15th May 2011
Watching...Police Buy Sophisticated Surveillance Software
Mark Hanson
Reports came out last week that the Metropolitan Police have purchased software that is able to build up a record of your movements and enable profiling and tracking of almost anyone without their knowledge.
The Met have bought software known as Geotime, which gathers and collates information from numerous sources such as internet use (including social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter), cash point machines, mobile phones and satellite navigation. There has already been an outcry over Apple and Google’s smartphones gathering location data, and recently Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, spoke out about the spying use of Facebook. Now, it seems, software that was designed for military use has been acquired by the UK police.
Some police forces have already begun use of military equipment, buying military spy drones last year. The increasing ability of the State apparatus to secretively monitor civilians is of grave concern. Big Brother Watch, referring to the new software, stated that:
“While the BBW team are not luddites and are indeed keen to see the Police adopt new technology in order to fight crime, their decision to adopt technology designed for theatres of war in order to track members of the public is deeply concerning. Quite simply, the ability to build up such a comprehensive record of any person's movements represents a significant threat to personal privacy.
"It is crucial, if this technology is to be rolled out further than London, that Police forces reassure the public that this technology will be used in only the most serious of cases, not as a tool to help solve low-level crimes.”
Rabel is under no illusions that as the strife in the World increases, both globally and nationally, the emerging global governance structures will instigate a brutal suppression of dissent, and that in order to accomplish this there will need to be an already systemic monitoring of possible dissenters. It is seeming to be the case, from the attempted ID cards, the intrusive gathering of DNA records, and the routine monitoring of peaceful protesters as “domestic extremists”, that the UK has become the testing ground for EU and Western methods of authoritarian rule.
Whilst it must be acknowledged again and again that Rabel does not believe in a global conspiracy theory, neither holds that the UK Government is already an evil totalitarian ruler, it also needs to be emphasised that the security and civil liberty for which Britain had become a beacon for cannot be blindly accepted as an eternal state of affairs.
Perilous times are coming. The future challenges of maintaining a semblance of peace will only be achieved by an evil totalitarian rule which does not allow dissent.
