Good grief, you are so right about that poster. It's like something out of a Fritz Lang movie. Where did you find it?

I took the picture on a bus shelter on King's Road in Chelsea yesterday.

Mein Gott. Let me get this straight. You, or some Photoshop'er, did NOT make that? Those are actually posted up around London by the government? I am...dumbfounded.

Why are you folks still in the UK? Why are you not over here? Run while you still can.

Well, it's bollocks, anyway. Nobody in this place feels anything like secure. A particularly bizarre and twisted piece of wishful thinking.

I forgot to list your other option besides leaving: rebellion.

One can hope, right? 400,000 pissed off marchers is a significant start.

Bloody hell! that's utterly crazy. Can't believe they'd actually put those up & think they're a good idea.

& :) Alice; spot on! I guess it's like most advertising; shout the opposite of the truth very loudly! We've got 'nuf CCTV cameras in my neighbourhood, & still plenty muggings etc.

Yes, it is an actual poster. I was there when Perry took the picture....

A_t: Yes, it does seem crazy, yet someone clearly thinks it is a good idea and wants people to think "Oh goodie! More surveillance, that is what we need to make us safe!".

I am all for people being safe when they get on a bus but the 'vibe' being peddled here is something altogether more alarming.

Alfred E. Neuman: Alas, this is no PhotoShop illusion.

The poster is lying through its teeth as Alice Bachini says, not least because the cops are ineffectual, but also because the surveillance it implies isn't really there. Security cams aren't networked, so they're only useful after the fact - and because they're almost universally high up, a hooded jacket and baseball cap defeats them. Crooks know this.

I suspect this is actually deliberate tricking-the-system by some sympathetic poster-designing insider. Surely it's too dumb and obvious to be actually meant without irony.

That's an actual poster, put up by the Government? Dear Lord. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or get upset.

We're all ignoring the most important question.

Where do I get London Metro Insignia Contact Lenses????

Where's Big Brother's mustache ? I thought he was supposed to look like the recruiting poster starring Lord Kitchener that I've never seen but have heard of (I'm a Yank).

I'm astounded. At first I thought this was an illustration for 1984. This was posted by the government, and not a group opposed to the "watchful eyes"? That's scary. Very scary.

Are there any serious protests against this? In the U.S. we'd have the ACLU, and just about every other civil rights society screaming against this. Hell, we have people screaming against cameras which automatically take pictures of people who run stop-lights!

J: I don't know about the history of big brother, but the artists for the paperbacks seemed a bit confused on that point. I'll have to read the book again after seeing this. Brr. Scary stuff.

Ummm, wow. I think it's about time we Americans got rid of the immigration caps from Britain. They might not want you or care about your safety but we'll take ya.

I think on second reading, it's supposed to be funny.

No-one takes Communism seriously anymore, right, so using their graphic art is obviously just an elegant artistic piece of kitsch. However, some people (proles) are dumb enough actually to want a police state. The same people who take the idea of personal security seriously. What idiots!

Those dumb "Sun"-reading proles would rather be patronised and oppressed than face up to the reality of everyday violence like people being occasionally murdered outside tube stations, which is the price we pay for a free society, of course, I mean, we wouldn't want Saudi-style laws, would we?

A bunch of leftie graphic designers having a laugh, I'd say. And they would've gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling libertarians...

"Secure"? "SECURE"? "SE-FUCKING-CURE"?

Grrrrr.

Robin - them immigration caps you mention... Any chance of getting rid of them, like, *yesterday*?

I don't know, Robin: Brits let this happen to themselves by sitting there doing nothing. Do we want that do-nothing, government-is-here-to-help-us mentality here? Not me!

Some of us have protested the expansion of surveillance. After the IRA bombing campaign of 1993 a “Ring of Steel” was thrown up around the City of London. I distributed anti-surveillance leaflets to motorists being stopped at check points. We were none too popular.

That was the time, in the UK, that the expansion of CCTV began to take off. From then on, it could no longer be taken for granted that people would see Big Brother as a wholly bad thing.

People came to see crime as a bigger threat than the state. While the process was a complex one, the capacity of the state to leverage the support it had for fighting terrorism to introduce a much broader culture of surveillance was an important component. Americans take note.

I think Joe is right. HMG can get away with its behaviour (and associated iconography) because the British still have enormous faith in their public servants. They fear crime/terrorism/drug dealing/paedophiles etc and they firmly believe that increased government power and more surveillance is the way to tacke it.

Campaigners for liberty in this country are still seen as the criminals friends.

Here's an idea for freedom-loving Brits to try:

Wired News: Routes of Least Surveillance

I know what they're powering the cameras with. They hooked a turbine to Orwell's spinning corpse.

