Techdirt and Slashdot comment that some people have placed images of license plates belonging to people they are not fond of on their own cars, then speeding by photo radar, resulting in the other person getting a ticket. 

Techdirt’s spin on this:

In general, we have trouble with things like speed cameras and red light cameras — both of which don’t tend to do much of anything to make the roads safer (rather, there’s evidence that they lead to more accidents). The reality is that they are really about boosting revenue for local governments, not about safety — which explains why plenty of places have been found illegally changing parameters to make them bring in more revenue.

A reminder of my recent post on Slaw and here that tomorrow is being promoted in Europe as a day of protest against surveillance.

Its no wonder that this is happening, especially in light of things like David Fraser posts about today, where cameras are being used in UK parks to catch litterers and pooper scooper violators.

I’ve commented before that this type of surveillance is mere security theatre, doesn’t really accomplish anything, and is offensive to the concepts of privacy and a free society.  Just take a look at this, or read the various posts under the privacy tag on my blog if you are in doubt.

Cory Doctorow has a post on Boing Boing entitled Britain will make foreigners carry RFID identity cards and will put us in a huge, Orwellian database: the rest of Britain will be next.  Its worth a read.

He says in part:

My family fled the Soviet Union after the war. They were displaced people (my father was born in a refugee camp in Azerbaijan) who destroyed their papers to protect themselves from the draconian authorities who sought to limit their travel and migration. I used to think it was ironic that my family had gone from Europe to Canada and back to Europe again in a generation, but now I don’t know how long the Doctorows will be staying in Europe — or at least in the UK. The green and pleasant land has suspended habeas corpus, instituted street searches without particularlized suspicion, encourages its citizens to spy and snitch on each other, and now has issued mandatory universal papers that will track we dirty immigrants as we move around our adopted “home,” as part of a xenophobic campaign to arouse fear and resentment against migrants.  …  In living memory, my family has been chased from its home by governments whose policies and justification the Labour Party has aped.

And some people wonder what privacy advocates bristle against things like the increasing use of surveillance cameras. 

That’s the title of my Slaw post today.   It reads:

Boing Boing has a recent post that refers to a day of protest being organized in the EU. Some excerpts:

An international protest against undue surveillance is being held next month on the 11th of October. It is ‘a broad movement of campaigners and organizations is calling on everybody to join action against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses’. We need to get this on the radar for the elections in the USA this year, the EU parliamentary elections next year and many more.

People who constantly feel watched and under surveillance cannot freely and courageously stand up for their rights and for a just society. Mass surveillance is thereby threatening the fabric of a democratic and open society. Mass surveillance is also endangering the work and commitment of civil society organizations.

My personal view is that most so called security measures, including CCTV is security theatre that does not have any significant effect on actual security. For those that say “if you are doing nothing wrong, what’s the problem”, take a look at this Washington Post article.

I look forward to the results of the Federal Privacy Commissioner’s research into public surveillance techniques and technology