Indeed. A nice (or maybe not) confluence of vehicles, snapped by me this afternoon in Rochester Row, London SW1:
Click on that to get it bigger, and to read the words on the small white vehicle.
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Earlier in the week I was visiting family in the old family home, the nearest railway station to which is Egham. And just outside Egham Station, I spotted this rather remarkable sign, erected (I presume) by the local council, Runnymede.  It seems that Lucinda Campbell Jackson of St Cuthbert’s School (see the verbiage top right) did a really quite witty piece of art, on the theme of CCTV surveillance. But the odd bit is Runnymede Council (see the verbiage top left) – and yes that is Runnymede of Magna Carta fame – thinking that using this bit of school art on an official sign is a good way to publicise the fact that everything you do in public in Egham is being recorded on video. For me, what this illustrates is that all those who still oppose public video surveillance in all public places in Britain (personally I am still rather undecided) have comprehensively lost this argument, insofar as it ever was an argument in the first place. These local councillors know their business. They know that, if there was any serious public opposition to ubiquitous CCTV surveillance, it would not be in their interests to make public jokes about it. As it is, they are extremely keen to advertise their enthusiasm for CCTV surveillance with a bit of humour, knowing that many will laugh, but that very few will grumble, still less complain out loud. I mean, if you have nothing to hide, you obviously have nothing to fear. Right? Except looking badly dressed. April 6th, 2011 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The greatest passions, however, require privacy, and the good society would not deserve to be so-called if it lacked ample opportunities for seclusion and solitude. In work and in love, creativity requires time alone, to think and plan. Great, passionate works of art are not usually brought into existence by committee. The deepest friendships and loves also need time away from prying eyes to blossom; time to share intimacies not shared with others; time to build a special microcosm of private meaning within the wider, public world. A society devoid of privacy would be a society with no room for great passion, and hence not a place I would want to live. Warrantless wiretaps and extensive networks of closed-circuit television cameras have contributed to the United States and England being ranked alongside other “endemic surveillance societies” like Russia and China, according to Privacy International. But those who say, in defense of such invasive government actions, that people who have done nothing wrong have nothing to hide, reveal a profound misunderstanding of the importance of privacy. Privacy matters not because of the bad that it hides, but because of the good and the great that it nurtures. March 4th, 2011 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
A census – as any social scientist knows – is absolutely essential to modern government. We cannot plan social policy if we don’t know how many people there are, where they are, what they do, how long they live, etc. A non-judgmental collation of information – which is what a census is – is the bedrock of civilised society. Democracy and accountable government depend completely this kind of knowledge. If we lose it, government will be run by gossip, innuendo and Daily Mail after-dinner ‘common sense’ (as if it isn’t already, but hey) February 21st, 2011 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
Not that I am recommending such behaviour as this to any Samizdata reader, of course. December 31st, 2010 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
If you think the previous leaks were amazing, check out this. December 14th, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Reflecting on the Wikileaks issue – see Perry’s post on Samizdata on Saturday – it occurs to me that one group of folk who must be a bit miffed by the leaks are parts of the anti-war side, especially those of a conspiracy theory cast of mind. For example, where is the leaked memo that “proves” there was some evil Jewish/neo-con/international banker/armsdealer/insert villain of choice conspiracy to blow up the WTC and then blame it on bin Laden? And I note that one of the leaked cables suggests that the Saudis are very alarmed by the geo-political ambitions of Iran, and want the West to contain it. Well, that surely fits with what a lot of those supposedly bloodthirsty neocons around George W Bush had been saying. And so on. The leaks have done damage, no doubt about it, and unlike Perry, I am not so sangine about the overall impact of Wikileaks as far as rolling back the state is concerned. This is one of those things I find hard to be able to prove conclusively one way or the other; generally speaking, the more openness, the better, and the fewer hiding places for governments, the better. I also think, however, that leaks of secrets that may harm self defence efforts of genuinely liberal states against terrorist groups, if they occur, are enough to send such leakers to jail on the grounds of being reckless in offering, however unintentionally, aid to such groups. But it is, nonetheless interesting that none of the dottier conspiracies swirling around 9/11 have yet to appear. The reason is that such conspiracy theories are bunk. December 14th, 2010 | 79 comments - (Comments are closed)
This started off as a reply to a comment on Samizdata but by the time I reached the fifth paragraph, I realised it might as well be a full blown blog post. Below is the remark to which I was replying but this article is now really about explaining why I have moved from tentative opposition to inescapable support for Wikileaks.