Seems to me that the only route left is to start planning the revolution. At least in doing so you can attempt to control the fate of your own lives, and freedom.

It's not that bad here in the US, but its starting to get that way, only a matter of time as it creeps up on us bit by bit. Guess we should start planning too?

Well imagine how creepy it might be to have a CCTV 'traffic' camera 20 feet from your bedroom window...

I've never seen it pointed in my direction but I still find it spooky.

You have got to be kidding, Perry. These things are the real deal?

If it's meant to be a pastiche of a wartime poster it comes across as being in pretty poor taste. Not least because everybody's point of reference for such a message is now Orwell and 1984 - not the originals. If it's meant to be ironic, where's the irony? It states quite clearly that we are being watched and is quite unambiguous about this being a good thing for us. If this is the real thing it's outrageous.

Up before the Beak"? Some sort of court? Or what?

Bear: I say we pull the immigration caps. Anyone who's interested enough in freedom to uproot themselves and come over here is more than qualified to be a US citizen.

If any of you Brits needs a place to crash while you get set up, I've got a guest bedroom. Hell, I'll even set you up on dates with my single friends - marriage is, after all, the quickest route to citizenship.

God bless Texas, and the right to blow the head off of any bastard who tries to break into your house.

(In the state of Texas, you are legally allowed to shoot and kill anyone on your property, so long as you can reasonably prove you were in danger.)

I am constantly amazed that people don't seem to understand the correlation between gun ownership and crime. Law-abiding citizens who own guns prevent crime and kill criminals. Unarmed people aren't pacifists, they are future victims.

I wonder where I can get a copy of the poster before the Blair government wise's up and gets rid of them?

This things a classic!

Not to nit-pic, but Texas law is a bit different than amy represents. (It is better.)

You may use "deadly force" (which includes attempting to kill, but also includes attempting to do serious damage) against anyone, if "a reasonable person" would feel in danger of death or serious damage (again deadly force, the legal definition.) You may continue to do so so long as you continue in that fear. So you do not have to prove you were in danger, just that a reasonable person would think he was in danger.

Most courts hold that any reasonable person would fear such from a person who is willing to break into his house while he is at home. Thus, you can "blow the head off of any bastard who tries to break into your house."

Back on topic: I, too, would love a copy of this poster. Perry, do you have a larger jpg you can make available? I will print my own.

Jim Millar: 'Up in front of the Beak' is slang for finding yourself in court in front of a Judge or Magistrate ('The beak'). This slang dates from the 1700's I believe but is still used today.

To see the term in use, follow this link to the UK Parliament's own website (do a 'find' once you are at the page for 'beak' to see where the phrase is used).

What's new? The Home Secretary's barely concealed Stalinist inclinations have not escaped notice and comment by others before - as can be seen here

As leader of Sheffield City Council in the early 1980s he was most enthusiastic about developing twinning links with the Soviet Union before Gorbachev became leader there and started Perestroika and Gasnost.

"I know what they're powering the cameras with. They hooked a turbine to Orwell's spinning corpse."

Not to mention poor Robert Peel...

Thanks for clarifying Steven!

What can I say, I've only lived here for six years! *gasp*

Since I wouldn't count on an armed uprising and revolution against this nonsense, I say move here to the USA before the EU declares emigration to the United States a Hate Crime punishable by a unspecified term in an Education Camp somewhere on the continent.

Looks like it's a race between Police State and Sharia on the other side of the Atlantic. I guess both could win?

Wow. I don't know which is worse: the French "Islam is Stupid" trial or this. Either way, why do I fear a new Cold War in ten years between the U.S. and the European Soviet Socialist Republics?

On the immigration caps, couldn't we just do a citizen exchange. We'll take Perry and Adrianna, the Brits can have Alec Baldwin and Barbara Streisand?

You have my condolences. Amazing.

So, does anyone care to take a more detailed picture of these
posters?

Those who are willing to give up a little freedom for security *get* neither, regardless of what they deserve.

Lucas, I don't think you need to read 1984 again--just read the Daily Mirror or The Gaurdian. They are so close to being parodies of 1984 it reads like the real thing.

Well... when y'all move to the States, will you bring a decent beer brewer with you?

That poster makes me want to move to England just so I can start an underground movement. I can see it happening in the US on an almost daily basis. My friends all think I'm nuts(the ones I trust enough to tell, anyway), but I have a travel kit, a duffel bag, and some sixty-odd dollars in Canadian currency ready for when I head north to the border. Don't get me wrong, I love America. It's the United States I can't stand.

