Everyone Says I'm Paranoid

London Fields # 33
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 29 November 2006
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Is Britain heading towards the dystopia predicted in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? Spin doctors are straight from the Ministry Of Truth, and while reality TV has softened the concept, the question remains “Is Big Brother watching you?” There are currently 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain, and around half a million of those are in London. Recently published figures suggest that you’ll be filmed about 300 times on a day out in the capital. This camera footage is also linked to numberplate recognition software to see if the £8 daily congestion charge for driving in central London has been paid.

But you can avoid the charge if you use public transport, and the cheapest way of doing this is by Oystercard, a smart card which will eventually eliminate paper tickets and cash fares. There’s great pressure for punters to switch - some buses don’t sell tickets on board, and cash fares now cost about double those made by Oystercard. Yet every single journey you make is monitored, and CCTV footage can link you to your card, even if it’s an unregistered, pay-as-you-go one. As a punter, the only time this journey-tracking really comes into its own is when you’ve been partying hard and can’t remember just how you got home. All you have to do is place your card on the reader in the station and hey presto – your forgotten past is there on the screen as your journeys of the previous evening are displayed. But what else could this information be used for?

Recycling of domestic waste is still in its infancy in the UK; many folks will dump their newspapers into the wheelie bin rather than the recycling box next to it. To meet tough new government targets, compulsory recycling is being introduced, involving random checks, and warnings or fines for non-compliance. More stringent measures include the use of hidden cameras, and in one council simply refused to collect a household’s domestic waste because it contained recyclable materials.

New biometric UK passports have just been introduced to meet the stricter requirements of a post-9/11 US. Already you need to submit to having your fingerprints taken if you wish to enter the USA. But a new UK scheme is asking drinkers for them to be fingerprinted before they’ll be served in the pub! The idea is to cut alcohol-related crime, and it’s already been tried as a pilot scheme in the village of Yeovil in Somerset. Publicans who didn’t want to join in the scheme were told they faced having their licences revoked if they refused. The scheme is set to expand, as figures showed a 48% drop in violent alcohol-related crime over six months in the pilot area. So if you’re barred, you’ll stay barred! I wonder what Liam Gallagher and Pete Doherty will make of this? Recent newspaper reports claim that they’re scouring Kentish Town, looking for the right local to take over and run.

The British judicial system is the model on which many others are based. In April last year, the double jeopardy law, which prevented someone being tried for the same crime twice, was removed after being a part of law for 800-odd years. It could be successfully argued that the law had to be changed following the unsuccessful prosecutions of those involved in the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. So sometimes age-old laws need to change or evolve, but consider the case of anti-war protestor Brian Haw, who has held a one-man protest in Parliament Square, outside the Houses of Parliament, since June 2001. Existing laws were unable to remove him. In answer came the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SPOCA), which prohibits protests within a one kilometre radius of, yup, Parliament Square! Following a High Court battle, sections of the legislation have been applied retrospectively, and he is now facing criminal charges.

It could be argued that all this is necessary in the dangerous world of 2006. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, has said that there are at least 200 al-Qaeda cells operating in the UK, and that the agency is currently tracking over 1600 people, and investigating 30 major plots, and 200 others. This, she says, is an 80% increase in casework since January, and went on to say “I wish life were like Spooks, where everything is knowable and soluble by six people”. Yet the recent fifth series of Spooks continually repeated the mantra that the stakes were raised, and previously accepted freedoms just weren’t possible in this new world. So now policeman have cameras fitted to their hats, and are carrying devices allowing people to be electronically fingerprinted in the street, when previously an arrest was needed to do this.

So, in summary they’re watching us, and monitoring what we buy and where we go, and even what we throw out. Some may argue that only the guilty need fear this level of intrusion, as the innocent have nothing to hide. The worry is what this information may be used for. Just remember - no matter how many pictures you take on your London trip, more will be taken of you!


© James McGalliard 2007