U.K. turns CCTV, terrorism laws on pooping dogs (Posted by Chris Soghoian)

The United Kingdom has the most surveillance cameras per capita in the world. With the recent news that CCTV cameras do not actually deter crime, how can the local town councils justify the massive surveillance program? By going after pooping dogs.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Visual Images Office explained the failings of CCTV:

“Billions of pounds has been spent on it, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3 percent of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? (They think) the cameras are not working.”

Conjuring up the bogeymen of terrorists, online pedophiles and cybercriminals, the U.K. passed a comprehensive surveillance law, The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, in 2000. The law allows “the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance, and the use of covert human intelligence sources” to help prevent crime, including terrorism.

Recent reports in the U.K. media indicate that the laws are being used for everything but terrorism investigations:

* Derby City Council, Bolton, Gateshead, and Hartlepool used surveillance to investigate dog fouling.
* Bolton Council also used the act to investigate littering.
* The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea conducted surveillance on the misuse of a disabled parking pass.
* Liverpool City Council used Ripa to identify a false claim for damages.

ALTERNET INTERVIEW WITH EDITOR AND PUBLISHER’S GREG MITCHELL ON MEDIA AND WAR


TOTAL COST OF THE IRAQ WAR HIGHER THAN WE THINK: TEHRAN TIMES

SF LETTER CARRIERS DEMAND MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES

Resolution of Letter Carriers Union,
Golden Gate Branch 214
May 78, 2008

[Represent the following cities in the greater San
Francisco Bay Area: Belvedere/Tiburon, Corte Madera,
Daly City, Mill Valley, Novato, Redwood City, San
Anselmo, San Francisco, San Leandro, San Rafael &
Sausalito]

Whereas, a large number of Americans are losing their
homes to foreclosure, many as a result of being
victimized by the predatory practices of banks and
mortgage companies. One in every four subprime mortgage
victims are either in or near foreclosure. Soon, almost
10% of the homes of working families across the country
could be in foreclosure; and

Whereas, the growing economic crisis has caused a big
increase in the number of evictions of renters from
their homes and apartments, and utility shutoffs facing
those unable to pay their gas and electric bills; and

Whereas, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, 25
states adopted a moratorium (freeze) on foreclosures,
and such moratoriums were upheld by the US Supreme
Court; and

Whereas, Governors, State Legislatures, the President
and Congress, as well as the Department of Housing &
Urban Development, have the statutory authority to
declare a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions
during a time of either natural or economic emergency
disaster. In early 2007 the governor of Massachusetts
decreed a 2-month moratorium on foreclosures;

Whereas, Michigan State Senator Hansen Clarke has
introduced a bill calling for a 2-year moratorium on
foreclosures, in a state that is suffering the worst
housing crisis since the 1930s, with tens of thousands
also facing eviction and entire communities being
decimated by abandoned and often vandalized homes which
drive down property values — a situation also facing
communities in other states as well; therefore be it

Resolved, that Golden Gate Branch 214 of the National
Association of Letter Carriers call on the President
and elected representatives to implement a moratorium
(freeze) on home foreclosures, utility shut-offs and
evictions.

Adopted May 7, 2008 by unanimous vote. NALC Branch 214
represents 2,500 Postal Service letter carriers in 11
cities of the San Francisco Bay Area.

LETTERS

Malina Ammons writes:

When Obama visited the House of Representatives this week, he made it clear his business was about reconciliation. He visited with all the weight of a presumptive nominee, but there was no gloating, no snide remarks, no hints to the Clinton camp that they should pack it in. He was careful to engage, not alienate. There was, nonetheless, no doubt that he was the nominee, and people treated him as such.

This style bodes well for a nation whose former nemesis - the USSR - imploded under its own bloated weight, whose former “satellite” nations now flock to our side. We don’t have to gloat. We don’t have to jump up and down and scream “Yay America.” The world expects us to lead, and we can actually do this with a bit of temperance. We don’t need to bash ideological opponents, or shoot our way through every negotiation with a foreign state. You can be strong without having to prove it every five minutes.

Note from Media Historian Robet McChesney

Monthly Review Press has just published my new book: The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas. This volume culminates the research in my career to date, and includes my latest thinking on journalism, the Internet, global political economy, and the burgeoning media reform movement and our broader changing political climate.

The editors at Monthly Review Press have done a brilliant job with this book. The Political Economy of Media includes the best writing I have done and provides a comprehensive overview of my work.

Please go to this link to learn more about the book, see the table of contents, and read the preface and introduction. You will also see how you can order the book by telephone or online .

Monthly Review Press is a nonprofit organization, and all my royalties are being donated to charity. Monthly Review Press has little or no money for promotion, so we are depending upon word-of-mouth for publicity. If you know of any e-lists or have friends who might be interested, please pass this email along to them. The Political Economy of Media is nearly 600 pages long, has 23 essays, and costs $19.95.

DISSECTOR ARTICLE IN THE NATION

I have an article in THE NATION this week and was on the air with Laura Flanders talking about it last week.

It starts like this:

If the National Weather Service issued a warning about a tsunami nearing our shores, here’s what you’d see on your TV screen: news centers turned into “storm centers,” with fancy graphics and Doppler radars tracking the likely “strike zone,” and brave reporters in rain gear hugging the coastline, heightening alarm about the disaster to come.

Yet when a calamity struck last summer–a financial tsunami, tied to the implosion of the subprime mortgage market–most media were asleep at the switch. True, there were reports about the market meltdown, but the crisis sparked little breaking-news excitement, and the presidential candidates didn’t touch the subject of a financial crisis for months.

You will have to buy the magazine to read the whole piece

WITH LOVE

Condolences to my colleague Paul Solman of the Jim Lehrer News Hour on the loss of his father Joe, a well known and widely admired modern artist, after a long life at age 99. Years ago, Paul worked with me on my first TV audition tape that got me a job on the 10 O’Clock News on WGBH in Boston. I remember stumbling through it –”take 39″–but it did the job and opened the door to my working in TV. He is one of the best business/economic reporters in the business. I went to the memorial for his dad at the Music Barge under the Brooklyn Bridge. It was packed and very moving. Ran into one of the great comic satirists of all time, Professor Irwin Corey, “The world’s foremost authority.”

I am now off to Berlin. Will write when and if I can.

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