New British surveillance system to monitor all cars in the country

[Real American]

Wasn't Overseer lecturing us Americans that we are living in a police state because our government was eavsdropping on the communications of suspected Al-Quada members?


http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=496457

Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey
Posted: 12/23
From: Source
 
 From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of ?24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.

The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.

"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.

"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent."

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of ?24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.

The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.

"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.

"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent."
 

[J @ M @ L]

Wasn't Overseer lecturing us Americans that we are living in a police state because our government was eavsdropping on the communications of suspected Al-Quada members?

Don't get it twisted, you Polack... it's not just "suspected Al-Qaeda members" the government is spying on...

[Real American]

Don't get it twisted, you Polack... it's not just "suspected Al-Qaeda members" the government is spying on...

Who else is it?

[J @ M @ L]

Don't get it twisted, you Polack... it's not just "suspected Al-Qaeda members" the government is spying on...

Who else is it?

The government is taking away everybody's liberties and freedoms. The kid who checked out a book on communism... was he a suspected Al-Qaeda member? You're so brainwashed, it's not even funny.

It's also ironic how the same people bitching about "the government should play a minimal role in our lives" are the same ones who support shit like this.... not only that, but they're also the same "patriotic" Americans who want to defend our "freedom"... and somehow.. Giving up freedoms = Defending them... idiots.

[J @ M @ L]

This is what I was able to gather in a matter of 2 minutes... you fucking retarded Polack..


http://www.kansas.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13506607.htmsource=rss&channel=mercurynews_local
http://www.thecolumbiastar.com/news/2005/1230/Opinion/020.html
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4299035&nav=4QcS


CBS/AP) The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls without court orders than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

The story did not name the companies.

Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al Qaeda.

But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunications data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.

The story quoted a former technology manager at a major telecommunications firm as saying that companies have been storing information on calling patterns since the Sept. 11 attacks, and giving it to the federal government. Neither the manager nor the company he worked for was identified.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said the use of warrantless wiretaps on American citizens was never discussed when Congress authorized the White House to use force against al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In an article printed Friday on the op-ed page of The Washington Post, Daschle also wrote that Congress explicitly denied a White House request for war-making authority in the United States.

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.

"The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently contained in the resolution adopted by Congress — but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to insert the additional language," the South Dakota Democrat wrote.

Daschle was Senate Democratic leader at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. He is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

The administration formally defended its domestic spying program in a letter to Congress late Thursday, saying the nation's security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored.

In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against the United States.

"There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake with respect to the activities described by the president," wrote Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella. "That must be balanced, however, against the government's compelling interest in the security of the nation."

Mr. Bush has acknowledged he authorized such surveillance and repeatedly has defended it in recent days.

But Moschella's letter was the administration's first public notice to Congress about the program in which electronic surveillance was conducted without the approval of a secret court created to examine requests for wiretaps and searches in the most sensitive terrorism and espionage cases.

Moschella maintained that Mr. Bush acted legally when he authorized the National Security Agency to go around the court to conduct electronic surveillance of international communications into and out of the United States by suspects tied to al Qaeda or its affiliates.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/23/politics/main1165139.shtml

[7even]

I agree it's very funny for republicans who have phrases like "I'm proud to be a republican - for less government in our lives!" hanging on their wall to be cool with that.
I guess dogs just eat whatever they are given

[Real American]

I agree it's very funny for republicans who have phrases like "I'm proud to be a republican - for less government in our lives!" hanging on their wall to be cool with that.
I guess dogs just eat whatever they are given

You guys are so incredibly stupid it isn't even funny.

Republicans are for limited government in most areas. However, national security is one area where the government definitely needs to take a large role,otherwise we will have more 9/11's.

[J @ M @ L]

I agree it's very funny for republicans who have phrases like "I'm proud to be a republican - for less government in our lives!" hanging on their wall to be cool with that.
I guess dogs just eat whatever they are given

You guys are so incredibly stupid it isn't even funny.

Republicans are for limited government in most areas. However, national security is one area where the government definitely needs to take a large role,otherwise we will have more 9/11's.

That's what separates a true American such as myself from a Polish immigrant who's nothing more than a blind scoundrel.... I know true American values... you don't... your mind is still stuck in Poland...

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin (I'm not sure if you know who he is, you Polack, but you should do some research on him... especially if you want to live in my country)

[7even]

I agree it's very funny for republicans who have phrases like "I'm proud to be a republican - for less government in our lives!" hanging on their wall to be cool with that.
I guess dogs just eat whatever they are given

You guys are so incredibly stupid it isn't even funny.

Republicans are for limited government in most areas. However, national security is one area where the government definitely needs to take a large role,otherwise we will have more 9/11's.

Shut the fuck up pretending that you ain't a fuckin sheep. You support whatever the fuck is done. You're like a devoted Laker-Fan, supporting EVERYTHING Kobe and the rest of the team do. The only difference is that this is about a more serious issue than sports and people are dying. Faggot ass sheep. I'm a wolf and I'm just trying to change your paradigm of perception for the better. You should THANK me. Ungrateful fuck.