More surveillance please, we’re British
Manchester, England looks likely to get a congestion charging scheme to penalise motorists using the roads when they are most needed. As a sweetener, some of the revenue raised will be spent on local public transport.
It’s a hotly debated topic, and whilst the basic purpose - to reduce rush hour traffic - is a Good Thing it has many implications which need to be thought through. These incude the effect on Manchester businesses, house prices, the cost of deliveries, disadvantaging the less well off, increased pressure on public transport and so on.
Quite separately, I want to know why increasingly, the solution to social questions appears to be the installation of more cameras to snoop on law abiding citizens. City centre drunkenness? CCTV will solve that! Worried about knife crime? You won’t mind being watched wherever you go, if it catches criminals, surely? We are way past the thin end of the surveillance wedge, and Britons are now routinely spied on in the interest of law and order.
The Manchester congestion charging scheme encroaches further on our right to be left alone to go about our lawful activities without being watched by the authorities. In order to charge motorists for travelling in a particular direction at a particular time, a network of cameras is needed to watch every road going in to the city. This will be linked to an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system which looks up the vehicle’s registered keeper in a database. So they know who you are, where you live and where you are going at what time.
Manchester will have not one but two cordons of these cameras. A vast and complex surveillance system installed not to combat terrorism, speeding, vehicle theft, murder, or any other crime, but simply to ease congestion.
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October 2nd, 2008 at 9:27 am
A Manchester professional services representative group called pro.manchester (made up of over 280 member firms in sectors such as accountantcy, banking, legal and construction) has decided to keep secret the results of a ballot of members on congestion charging. They had previously said they would publish the results, but now even those who voted are being denied this information.
Meanwhile, the Greater Manchester Momentum Group rightly continues campaigning for the rejection of the current congestion charging proposals.
In December 2008, all Greater Manchester residents will be asked to vote in a public referendum. In the meantime, residents and businesses can have their say online.