Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

dailymail.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 190 posts

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#41

Post by turk73 »

StavrosK wrote: post #36
lm28469 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not everyday I quote Ted Kaczynski, but I think he had a valid point when, in his manifesto, he theorise that no amount of regulation is capable of making us safe from technological abuse. 125 - 135 from: https://www.josharcher.uk/static/files/2018/01/Industrial_So... . > It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force an…

The issue is that, ultimately and generally, the government does what a majority of people wants (or at least tolerates). Why are we tolerating this loss of freedoms? The only answer I can arrive at is "because it doesn't inconvenience people enough to do something about it". Protesting against something takes a lot of energy, and inconveniencing you only a little (or very much but extremely rarely) doesn't make most…

Because "doing something about it" requires violence. Americans have gone soft--we aren't demanding our rights be protected. Until we send a clear message, they will continue to walk all over us.

Rights are won by force and no other way. I'm sorry if that offends you, but pick up a history book and read and you will see that I am correct.

The above is why there is a full-court press to ban guns in the USA. They know what is required for us to force them to respect our rights. They know because they use violence every day to complete their own goals.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#42

Post by TomK32 »

simonh wrote: post #9
vixen99 wrote: post #2

For those who prefer not to go to the Daily Mail directly: "Camera cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against wanted database. One man covered face before officers stopped him and took his picture anyway. He was fined £90 at scene in Romford by police who arrested three other people Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer"

>..but want to make London safer. It would be nice to be safer from police harassment.

That old Sinéad O'Connor is still ringing true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#43

Post by [deleted] »

stavros wrote: post #37
dalbasal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. I'm a populace (even a plurality, some days) that overwhelmingly believes it is not ok for the government to operate a surveillance dragnet. How does this translate into practicalities? What laws do I want Westminster or London Assembly to enact? The point I was making earlier is that the distinction between dragnet and regular policing is eroding, as this technology becomes widespread. Presumably it's ok for pol…

I started to ask if the GDPR applies here, I realized you're in the UK so it wouldn't apply, but have the question anyway: Does the GDPR prevent this?

[deleted]

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#44

Post by arethuza »

stavros wrote: post #37
dalbasal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. I'm a populace (even a plurality, some days) that overwhelmingly believes it is not ok for the government to operate a surveillance dragnet. How does this translate into practicalities? What laws do I want Westminster or London Assembly to enact? The point I was making earlier is that the distinction between dragnet and regular policing is eroding, as this technology becomes widespread. Presumably it's ok for pol…

I started to ask if the GDPR applies here, I realized you're in the UK so it wouldn't apply, but have the question anyway: Does the GDPR prevent this?

GDPR most certainly does apply in the UK? We haven't left the EU yet - if we ever will and even if we do we'll still have GDPR like rules in place.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#45

Post by stavros »

turk73 wrote: post #41
StavrosK wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that, ultimately and generally, the government does what a majority of people wants (or at least tolerates). Why are we tolerating this loss of freedoms? The only answer I can arrive at is "because it doesn't inconvenience people enough to do something about it". Protesting against something takes a lot of energy, and inconveniencing you only a little (or very much but extremely rarely) doesn't make most…

Because "doing something about it" requires violence. Americans have gone soft--we aren't demanding our rights be protected. Until we send a clear message, they will continue to walk all over us. Rights are won by force and no other way. I'm sorry if that offends you, but pick up a history book and read and you will see that I am correct. The above is why there is a full-court press to ban guns in the USA. They know…

> I'm sorry if that offends you, but pick up a history book and read and you will see that I am correct.

It doesn't offend me, it's just trivially wrong, as I know of many privacy-enhancing laws that got passed without a drop of blood being spilled (e.g. the GDPR).

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#46

Post by bgeeek »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #15
StavrosK wrote: post #12

> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. That's why it's called "erosion of rights" and not "outright nullification of rights". Unfortunately, it works, and it's entirely unsurprising that face surveillance will become normalized.