That poster makes me want to move to England just so I can start an underground movement. I can see the movement towards a military/police state happening in the US on an almost daily basis. My friends all think I'm nuts(the ones I trust enough to tell, anyway), but I have a travel kit, a duffel bag, and some sixty-odd dollars in Canadian currency ready for when I head north to the border. Don't get me wrong, I love America. It's the United States I can't stand.

argh. I posted the first version by accident.

There's one of these near me, oddly enough, and I was meaning to take a few photos of it (so I did)

http://www.genesplice.org/Bus1984Poster/

Sorry for the poor lighting conditions!

These things are really scary, it must be said - and the fact that someone thinks they'll be reassuring to the public at large is even more so. Anyone who's reassured by this... well. I'll be polite and say nothing.

Just to point out that it is NOT a national government poster as far as I can see.

Mr. Blair and his team almost certainly knew nothing abou this.

It has the logo of London Transport, and that is a whole bowl of worms about who runs that (many routes are semi-privatised etc.) but I believe it comes down to Transport For London which comes under the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.
However there is nothing on their website about these posters http://www.transportforlondon.gov.uk/tfl/

But yes, these posters are so obviously influenced by the soviet designs that there is definitely some degree of tongue-in-cheek happening here, just intriguing to find out if TPTB noticed it and if so then they obviously greenlighted it ....

I think it's a hoax.

It costs about sixty quid a month to rent an advertising slot on a tube elevator, and probably not that much more to rent a bus shelter ad. The location is very central and will be seen by lots of people -- I'd guess some pranksters with a couple of thousand pounds and a copy of photoshop are behind it. (That, or it's going to turn out to be a viral marketing campaign for an upcoming movie, or something similar.)

I'll believe it when I see reports of these things cropping up in places like Tooting or Wandsworth.

Charlie Stross - I just thought I'd let you know that I live in Tooting and the photo I took was at theTooting Bec bus stop!

hey,got a spare room also. charlie...w/that mentality your in a world of shit,doesnt matter what branch of gov put it up.weve got california here w/ like minded people like yourself...i think the citizen swap sounds good

Some recent posts here seriously underestimate our Home Secretary's undoubted talent for inspiring disasters.

His enthusiasm for friendly links with the Soviet Union before Gorbachev became leader there lead to a twinning link between Sheffield and Donetsk in the Ukraine. Just in today's news, the Ukraine - which declared independence from the Russian Federation at the collapse of the Soviet Union - faces the imminent prospect of EU trade sanctions for failing to control money laundering. But that is comparatively incidental compared with the harm done to Sheffield's economy during his time as leader of Sheffield council. The Red flag was regularly flown at the town hall. Unsurprisingly, businesses and citizens found cause to leave the city - on official figures, Sheffield's population fell by just over 3% from 1981 to 1999.

Consider next the outcomes from when he was Education Secretary from 1997-2001 in Tony Blair's government. At the election in June 2001, he left the Education Department having to cope with the worst nation-wide shortage of teachers since the mid 1960s due to a mania for introducing new education regulations and initiatives at a rate approaching one every working day during his last year of office. Understandably, teachers became thoroughly demoralised with permanent revolution and many of those with marketable qualifications simply left the profession.

Also in today's news is a report from the UK's National Audit Office on the Individual Learning Accounts launched by the Education Department in 2000 with much fanfare. Estelle Morris, the successor as Education Secretary, had to hurriedly cancel the whole scheme a year ago as the scale of fraud became apparent. From the audit report, it seems the losses through fraud may run to well over £100m - the exact total may never be known because of the chaotic administration. No wonder she too became demoralised and resigned as Education Secretary this week.

Check back on the press immediately following the election in 2001 and you can find reports that the Home Office made an official bid to take on administration of the Judiciary in addition to its departmental responsibilities for Police administration. It seems the Home Secretary didn't like all that stuff about "checks and balances" and wanted to control the lot. Fortunately, Tony Blair, with his lawyer's background, wasn't sufficiently impressed and wouldn't have it. Besides, Lord Irvine as Lord Chancellor wanted to retain administration of the Judiciary and Tony Blair had started his career as a lawyer working in Lord Irvine's chambers . . .

A charitable explanation is that the Home Secretary doesn't quite understand about checks and balances. The trouble is that he does. He used to teach Political Theory in further education before embarking on a career in politics.

This is why we have a Constitution here in the USA, you Brits were always niggling away at our freedom here in the colonies. Now you've gone and done it to yourselves! Not only the RIP act, but didn't Parliament vote away your right against self-incrimination a few years ago? And what's up with your DNA databank?

We Americans may bitch about our government, but when we see stuff like this we feel very lucky and proud to live in the last bastion of freedom left on the planet. We haven't pulled the ladder up yet, though, and there's still plenty of room for y'all.

Charlie Stross: I have seen the posters in Fulham and elsewhere on King's Road today, Harvey has seen it in Tooting Bec. It is no hoax.