This is actually the very core of the ‘systemic attack’ that Assange has made on nation-states. It is precisely by attacking their ability to informally and easily exchange casual and often banal information that has such remarkable implications on the ability of states to act the way states act. It does not need to be “the date of D-Day” kind of revelations (the kind I too want to remain secret) that can significantly interfere with a state’s ability to act as a ‘conspiracy’ (and not in the “Grassy Knoll” or “Bilderburg” or similar gonzo conspiracy theory sense)… indeed I wish Assange had never used the word ‘conspiracy’… I have long described the Green movement ‘Warmists’ as a ‘confluence of interests’ rather than a ‘conspiracy’… but I actually mean the exact same thing when discussing the Greens as Assange means when he describes Government as a ‘conspiracy’… But if you are someone of the view that the modern regulatory welfare state has vastly too much power over its subjects, and that these states are unreformable from within the ‘democratic’ systems… the very systems that have been in place during the growth of this overweening state power, then a valid way to oppose that power is to carry out systemic attacks on the very networks that allow that ‘confluence of interests’ to express what those interests are and to thereby find ways to achieve that confluence. → Continue reading: Why I support Wikileaks December 11th, 2010 | 146 comments - (Comments are closed)
Here at Samizdata we’ve only paid rather sporadic attention to this whole TSA grope and change (a phrase we have surely not heard the last of) thing, our most thorough airing of the issue so far having been in this posting and in its comments. But over at Transport Blog there is an excellently link rich posting about it all, compiled by Rob Fisher. In particular Rob notes a Slashdot commenter (on this) saying something which particularly deserves to get around:
Indeed, and this was mentioned in passing in the comments on that earlier Samizdata posting. Safety doesn’t need to be imposed by governments. People want safety, but they also want other things (fun, convenience, speed, comfort, not to be embarrassed or humiliated by neanderthals, etc.) and it should be up to people to make the trade-offs for themselves. Personally, I suspect that an under-discussed aspect of all this is that a lot of people in the USA (as in many other places), and in particular just now in positions of authority and influence in the USA, think that air travel is evil and that curtailing it, by whatever method that works, is just terrific. These people are fast losing the argument about why air travel is evil (global warming blah blah blah), but the terrorism thing gives them an excuse to just keep on hacking away at the abomination (as they see it) of regular people regularly taking to the air. And the more that regular people squeal that they ain’t gonna fly no more, the merrier these flying-is-evil killjoys will feel about it all. Protest from the ranks of the newly immobilised is good because that means that it’s really working. November 23rd, 2010 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Instapundit quotes an emailer (Ed Stephens), on the subject of the TSA and its intrusive gropings at airports:
Which was perhaps always the idea? Getting libertarians to beg to have to show only their papers. How perfectly statist is that? This is how you get what you want in this world, whether you are trying to expand the powers of the state or to chip away at them. Demand something that is, to your enemies, totally outrageous. Then, with a great show of reluctance, settle for something only moderately outrageous. Repeat indefinitely. Sadly, for the time being, the expanders of the state are more numerous and more powerful than us chippers-away. The secret of chipping away successfully is to continue to discuss the dynamiting of the whole damn mountain. How might that be contrived? How nice would that be? Then settle for dynamiting only half of it … November 22nd, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Royal College of Nursing has just won a case against a bureaucratic body in England that many may not have heard of, the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). The victory is a fairly minimal one: it has been ruled that the ISA must confirm to some elements of fair procedure, and may not ban people from their professions automatically without hearing. None of the professional bodies or establishment human rights organisations such as Liberty appears to be challenging the principle of state vetting in employment. They are fussing about the procedure. But to me this is an epitome of the degree of state intrusion into our lives that is now accepted in Britain as completely normal. Here, from the Nursing Times report, are summaries of the cases on the basis of which the most recent ruling was made:
For those who are unfamiliar with English criminal law, “accepted a caution” is a sort of plea bargain in the hands of the police. If one accepts a caution, one is admitting an offence in return for no further action being taken by police (except keeping a record on you, fingerprints and DNA, till you reach the age of 100). One might believe one was avoiding punishment. That would almost certainly be suggested by police (whose figures are improved and paperwork decreased by disposing of offences by caution). Nevertheless the routine admission of a minor offence can be used by distant bureaucrats (whether they give you a hearing or not) to deprive you of your career (and in the case of British nurses wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money in training). And not only that but such a decisions makes it a criminal offence for anyone to employ you in any capacity in medicine, education or social care. Mr O and Mrs W would have been barred not just from professional nursing, but scrubbing the lavatories in a school after hours, or driving a bus for the elderly. (Or even, by a bureaucratic version of magical contagion, a bus for carers for the elderly. see pdf Q.35) And cautioned for what? In the one case leaving a near teenager alone for a short while. In the other for allowing (allowing!?) one’s wife to leave the children for less than a working day. Who knew these were criminal offences? I want children to grow up to be independent. That means them learning to manage themselves as early as they can. Leaving your children on their own for short periods, perhaps overnight or for a weekend, with proper provision and knowledge of who to call in case of problems, is not criminal. It is fine. It is laudable. But we live in a state that demands you not use your judgement, that cannot bear the possibility of error and learning. It fears mistakes enough that there are now rules about how you may bring up your family, requiring all minors to be treated as needy infants. All adults, on the other hand, whether at home or in their working lives, are deemed to be cruel monsters unless restrained by the threat of excommunication from the benevolent database. The state knows what is right. The ISA was originally to use a checklist to assess lifestyles for ‘risk‘, though that has been deferred for the moment. You are either among the elect, or you are damned – and the ISA has a list saying which is which. November 14th, 2010 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
The vile ContactPoint database, which held details about every child in England and was accessible to hundreds of thousands of professionals has been switched off. I have to say that in pulling the plug the government has confounded my gloomy predictions that no matter who won the election civil liberty and privacy would be equally poorly served. Good comment to a BBC article on the subject here:
However Simon from Doncaster feels differently:
Where did you say you worked again, Simon? August 12th, 2010 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
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