Are you being watched?

[ghost writer]

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life ... 096105.ece

As he looked into it, he found that the UK, once a bastion of freedom and civil liberties, is now one of the most advanced surveillance societies in the world, ranked third after Russia and China. The average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras. Increasingly monitored, citizens are being turned into suspects. Within 100 yards of Bond’s home, he discovered, there were no fewer than 200 cameras.

Before going on the run, he made 80 formal requests to government and commercial organisations for the information they held on him. He piled the replies on his floor, appalled by the level of detail. The owners of the databases knew who his friends were, which websites he’d been looking at, and where he had driven his car. One commercial organisation was even able to inform him that, on a particular day in November 2006, he had “sounded angry”. It was more than he knew himself.

I had always thought the UK would be an interesting place to live

[Jack Flash]

It's happening here too

They want to install cameras to "monitor the boardwalk", but a look at the plans shows cameras all along the sea wall.

[cerina]

The UK is a great place, ghost writer ... and we learned our paranoia from the US.

You look at the amount of information held on various data bases in the US and it puts ours to shame. Most people don't realise that every time they use their credit/debit card a record of that transaction doesn't just go to the issuing company.

As for all our cameras ... half of them don't work and, of the other 50%, only a few actually have tapes in them or anyone monitoring them. They aren't all active at the same time, just to keep us on our toes.

[ghost writer]

The UK is a great place, ghost writer ... and we learned our paranoia from the US.

The UK, is now one of the most advanced surveillance societies in the world, ranked third after Russia and China.

It is always possible for the student to upstage the teacher - although I don't think that this was the best subject with which to do it