The Magician: True, it is not a Central Government poster, it is a local government poster (hence reference on the poster to Mayor of London in the lower corner)... I do not see that it really matters however as the important thing is that is still a GOVERNMENT poster.

Michael Gersh: I wish it was that simple, Michael, but the US Constitution has not stopped civil forfeiture laws in the USA which are pretty much the worst of their kind in the western world: you can lose property without even having been charged, let alone convicted of any crime! One of the causes of the American War of Independence was the seizure of assets of dissidents under the Sedition laws... yet under those you at least had to actually be CONVICTED of sedition. The US is freer in some ways now for sure, but don't think the Constitution is really a defense unless there is a culture of liberty to defend what it stands for. The Constitution itself means no more than the British Common Law from which it drew its inspiration for the most part.

Looks like a 50's sci-fi magazine cover for the dystopian future of 2002.

When I came to this page, I went scrolling down looking for the poster. I couldn't believe that was the poster, must be the product of subversives in government.

This poster can also be compared to Soviet propaganda on their prosperity and how well their farms produce massive amounts of food.

Unbelievable.

Stalin may be dead but his soul goes marching on.

You forgot to mention another aspect of the increasingly totalitarian nature of the UK's government: the near-total prohibition of privately owned firearms. Not only are guns forbidden, but carrying ANY object that could conceivably be used for self defense can get you in trouble. I think many people fail to see the connection. Constant surveillance and gun prohibition are two sides of the same coin. The all-seeing, all-knowing state can protect you, citizen. Therefore there is no need for self defense. There's an excellent story on this disturbing longterm trend at Reason Magazine .

Is there any possibility that this is "cultural jamming" by an activist group?

If not, then, well, it's nice to know that governments on the other side of the pond can be as culturally clueless when it comes to graphics as the folks who put this together:

http://www.darpa.mil/iao/

Tom Wronga: You wrote: You forgot to mention another aspect of the increasingly totalitarian nature of the UK's government: the near-total prohibition of privately owned firearms. Not only are guns forbidden, but carrying ANY object that could conceivably be used for self defense can get you in trouble.

Huh? I guess you need to re-read my article, namely the bit where I wrote:

Civilians are not just deprived of any firearms, in reality we are forbidden to defend ourselves and our property with so much as a broom stick.

anyone know where i can get one? i want one for the top of my stairwell.
really.

What spooks me is the stiltedness of "secure beneath the watchful eyes." It seems to come from a line of bad and somewhat dated poetry and isn't the sort of thing an advertising exec would come up with. I mean, who uses "watchful" any more?

Was it drafted to disguise the real message? Was it meant to lull people into a false sense of security? Sorry.

This poster's got me at a complete loss. It wouldn't surprise me if the copy came straight out of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I haven't read it, but there must be people out there who don't think it's satire. I still can't quite believe this poster exists.

Am I the only one who thinks the eyes look remarkably similar to those found in Masonic symbols?

Masons Police?

Nah! Surely not!

This has to be a piss-take - please!

Perry:

The Constitution, being a piece of paper, can in fact be ignored by those in government who don't like it.

What can't be ignored by our government is 60 million armed citizens. Somtimes democracy requires more than just voting.

Hey Tom Wrona!

Those DARPA-IAO apparatchiki are just smartass Illuminati showing how they lord it over us, waving that Eye of Horus and word of power(IAO) in our face. In their opinion, it's too late for us to do anything. Just send them some Love and fuck up their vibe.

Sorry to see you Brits have it worse than us.

Sorry, the above was addressed to Stefan Jones.

Just noticed the poster note is on the bottom of the post, not the top.

Nu ladno. Zhizn' prodolzhaetsja!

"Huh? I guess you need to re-read my article, namely the bit where I wrote:

Civilians are not just deprived of any firearms, in reality we are forbidden to defend ourselves and our property with so much as a broom stick."

Oops.

When I read too fast, comprehension goes down.

Tom

I just heard a radio ad, and this seems to be part of a poster campaign to advertise the fact that there is CCTV on London buses. (Which explains why it was on a bus shelter!)

I really want that poster. I'll hang it beside my Clockwork orange poster. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so scary.

Fenris is right, it is exactly like something out of Clockwork Orange! Jesus, where are we all headed?

Where are we headed?

