Government departments here are said to be interested in putting it to wider use.
Tory Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: ‘We will look at this carefully… but there is no argument for CCTV that invades your privacy without being effective in the fight against crime.’
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November 29th, 2008 at 9:59 am
DHS is trying to impliment the same thing over here. The program is called Hostile Intent and more information can be found at the website http://www.stoprealidcolaition.com. For a nation our size we are actually pretty close to having CCTV or survailence cameras in the more trafficed areas in our cities and towns.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Patrick Henry:
“… The honorable gentleman said that the militia should be called forth to quell riots. Have we not seen this business go on very well to-day without military force? It is a long-established principle of the common law of England, that civil force is sufficient to quell riots. To what length may it not be carried? A law may be made that, if twelve men assemble, if they do not disperse, they may be fired upon. {412} I think it is so in England. Does not this part of the paper bear a strong aspect? The honorable gentleman, from his knowledge, was called upon to show the instances, and he told us the militia may be called out to quell riots. They may make the militia travel, and act under a colonel, or perhaps under a constable. Who are to determine whether it be a riot or not? Those who are to execute the laws of the Union? If they have power to execute their laws in this manner, in what situation are we placed! Your men who go to Congress are not restrained by a bill of rights. They are not restrained from inflicting unusual and severe punishments, though the bill of rights of Virginia forbids it. What will be the consequence? They may inflict the most cruel and ignominious punishments on the militia, and they will tell you that it is necessary for their discipline.
Give me leave to ask another thing. Suppose an exciseman will demand leave to enter your cellar, or house, by virtue of his office; perhaps he may call on the militia to enable him to go. If Congress be informed of it, will they give you redress? They will tell you that he is executing the laws under the authority of the continent at large, which must be obeyed, for that the government cannot be carried on without exercising severity. It, without any reservation of rights or control, “you” are contented to give up “your” rights, “I am not”. There is no principle to guide the legislature to restrain them from inflicting the utmost severity of punishment. Will gentlemen voluntarily give up their liberty? With respect to calling the militia to enforce every execution indiscriminately, it is unprecedented. Have we ever seen it done in any free country? Was it ever so in the mother country? It never was so in any well-regulated country. It is a government of force, and the genius of despotism expressly. It is not proved that this power is necessary, and if it be unnecessary, shall we give it up?”
Mr. MADISON: Mr. Chairman, I will endeavor to follow the rule of the house, but must pay due attention to the observations which fell from the gentleman. I should conclude, from abstracted reasoning, that they were ill founded I should think that, if there were any object which the general government ought to command, it would be the direction of the “national” forces. And “as the force” which lies in (State) militia is “most safe”, the direction of that part ought to be {413} submitted to, in order to render another force “unnecessary”. The power objected to is necessary, because it is to be employed for “national purposes”. It is necessary to be given to every government. This is not opinion, but fact. The highest authority may be given, that the want of such authority in the government protracted the late war, and prolonged its calamities.
“…He says that one ground of complaint, at the beginning of the revolution, was, that a standing army was quartered upon us. This was not the “whole” complaint. We complained because it was done without the >>>local<<>>>>>>no more, because he thought it unnecessary. He was very willing to give them, in this as well as in all other cases, those powers which he thought indispensably necessary.
Mr. MADISON. Mr. Chairman: I did conceive, sir, that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. It is hardly necessary to say any thing concerning it. Strike it out of the system, and let me ask whether there would not be much larger scope for those dangers. I cannot comprehend that the power of legislating over a small district, which >>>cannot exceed ten miles square<<>>exclusive advantages, in a very circumscribed district, to the >>>prejudice of the “community at large”.”
Edmond Pendleton: “The “state” is in “full possession” of the power of using its “own militia” to protect itself against domestic violence; and the power in the general government “cannot be exercised, or interposed”, without the “application of the state itself”. This appears to me to be the “obvious” and “fair construction”.”
With respect to the necessity of the ten miles square being superseded by the subsequent clause, which gives them power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof, I understand that clause as not going a “single step beyond” the “delegated powers”. What can it act upon? Some power given by this Constitution. If they should be about to pass a law in consequence of this clause, they must pursue some of the delegated powers, but can by >>>”no means” depart from them, or >>>”arrogate” “any new” powers; for the >>>plain language of the clause is, to give them power to pass laws in order to give “effect” to the >>>”delegated powers”.”
Review this Constitutional Debate at: http://www.pacificwestcom.com/americanpatriotpartynewsletter/
American Patriot Party.CC
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
This important section was lost at: “>>>local<>>>>>no more” because a html coding issue:
“…..authority of this country without the consent of the people of America. As to the exclusion of standing armies in the bill of rights of the states, we shall find that though, in one or two of them, there is something like a prohibition, yet, in most of them, it is only provided that no armies shall be kept without the legislative authority; that is, without the consent of the “community” itself.”
” The ingenuity of the gentleman is remarkable in introducing the riot act of Great Britain. That act has no connection, “or analogy”, to any regulation of the militia; nor is there any thing in the Constitution to warrant the general government to make such an act.
The Constitution does not say that a standing army shall be called out to execute the laws. Is not this a more proper way? The militia ought to be called forth to suppress smugglers. Will this be denied?
An observation fell from a gentleman, on the same side with myself, which deserves to be attended to.*** If we be dissatisfied with the national government, if we “should choose to renounce {415} it”, “this is an additional safeguard to our defence”.”
————–
Mr. GEORGE MASON “asked to what purpose the laws were read. The objection was, that too much power was given to Congress power that would finally destroy the state governments more effectually by insidious, underhanded means, than such as could be openly practiced. This, said he, is the opinion of many worthy men, not only in this Convention, but in all parts of America. These laws could only show that the legislature of this state could pass such acts. He thought they militated against the cession of this power to Congress, because the state governments could call forth the militia when necessary, so as to compel a submission to the laws; and as they were competent to it, Congress ought not to have the power. The meeting of three or four persons might be called an insurrection, and the militia might be called out to disperse them. He was not satisfied with {416} the explanation of the word “organization” by the gentleman in the military line, (Mr. Lee.)”
“….Mr. MASON then observed that he would willingly give them exclusive power, as far as respected the “police and good government of the place”; but he would give them ->no More”
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
An important warning by Patrick Henry and Mr. Corbin in the same debate should warn those distributing and using these devices:
Patrick Henery: “…We are told, we are afraid to trust ourselves; that our own representatives Congress will not exercise their powers oppressively; that we shall not enslave ourselves; that the militia cannot enslave themselves; Who has enslaved France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and other countries which groan under tyranny? They have been enslaved by the hands of their own people. If it will be so in America, it will be only as it has been every where else.”
Mr. Corbin: “…Animadverting on Mr. Henry’s observations, that the French had been the instruments of their own slavery, that the Germans had enslaved the Germans, and the Spaniards the Spaniards; he asked if those nations knew any thing of “representation”. The “want” of “this knowledge” was the “principal” cause of their bondage.”
American Patriot Party.CC