What makes you assume I was referring to WW2?judge56988 wrote:Come on, surely you can see a difference between fighting a Nazi regime and using surveillance to enforce the laws in a democratic country such as the UK?
Indeed not. I'm not arguing that it should be.Breaking the law is NOT a civil right
Some laws erode civil liberties. Any law which deals with freedom of speech, freedom of association, habeas corpus and so on impacts (almost always negatively) on civil liberties. Enforcing any such laws erodes civil liberties.so how is it eroding our civil liberties to enforce the law?
I draw the line where the police (and pseudo-police) are enforcing stupid laws, and enforcing rules that aren't really even laws (eg. keep off the grass, why are you photographing that building, and so on).Surveillance is an extension in policing and law enforcement so where do you draw the line on that?
Of course not, that's a stupid straw-man argument.Is it an infringement of our civil liberties to in fact have a police force at all, to investigate crime?
Phone taps require a court order - I'm fine with that. Questioning subjects - should be allowed only once police make a formal arrest (laying themselves open to a charge of wrongful arrest if they're being over-zealous). Surveillance - should require a court order.After all, they have to watch people, tap phones, question suspects... where would YOU draw the line?
Judicial oversight and proportionality is what I'm after.
The examples you're talking about though are targeted at individuals who are a priori suspected of wrong-doing based on other evidence. CCTV surveillance flips the whole thing around - it is (potentially) surveillance of *everybody* on a fishing exercise to spot anybody doing anything remotely dodgy. That's disproportionate as far as I'm concerned.
Honestly you *really* need to read up a bit more about the details of the inherent error rates in those tests. While you're at it read up on the numerous high-profile cases over the past ten to twenty years in which such evidence has been shown to convict the wrong person.Personally I think everybodies DNA and fingerprints should be on record - it would make solving crimes easier in many cases, it would also help to prevent the wrong person being convicted of a crime and it would in the past have reduced the number of victims of several serial killers that would have been identified after their first murder.
Then consider that *you* could be one of the errors.