On the BBC Today programme this morning a government minister said "Capitalism is a real threat ..." - http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/nmhp-home_news-103826-3

actually, I think it's kinda funny.

people fear the CCTV camera. but people don't stop to realise they're as badly run as everything else here, that they often don't work, the staff using them don't care, and that no-one (certainly not for the next few years) will ever be able to dredge through the mountains of data these things will generate.

i reckon a few grannies will feel safer on the bus. personally, i look at these posters, look across at the next one saying "our staff have a right to work without injury, if you witnessed an assult please call xxxxx" - does no-one else look at the conflicting messages these posters give off? is this about a orwellian police state, or the surface appearance of an orwellian police state?

mountain. molehill.

it is a pretty cool looking poster though, and it does stand out extremely well.

George Orwell was a prophetic genius. What would he have said about this? I will be seriously wanting out if similar posters spread to other parts of the country.

Scary stuff indeed.

That poster is unbelievable! What are those people thinking?
Just hope that Bush hasn't seen it yet, would give him ideas.
Would love a copy of it though.

It seems incredible that anybody could be so stupid as to produce this - it could have been "spun" better. The symbolism of the picture is loaded with Brave New World/1984 dystopian symbolism.

Am I mistaken or does it appear that there is a UFO in the upper right corner of the picture?

The "UFO" is probably a reflection of the half-saucer-shaped roof light found in some London bus stops: the thing can also be seen in reflection here.

Looks like a PR poster for Ken Livingstone, the current elected mayor of London. Refreshingly lefty, and maybe, just maybe popular enough right now to perhaps survive the unpopular introduction of road use charges for motor vehicles in central London, no matter how much it pisses off the petrolhead lobby *.

The logotype on the bottom right can also be found on this site, though that doesn't prove it's official. Wonder if the fine folks at b3ta have anything to do with it?

Anyway, given that the official site is down right now, I'd be prepared to accept incompetance rather than malice for this one. Though a combination of incompetance *and* malice is also an appealing theory.

Also see for more happy fun Stalinist imagery.

* The technology they intend to use - you've guessed it, more surveillance cameras - is another matter entirely. Apparently (er, according to the South England Commuter-belt Media) it's flakey and unreliable enough to not do the job effectively, highly expensive, and will probably be superceded within two years of introduction. Shame really, as London's a right mess.

The "Routes of Least Surveillance" article is a good start, but here's an even better idea for freedom-loving Brits to try:

Guide to Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) destruction

Haxle is correct... the "UFO" is indeed a reflection of a lighting fixture.

In this picture of another of those posters you can see no "UFO".

Charlie Stross: What's one of the best upcoming sci-fi authors on the planet sniffing round Samixdata for? The poor chap lives in Edinburgh so he could well view it as satire.

AS he brings sanity to the Extropians list, I'll bow down before the antipope.

I was going to post something about those posters myself but I was just too slow in getting around to taking a picture. They are very widespead at the moment (I think Transport for London may not be finding it easy to sell ads on their shelters at the moment).

The posters are not intentionally ironic. The reason why they have the rather unfortunate Soviet-style iconography is that they are part of a series of Transport for London posters with a similar style. Of course I wouldn't disregard the possibility that the design agency used by TfL enjoyed the irony.

For more on the TfL CCTV programme, click here.

David Brake: those CCTV cameras (via the link you kindly provided) are for bus lane enforcement (prioritising collective planned transport). The posters are advertising security cameras.

Does anyone know if that poster has a printer listed on it? I'd be interested in seeing if they would sell me one.

P: I will look at the poster tomorrow (it is just around the corner from where I live) and if there is anything useful printed on it about that, I will post the information here.

Much as I hate the actual message, I agree it is a cool bit of 'retro' graphics... it is rather nifty looking.

To think they actually believe they are doing you a favor by watching you. Here in America it's about the same, the biggest difference is, they don't tell us they are. It's a secret. The entire world is falling right into line with what we all know and feel, and that is the murder of god. AKA Suicide. We are slowing eliminating ourselves.

I earlier posted a link to a page on the www.ePolitix.com website relating to the observations of several leading politicians on the 'Stalinist' inclinations of Britain's Home Secretary. It now seems the whole website is unavailable. As an alternative, you can try entering: 'David Blunkett Stalinist' into Google - without the quotes, of course - to see what comes out. You may have to make do with the cache versions of the Google finds since in my experience the original web pages have a habit of disappearing. It's a coincidence, naturally.

Good grief! It looks like the cover of a Phillip K. Dick novel! If they tried that in America, there'd be a revolution the next day.
Or would there be? I wonder....

Can't see why your worried. Don't imagine anyone who reads this shite catching a bus anyway.

As a practicing lawyer, I can safely say that the CPS wouldn't touch someone who attacked a burglar with a broomhandle. I know, I used to work there.

Yes, the RIP Act is indefensible, but at least the courts can override Acts of Parliament contrary to the free speech provisions of the Human Rights Act (not an EU dictat, contrary to popular belief) something that didn't stop Thatcher when she imposed blanket broadcast bans on swathes of Northern Irish society.

