BBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside

1984, Architecture & urbanism, Bad design, Blog, Britain, Bureaucracy, Cargo cult, Civil rights, Control, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Deleuze, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Designed to injure, Discrimination, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, External Control, Foucault, Future, Greasing palms, Health and safety, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Intrusive technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Norms, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Prophecy, Public money, Site Announcements, Social engineering, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology underclass, Teenagers, Underclass, Urban, Vague rhetoric, Worldwide

From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’:

“Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas.
But while the use of surveillance drones is among them, they would be a “long way off”, police said.

“The idea of the drone is a long way off, but it is about exploring all technological possibilities to support our war on crime and anti-social behaviour.”

Note that “anti-social behaviour” is mentioned separately to “crime.” Why? Also, nice appropriation of the “war on xxx” phrasing.

“It plans to utilise the latest law enforcement technology, including automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), CCTV “head-cams” and metal-detecting gloves.”

This country’s had it.
We’ve got Avon & Somerset Police using helicopters with high-intensity floodlights to “blind groups of teenagers temporarily” and councils using tax-payers’ money to install devices to cause deliberate auditory pain to a percentage of the population, again, whether or not they have committed a crime. Anyone would think that those in power despised their public. Perhaps they do.
Has it ever occurred to the police that tackling the causes of the problem might be a better solution than attacking the symptoms with a ridiculous battery of ‘technology’?

5 Comments

Comments are closed.