Britain and America share similar problems I can assure you.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SxSntYtkaao

Thanks to city-videocams and the internet, current western governments have more informations about their citizens, than the stalinist eastern european governments ever dreamed off. But when You talk to people You get the stupid "got-nothing-to-hide"-argument. People are totally unaware of one simple fact: Only because Your private life details aren´t illegale it doesn´t mean that those detailes can´t be used against You in some way or the other!

What you have just said Robert is absolutely true my friend and I totally agree with you

yahoo1976 wrote:

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There are about 2 billion people in the U.S

Really?


I didn't know that we had a bigger population than China.

Oh, excuse me. 305,663,261. Are you happy now? You still didn't answer the question which wasn't even presented to you. All you managed to do was take a figure that I messed up because, I admittedly was to tired to go look for, and try and blast it. I find it hilarious that Krgal will jump to the defence of superfuzzylarry every chance you get. What, you think hairylarry is going to jump in the sack with you, you chivalrous old chap? To bad you don't know larrys a dude.

What information does the government have on you?

I don´t know. That´s the point: Only the government knows! But when You consider how much of our life is taking place on the internet nowadays and how easy it is to hack a computer, it´s very likely that they have got a lot more informations than the eastern european stalinist regimes could ever dream of.

For the record, streets are public, the government has as much a right to put up cameras for law enforcement as you or I do to video whatever I please on a public street.

In more and more cities surveillance is going far beyond monitoring train stations and parking places at night: It´s infact possible to follow a person all day long through the entire city, without getting out of the chair (http://de.youtube.com/wat...2BV24&feature=related ). Let´s be aware that we as ordinary people cannot controll who´s being monitored and for what reasons, nor do we know which informations are being saved and how they will be used.

Now, talking about law enforcement and security: In a democracy the public should watch the government, not the other way around. There should rather be cams inside govermental buildings so that we can watch them and make sure that they follow the constitution.

I'll end with a question, lets say you own a business, should you be able to install security cameras if you want?

No, as You said: the streets are public. The show owners only own their shops, not the streets.