There's a reason they're doing it in London first. In a wealthy city like London you can get away with going full "law and order" because the ratio of rich to poor is better (i.e more rich people) and the rich generally view this as no threat to them. Then once it's normalized they roll it out to Liverpool, Belfast and everywhere else that the poors are less under the thumb of the government. You see this in the US.…

Except it was used elsewhere in the UK before London.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#47

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

turk73 wrote: post #41
StavrosK wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that, ultimately and generally, the government does what a majority of people wants (or at least tolerates). Why are we tolerating this loss of freedoms? The only answer I can arrive at is "because it doesn't inconvenience people enough to do something about it". Protesting against something takes a lot of energy, and inconveniencing you only a little (or very much but extremely rarely) doesn't make most…

Because "doing something about it" requires violence. Americans have gone soft--we aren't demanding our rights be protected. Until we send a clear message, they will continue to walk all over us. Rights are won by force and no other way. I'm sorry if that offends you, but pick up a history book and read and you will see that I am correct. The above is why there is a full-court press to ban guns in the USA. They know…

> The above is why there is a full-court press to ban guns in the USA.

I'm skeptical of this claim. I think many opponents of private gun ownership are motivated by concerns about their use for crimes against regular people, not because it lowers the ability to resist tyranny.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#48

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dalbasal wrote: post #29
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wonder how you'd avoid this, even if parliament had the inclination. You need a populace that overwhelmingly believes it is not ok for the government to operate a surveillance dragnet. Then the politicians will do that. The only reason the government doesn't go full Waco on people who haven't paid their parking tickets is because the overwhelming majority of society don't tolerate that. This is also why it's impor…

Ok. I'm a populace (even a plurality, some days) that overwhelmingly believes it is not ok for the government to operate a surveillance dragnet. How does this translate into practicalities? What laws do I want Westminster or London Assembly to enact? The point I was making earlier is that the distinction between dragnet and regular policing is eroding, as this technology becomes widespread. Presumably it's ok for pol…

I don't know but politicians need to feel like they will lose votes if they are caught supporting these kinds of things.

To put it in US terms, in the 2016 Democratic primary we saw attack ads criticizing Hillary for being a hawk. They'd say things like "she says she supports not getting involved in Quagmire:latest but in $YEAR she voted for a bill that funded $ThingThatDoesTheOpposite".

When we see city and state politicians getting called out in the same manner for pandering to the interests (mostly police and government) that want a police state then we're on the right track.

I don't know exactly how this translates to practicalities. I'd support politicians who have a strong message of getting the .gov out of people's business in specific cases in the hope it eventually generalizes.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#49

Post by lm28469 »

StavrosK wrote: post #36
lm28469 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not everyday I quote Ted Kaczynski, but I think he had a valid point when, in his manifesto, he theorise that no amount of regulation is capable of making us safe from technological abuse. 125 - 135 from: https://www.josharcher.uk/static/files/2018/01/Industrial_So... . > It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force an…

The issue is that, ultimately and generally, the government does what a majority of people wants (or at least tolerates). Why are we tolerating this loss of freedoms? The only answer I can arrive at is "because it doesn't inconvenience people enough to do something about it". Protesting against something takes a lot of energy, and inconveniencing you only a little (or very much but extremely rarely) doesn't make most…

The way I see it is that our systems became so complex that we lost sight of what's good for us, as individual and as a group.

Most people are too busy to even acknowledge these issues. When you're barely able to financially take care of your family or when you're too deep in the consumerism game you don't have time for these high level questions.

People are more outraged about the latest episode of Game of Thrones than they will ever be about the current state of humanity and its impact on Nature, the erosion of privacy and freedom, &c.

Re: Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

#50

Post by dalbasal »

stavros wrote: post #37
dalbasal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. I'm a populace (even a plurality, some days) that overwhelmingly believes it is not ok for the government to operate a surveillance dragnet. How does this translate into practicalities? What laws do I want Westminster or London Assembly to enact? The point I was making earlier is that the distinction between dragnet and regular policing is eroding, as this technology becomes widespread. Presumably it's ok for pol…

I started to ask if the GDPR applies here, I realized you're in the UK so it wouldn't apply, but have the question anyway: Does the GDPR prevent this?

I don't think it does. If I understand correctly, these images would not be considered your private data. It belongs to whoever owns the cameras. Ianal

Interesting question though.

Post reply on HN