Rusty Catheter: "For a start, we could measure effectiveness by subtracting the rate of airborne hijackings from the previous rate. That will give the raw data for assessing domestic airport security, that and the costs involved."

So you think evidence based policy isn't being used, eh? If so, you are wrong. The ruling political party usually makes very heavy use of evidence based policy. Their prime metric is their popularity in polls before and after measures to crack down on terrorists are announced.

As for this thread, London has had many more camera's that people for years now. Maybe it is an artefact of the IRA campaign they suffered under for so long. I doubt a few more eye's in the sky will make much difference.

As far as I am aware all the surveillance hasn't changed attitudes much. Obviously it had no effect on the train bombers, and it hasn't effected crime rates. It does have some effect on prosecution rates, as in once the crime was committed it is easier to figure out who done it. So that is a good thing.

As far as privacy goes, you still have far more privacy in a camera infested city than you do in a smaller country town where everybody knows everybody else's business. As a business owner in both small country towns and large cities, the speed and clean up rates of police in small cities, where it is likely the police knew all residents by name, was just extraordinary. Literally 100%, even if the perp came from a nearby small town. They didn't just know your name. They knew where you lived, the car you drive, where you were on any particular day, and who your friends and accomplices are, how much your earn, who you bank with, what your major assets are, what chronic diseases you suffer, and your favourite recreational drugs.

So when it comes to surveillance, the modern police state still has nothing on country cop. We in large cities live in a privacy paradise compared to our brethren in small towns.

rstuart, your points don't make a lot of sense,:

(rehearsing the set piece)

*How* many hijackings of *Australian* domestic flights prior to (say) 2000? and after?

*How* many of international flights originating in *Australia*?

Yep. *Evidence*. Carry on. you *are* fascinating.

How many trains bombed here? Buses? The only building I know of that disappeared in the night was merely iconic.

Some bloke committed a crime in another town, you're unconnected, so we're searching your house. Why here? What evidence?

I suppose some "governments" need this. We aren't (yet) one of them.

The trigger for all this was preventable with a substantial, lockable, internal hatch to the cockpit. That might have been an "expense" to the airline. Businesses don't need "regulation", citizens, the stuff that constitutes and defines the nation, do. right.
The sept11th hijackers wouldn't get past the 4x4m vestibule of the lab complex I used to work in, for reasons more to do with subject privacy than the hundreds (thousands?) of kilos of dangerous stuff in there. lab/cockpit/operating theatre: all casuals turned away.
QED.

next bit:
speaking of privacy: I grew up in a country town of approx 5000. Yep, everybody knew everybody, and gossips knew lots *about* everybody. A lot of people also made a point of *not* being nosy too. The carpet layer *doesn't* tell people what he saw in x's house, the printer *doesn't* tell how many chequebooks he overprints for local business Y, the meter reader reads it quickly and gets out. The privacy *accorded* is much greater than than the minimum possible. In a city, anonymity is greater, but any available datum is not accorded the same privacy.

All camera evidence is available to police, all transactions, go card touches, RFID's in lab/processworker/you-name-it corpirate uniforms and PPE, serials of tokens/coupons/cash issued/used, cameras on roads and bottlenecks can record every plate. No discretion, no warrant.

My position is that this *data* not be made available. A perfunctory reason might give access, thereby making it *potentially* but not bindingly evidence.

Rusty

To continue:

The whole point is the same as science. We *could* collect all data and just be confused as to our topic.

We *really* need a hypothesis that is supported by current data before justifying looking for the crucial bit more.

Similarly, all insignificant data should enjoy protection until some detective has a hypothesis thAt is reafonable to the warrant issuer.

see the difference?

Back to the robotic police:
The [[expletive deleted]] cybernetic swear box is too easily here. Dragon(tm) Naturally speaking(tm) could identify multiligual swear words and use microphone triangulation to identify the miscreant. oh, and (yet) another camera.

If a tree swears in the forest (or gets busted 200m from home after a night at the pub), a robot will hear... and completely fail to have discreton as to circumstances, background, current social events, state of sobriety, local norms etcetera. *that* is the difference between robots (and increasingly, modern police) and the country police we all remember wistfully.

Rusty

stevenlmeyer wrote:
"Big Eyes in the Sky will soon be watching Britons"

Yeah, your typical government reaction to an ill society. Attack the symptoms rather than the disease. Like that's ever worked?

When will people wake up and realize that until we get rid of the core problem, (our system of governments) all the bandaids in the universe aren't going to fix anything!

Steven, StG.
Sorry to take so long responding other issues including the potential hacking scare from GY with his sign on 'ad'.

I've watched all your site posts, thanks for that. I've seen most of them before and frankly they are toys for boys. Grown up robotic wars Grant Imohara's first love. They won't make future wars safer only meaner less discriminative.

The vehicles are still dependent on human intervention and as such just as vulnerable to the limitations of the sensors. Robotic solutions require several sensors operating in concert take one out and you have expensive junk pile not viable military 'asset', What man makes man breaks.

Add to that the further the operator is from the the action the greater the desensitised the controller is to with bystanders, "collateral damage". (Well known psychological fact) however the deeper the psychological damage to both the controller and the unintended victims. The net result will be greater alienation and greater the 'collateral damage' will lead to an escalation in asymmetric warfare and the greater the risk of terrorism. It has been argued that all that changes is the potential victims from combatants to non combatants. Any war time 'battle' advantage will limited when balanced against the inevitable response.

No one has challenged my marketing motivation why? perhaps someone can show it as wrong.
Again Steven et al. Nothing is ever that simple least of all wars of dominance. There are two viable solutions to war, pride, religion, emotions, aside total inhalation of one side or real negotiation.
In the Israel/Palestine issue the first is both unthinkable (all middle eastern people's or westerners). Limited actions only moves enlarges the battlefield, therefore the one left is meaningful negotiation...hopefully sooner than later

Rusty,

Whatever point you were trying to make with the first part of your post went right over my head. It looked like a jumble of unconnected sentences. Ditto for the bit about trees swearing in the forest. If you are trying to make a point you care about you are far better off making writing clearing your first priority. Witty and clever should be a distant second.

For what it is worth, I think we may be in agreement on the effectiveness of most airline security measures. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3359&page=0#79855

The middle bit made more sense to me. However, it makes an wrong assumption: that we can politically mandate how much data will be collected. In an age where everybody carries a camera and microphone connected to the internet, current erosion of privacy is inevitable. Data collection isn't being done by the government. Most of those cameras in London are in privately owned shops. Presumably they had done their own cost benefit analysis for putting them there. Thus your demands for the government doing one is way off the mark.

Similarly it is others than have already done their cost benefit analysis that are collecting the bulk of the data about you. Google knows your browsing habits so they can target ads, your mobile phone providers has the archive of every SMS you have sent and knows where you are at any point in time, your bank who knows what you buy, credit agencies that know your financial status. All this data is now connected to the internet, and if there is money to be made out of doing so it will be correlated and analysed. This is how the privacy erosion will happen. Sorry - wrong use of past tense. That is where it *is* happening.

stevenlmeyer's idea of the government putting eyes in the sky to monitor its citizens is frankly ludicrous. Worse, it is just a noisy distraction from where the real game is being played.