And Echilon is primarily an American programme.

Oh, and street crime in London is down 30% from last year. Don't see you rushing to post anything about that.

Mussolini did make the trains run on time and Hitler did dramatically reinvigerate the German economy. Just because it works doesn't mean it's the right way to do it.

The poster is a Transport for London poster, not the Home Office or the Met. Lets get real here folks, London is not a walk in the park anymore. Nor is a lot of Great Britian. Crime is rampant especially muggings, robbery, assaults, etc. I for one find it somewhat comforting to know I can walk the streets knowing that there is surveillance in case there is a problem. Which I believe is a probablistically reduced event with the CCTV present.

Martin Pratt: Regardding Thatcher's comical banning of the voices of Sinn Fein politicos... what is your point? Were you under the impression the people who write for Samizdata were uncritical admirers of Mrs.T? We are libertarians not conservatives. As for the so called decline in street crime, what is your point here too? My neighbourhood residents association has just hired a private sector security firm to patrol our streets, that is how much we are convinced that the politically massaged figures on street crime reflect reality.

Hey! Someone swiped Ridge's new Homeland Security PR tool!

I'm pretty sure you could murder somebody under the full glare of the Tube's CCTV system and Homer in the security room will have forgotten to put a tape in the machine. I think the cameras are there so the pervs in the control room can watch pretty girls getting groped on a Friday night. The dippers, back snatchers and vandals are not put off by the cameras.

This is nothing compared with the PC TV enforced subsidy (i.e., the TV license) commercials that they had a year or two ago in London. As an American living here I was shocked to see commercials that started out showing the fabled "silent black helicopters" and other James Bond type surveillance equipment peeking in on people's private lives with a voice over saying something to the effect "we could have x" and finishing it with "we don't need to, because we know where you live and know whether you have paid your TV license fee or not." Man were those spooky. Also, can you imagine the IRS or Inland Revenue doing a commercial like that? Same thing though. Next thing will be recycling or something similar.

Martin Pratt: 30% reduction in street crime?! My foot! The figure is a government statistics and I know no one who actually believes it. Would you be the first? It is a source of constant embarrasment to the UK government, that street crime is becoming more violent and pervasive. We will blog about reduction in street crime when it a) truly goes down, b) the state gives us back the ability to defend ourselves. Until then, it's all out war!

A lot of messages here are saying how much better it is in the US without all those cameras, and the ACLU will come to the defense to protect us from them.

Do any of you people have peripheral vision? Have you ever been to Washington DC? Have you ever been in a Walmart? Those cameras are EVERYWHERE in the US NOW. Like typical Americans, if they don't see the direct financial cost to them, no one cares.

That's only the cameras we can see. They can also be hidden in clocks, speakers sprinkler heads and exit signs.

Where could one purchase one of those posters?

More info about the campaign from the official source: London Transport: Buses

That big blinking eye in the sky is just scary.

Add me to the list of those who took the poster as someone's over-the-top attempt at a protest. I can't believe it's real.

If there any good coming from all this, England is serving as an object before-the-fact lesson for America, which would be going down the same road a lot faster if not for our inconvenient (to some) Bill of Rights.

Street crime might well be down 30% in London, but it's up 38% here in Oxford, the police told me.

Will anyone get a prize for the hundredth comment?

British visitors to Tampa, Florida should feel right at home. We have had for several years a cctv system, not as widespread, but with the added fun of a computerized facial recognition system- if the computer decides you match someone in the database, officers are dispatched. If you could spare a couple of those posters, I have a great home for them...

This thing pushes so many cultural hot buttons, it has got to be a spoof put on by the anti-survelliance resistance. Anyone out there know for sure whether or not this is an officially sanctioned and distributed piece of propaganda?

If it is official, wouldn't the design of this thing have been contracted out to some graphics art firm, probably in London? It would be interesting to talk to the designer(s) to see what they were thinking.

It's referring to CCTV and increased police presence on buses. TfL argue that this will make late night travel safer, and my guess is that they're right. I'm sure that radio cams and drivers' panic buttons would work better, and I'm equally sure that we'll get them at some point.

I don't think we have a brain-dead graphic designer; I think this poster is a deliberate homage to several different sources, and I think it's jolly clever.

I'm a Londoner and I find it really refreshing hearing a lot of your comments. I have just returned from working in Holland for a couple of years and was struck by how few cameras there were and how wonderful the feeling of being able to pick my nose privately was.

This blatant infringment of our fundermental freedoms is a joke. It's time we all woke up and done something about this 1984 nightmare. We all know it's going on and rubbing our noses in it with this poster should be the FINAL insult.

PS: To our American buddies. Since Sept 11th you have ceased to have any rights as citizens of your country. Cameras or not.

