Police drones in the sky over England

[thewayne]

England is the most heavily surveiled country in the world. They say that an average person will have their picture taken THREE HUNDRED TIMES A DAY. So now they also have eyes in the sky. Let's not forget that the country is pretty much entirely disarmed. And yet the crime rate doesn't seem to go down, funny that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6676809.stm

Comments

[deborak]

Those drones would make for fine target practice.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

But if you can't have a gun, how would you shoot at them? ;-)

I wonder if trebuchets are illegal over there....?

[wuglet.livejournal.com]

Well, the figure of 300 times a day is the average of the pictures taken at Trafalgar Square and surrounding subway stations in London, as far as I know. As soon as you get out of London, there isn't that much surveillance anymore.

Oxford has, at least in the city centre, also a quite high rate because, you know, Oxford -> elite university -> research areas... Oxford is also a no-fly zone. Sometimes there is a helicopter in the air which either means an emergency for the uni hospitals or a film crew making air shots for yet another film. Apart from that, no plane noises. It's so relaxing! :)

What do you mean with "pretty much entirely disarmed"? The military and police forces here are quite the contrary. And while most of the civilian population doesn't have fire arms, I'd rather not get into a pub fight for all the knives and brass knuckles. You don't need fire arms for a crime rate, you know...

I'm in between with the questions of surveillance, yes or no. Of course I get pretty pissed off thinking about this mass of surveillance because it seems already worse than in 1984.
On the other hand, I feel save in my college which has three cameras inside watching the public areas, and one outside. If it weren't for those, I guess I'd have nightmares about random tourists stealing my stuff and wandering away (I live in THE central college here, more central isn't physically possible). And if I encounter some fishy guys when I get back to college late at night, I'm also quite grateful for the camera on the outside, so that if they decide to try and harm me, the nightporter actually sees it as long as I'm in the range of the camera.

Um yeah, as a conclusion? The Brits are bonkers. xD

[wuglet.livejournal.com]

And please ignore the various spelling mistakes. It's late, I'm tired. xD

[ateji.livejournal.com]

Hey guys? When there's stuff like this in cautionary fictional tales, it doesn't usually put the populace at ease to see it suddenly pop up in the real world.

*crosses England off the list for happy places to live* :P