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Big Brother In The UK

TVgeek

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
May 15, 2002
Messages
750
If this were in the US, lawyers would be
trying to identify these folks just to help them
sue the police!

http://www.met.police.uk/appeals/mayday/mayday2002.htm

------------------------------------------------
Mayday 2002
The Metropolitan Police are seeking your help to identify and trace the suspects pictured here.

During the past three years, major anti-capitalist demonstrations have taken place in Central London on May Day.
--------------------------------------------------

Does this kind of thing happen often?

TVgeek
 
Blimey, the one on the top left's David Baddiel isn't it? ;)

I've seen this sort of mass mug shot used before, usually with reference to identifying football hooligans. These seem a bit clearer than the blurry CCTV images we get on Crimestoppers, which usually show baseball-hatted low-life nicking cigarettes from service stations, or laying into each other on a Friday night.

Maybe Special Branch had a few plain-clothes people snapping pics of potential trouble makers, but I don't think that they'd put peoples' photos up like that unless they were pretty certain that they'd done something naughty.

Mind you, after seeing last nights Secret State programme, I wouldn't put anything past the good old boys in blue...
 
I should think these people have been caught on film doing
deeds of unspeakable evil, though I have never seen such a
large collection of mug-shots arising from one event.

Mass surveillance by the police may be less fashionable than
it used to be - or maybe just more subtle.

Until the mid-nineties, maybe later, the Manchester Police used
to drive around the Canal Street area in a van with blackened
windows to film the patrons of the gay bars.

Opinions varied as to the purpose of these movies. Maybe it was
simply meant to intimidate. It was nothing to do with incidents
or with general town security, as it could be seen on most nights
and regardless of the number of people on the streets.

Disconcerting, the first few times. But some hardened exhibitionists
would dance the can-can in full drag and make-up!

These days they have to audition for Popstars to get a sniff of
the camera. :eek:
 
I'm surprised none of you spotted Spider Nugent, the environmental activist from Coronation Street. He's T154. :confused:
 
Ugly bastards, aren't they?
The large number of baseball caps ties in with a pet theory of mine, y'know.
 
Inverurie Jones said:
The large number of baseball caps ties in with a pet theory of mine, y'know.
Yes. The tightness of the hat restricts the blood supply to the brain?
 
this happens all the time over here at demos and football related misunderstandings.

following a spectacular win by Newcastle United one Heroine of Geordie Labour climbed onto the top of a phone box in the Big Market and did a slow total strip to music from a nearby bar.

the local paper published a 'Do you know this woman?' (with discreet black bars).

cue 40,000 phone calls asking for her number if someone did ID her :D

the worst example I saw was on a local TV slot called Crimestoppers. It was a CCTV from an off licience booze shop.

guy walks up to a stack of cans of beer and spots a £20 note lying on top. Looks around and trousers the note (and who wouldnt?).

'Do you know this man?'

poor sod was probabally honest as the days long.
 
yep. Some Geordies definition of the phrase rely heavily upon calculations made at Santas factory in Lapland around Christmas time.
 
I've just read this aside in a blog I follow:

"The ‘smoking area’ after security in Aberdeen [airport] costs a pound to get into and no cash, you have to use a credit or debit card. Given the SNP’s propensity for lists of undesirables, I refuse to use it."

https://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/home-again-4/

Is this the Scottish regime preparing for changes to the NHS north of the border? "Mr. Smith, you claim that your emphysema is due to natural causes, yet on 27.2.2020 your debit card was used to buy admittance to the smoking area at Aberdeen airport..."

maximus otter
 
I've just read this aside in a blog I follow:

"The ‘smoking area’ after security in Aberdeen [airport] costs a pound to get into and no cash, you have to use a credit or debit card. Given the SNP’s propensity for lists of undesirables, I refuse to use it."

https://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/home-again-4/

Is this the Scottish regime preparing for changes to the NHS north of the border? "Mr. Smith, you claim that your emphysema is due to natural causes, yet on 27.2.2020 your debit card was used to buy admittance to the smoking area at Aberdeen airport..."

maximus otter

Thread title: can't stop thinking of French Kissin' in the U.S.A.

Sorry to drag the conversation away from just the U.K., but where East Asia leads in technological adoption, the west tends to follow.

Both of my local branches of Starbucks (equidistant in opposite directions) have gone 'cash free' starting this year.

They now only accept credit cards and pre-paid gift cards.

From their perspective, it's a win-win situation, but I was a bit taken aback when I had to pay with my card instead of tax.

It's interesting from another 'Big Brother' angle, because 'cell-phone' records and credit card transactions have been used routinely here in Korea to verify the given movements of those found (or merely suspected) to be infected with the Coronavirus.

Clearly there's something to gain here--I could very easily forget a trip to a corner shop or somesuch--but at the same time I have very little faith in the ability of any government to store and limit access to my personal information.

There have simply been to many cock-ups and data breaches for me to trust them.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they just started flogging it to advertisers and insurers.
 
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