Listening to you Americans crap on about how your country is the 'last bastion of freedom' and how Britons 'ought to emigrate' is sickening. News flash, Yanks - your country ceased to be 'free' in any meaningful sense of the word in the 1950s, and for that you can thank a man named Joe McCarthy and those cowards and fools who believed him and gave him aid and comfort. McCarthy's great innovation was this idea: 'the state has a right to suppress ideas which it considers sufficiently harmful'. This concept blurs the line between thought and action, and demonizes dissidence.

The US got a little free-er, at least in the public discourse, in the 60's through to the 90's. Equal civil rights were extended to greater proportions of the population, and censorship took a number of body blows thanks to people like Larry Flynt, who achieved a great deal of good through crass motives (kind of the opposite of Joe McCarthy in that way). But these four decades also mark the rise of the American Religion, a loud, shallow, hypocritical, judgemental, selfish and money-grubbing Christian heresy whose high priests include such luminaries as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and Jimmy Swaggart. Some have been disgraced, some not yet, but all became millionaires at the expense of the common herd, and all march in lockstep to destroy the national immune system, the public right to dissent.

And then we have the rise of radio commentators, from mere tape-changers and traffic reporters to shapers of public thought. And look at how they shape it. Rush Limbaugh, aggressively anti-intellectual, aggressively anti-discussion, aggressively anti-humane. These men do not value dissent. They demand agreement for their views. They do not put forward a position, state pros and cons, and encourage discussion; they wholeheartedly take a side of any given issue--normally the cruellest side--seize upon tiny parts of the opposition view that may seem worthy of ridicule, spin them up and up, and beat the public into submission with them.

And now the USA has Rush Limbaugh's president, and the collection of rich, lip-servingly-Christian, socially ultra-conservative sub-geniuses he appoints, to guide and lead it through trouble and doubt.

Hey, there are many, many worse places in the world than the USA and the UK. North Korea or Iraq, where dissidence is punished, if one is lucky, by immediate death. The USA is a very good place in comparison. But it's not more free than the UK, and it is much less free than most of Europe.

Alison Scott: I did not mean to imply that the poster's graphic designer was brain-dead, not at all. I agree the design is damned clever, and I think my sentiments on that score were plain enough. What I do not see is how its imagery could be reassuring or of any comfort to the public. Translate into an American context, put it up in the public spaces of my city, and my friends and I would find it creepy, ominous, and threatening.

This looks like someone trying to copy the style of a poster for an old B movie. But what if you were a graphics designer and London Transport asked you to design this poster: "Make the commuters feel safe, make'em feel we really care". What would you do?

Ash: Whilst I, and our American contributing writers, would agree that the USA also has it's civil liberties 'problems', by what measure is Europe freer than the USA? Try writing about the private indiscretions of a political figure in France. Make sure you have a good lawyer first.

Although I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh, are you implying that the police come around to your house in the USA and drag you away of you do not listen to him? If not, then how is he 'beating' the public into submission? Are you implying that the left in the USA somehow 'put forwards a position, state pros and cons, and encourage discussion?' You must be joking! I suggest you try calling in to a left wing radio chat show and calmly suggesting to them that removing all import trade barriers into the USA would do more to alleviate Third World poverty in 5 years than all the aid programmes and subsided NGO's had achieved in the last 50 years. I tried that once and as soon as the words "...remove all import trade barriers into the USA" passed my lips, I was interrupted with "Thanks for your views...click".

Do you have larger JPG of the poster? I would love to print that out! Surreal! Allan.Evans@eur.sas.com

o come on. lets be good little nazis and quit gripping. the security of the fatherland is more
important then the individuals. geez.

but really-

Didn't we fight a war against these creeps, and now
we've allowed them to take over the UK and the US

very sad.

Robin, I think you are overlooking that the Soviet Union contracted a Friendship Treaty with Nazi Germany in late September 1939 when Britain and France were already at war - see Norman Davies: Europe, Oxford University Press, page 1000f.

When it came down to it, Stalin had no problem with being friendly with the Nazis.

Let's not bring Stalin in the discussion. After all, the US didn't participate in WW2 until they were attacked. So what?
Godwin's law anyone? :P

You are perhaps right - electronic surveillance wasn't technically advanced in Stalin's Soviet Union. OTOH surveillance by the Stasi in East Germany is probably the more relevant model. Links with the Stasi and the the extend of electronic surveillance now were reported by the BBC at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/09/99/britain_betrayed/451366.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2124551.stm

Here is another London poster proclaiming what a wonderful thing it is to be under surveillance, this one brought to you by the Metropolitan police and the Croydon (borough) council. This one is straight to the point, and I don't think any irony can be read into it.

Michael.

The US Supreme Court has already ruled that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place. Whether you are watched by other people, a policeman or a camera makes little difference. As for Orwell's vision of the future, the problem was that Big Brother was watching to prevent you from breaking his unreasonable laws. These cameras on the other hand are meant to see if you break a reasonable, constitutional law (as passed by your legislature). Why can't you understand the difference?
As for the graphic design of the poster, yes, it does convey entirely the wrong mood, but that doesn't mean the system is bad.
Chris

Perry: I'm not implying the police make people listen to Rush Limbaugh. If people were forced to listen to him, they might resent being so forced, and be prepared to question his viewpoint more. People who choose to listen to 'shows' of this kind generally don't question what the presenter says, any more than people who choose to go to church question what the preacher says from the pulpit. They subcontract their thinking, and this is wrong.

I admit I have far more of a problem with conservative philosophy than liberal philosophy, and the reason why is tolerance of dissent. Liberals who don't tolerate dissent aren't real liberals any more than, for example, Christians who run enormously wealthy corporations which clearly and obviously exploit the poor are real Christians, or Muslims who run around killing people are real Muslims. They're breaking a fundamental tenet of their professed faith.

I won't assume that because you approve of free trade, you oppose individual abortion decision-making, or espouse any of the other so-called 'conservative' causes, most of which are incompatible with each other. :) Similarly, because I disapprove of tradition as a replacement for thought does not mean I approve of every stupid cause that radical liberals espouse, or even any of these causes at all. My problem is with stupidity, with apathy, with deliberately chosen ignorance willingly submitting to exploitation. Above all else, with government through lies, the opposite of surveillance. They're surveilling us. We're not surveilling them.

I didn't say Europe was 100% free, I said that European society was free-er, in terms of expression of new ideas and dissent from old ones, than the US and the UK. I will qualify that to 'some parts' of Europe, and 'the general overview' of the US, and it's an opinion I'm prepared to change. I'd love to change it as the facts change as time goes by.

Do any of you know where I can get my hands on the Big Brother poster from the beginning of the site I know several people who want one. E-mail me if you know where I can get it.

Chris: The US Supreme Court has already ruled that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place

And so it is ok for the state to monitor your every move? Does that mean you would support a law that allowed the state to have locator beacons on all citizens to keep tabs on their movements outside their own homes? Where does it end?

Whether you are watched by other people, a policeman or a camera makes little difference.

It makes an enormous difference. 'Other people' are unlikely to be able to compile a database on why movements through every public moment of my life. Even the mighty Microsoft Corporation poses far less of a threat to my liberty and privacy than the smallest local pettifogging town government. Do you seriously think politicians will be able to resist using the sort of information that total surveillance brings for their own ends? Did the US Constitution stop NJ State Troopers acting for Jim Florio (the then governor in New Jersey) going through the garbage of political opponents looking for anything incriminating because the trash was in a public place? Do you seriously think well connected political figures would not get access to CCTV footage to find out things about political enemies, looking for something to discredit them? After all, 'we have no expectation of privacy in a public place'...

These cameras on the other hand are meant to see if you break a reasonable, constitutional law (as passed by your legislature). Why can't you understand the difference?

Because it is a fantasy to think a 'constitution' will protect you from the state if you allow it to gather such information on people. The blind faith so many Americans have in their Constitution has not stopped Civil Forfeiture Laws that mean you can lose your property without ever having been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime. So much for your precious protection against 'unreasonable search and seizure' and the 'presumption of innocence'. And anyway, you seem to be suggesting that just because "my" legislature passes a law, that automatically makes it legitimate. It does not. Most laws not about essential safety, most are little more than theft-by-proxy. Democratically sanctified tyranny is still tyranny.

You have mistaken us at Samizdata for conservatives. The world is not simply split between so called 'liberals' (illiberal socialist collectivists) and conservatives (corporatist collectivists).

The only way to avoid 'sub-contracting thinking' is to enable individual rights and responsibilities. That is why I support Free Trade. To do otherwise is to support force and violence over choice and voluntary cont voluntary cont

Oh great. Nothing like building up the public's confidence in the government like BIG, CREEPY, DISEMBODIED EYEBALLS looming in the distance...

hahahaha pretty funny:

> Why are you folks still in the UK?
> Why are you not over here?
> Run while you still can.

Where is "here"????

The US?

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Do you all honestly think that the government, any government, has both the physical and structural capacity to use this kind of surveillance in any oppressive manner? Do you actually think they are going to follow every aspect of everyone's lives, from the time a person is born? Let's get real. This will be used, as one comment said, as an "after-the-fact" device to try to help solve crimes. Period. Big brother...give me a break.