• Media Enquiries

    07505 448925(24hr)

Unmanned airborne CCTV set to monitor us from on high

Flying cctv Sensational documents released to the Guardian through an FOI request have found that:

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the "routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE.

To reiterate, the government is backing a project to fill our skies with CCTV to search for 'anti-social motorists' – and Orwell takes another step from fiction writer to soothsayer.

According to the report:

Five other police forces have signed up to the scheme, which is considered a pilot preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for "surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering". The partnership's stated mission is to introduce drones "into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies" across the UK.

However, by far the most worrying part of a story that is sure to shock any right-thinking individual is the following:

…officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

Expanding the level of surveillance in this country is bad. Doing it by sending unmanned drones into the skies to watch for petty pointless crimes like bad driving while the number of stabbings and shootings rise is worse. But to talk about selling the data these drones provide to private companies is absolutely outrageous.

If these plans succeed, not only will their use effectively turn Britain into a police state, in which every citizen can be closely monitored by those in authority, we will become a nation in fear of our government – the complete opposite of how a democracy is supposed to function.
 
I am confident that the British people do not want their sky filled with airborne spy planes watching them 24 hours a day and anyone who tries to implement this technology will find themselves deeply unpopular.

However, the simple fact the idea has been mooted is further evidence of the scale of the Big Brother ambitions of our current political leaders.

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCTV, Overbearing state
  • Lee Floyd

    Should we be afraid? Should we be concerned? Should we worry for our children? We have all gone collectively crackers. And yet, we will not protest, we will not confront the nameless who impose this. We will live a harder, less secure and threatening future. We have the Government we deserve.

  • j

    When one of these things crashes into a school playground …………

  • Al in HK

    You can’t complain because then your name goes on a list…
    Glad I am no longer in the UK!!!

  • Shy Hermit

    Drip, drip, drip. Bye bye quality of life. Sorry, I said the “Q-word” there.
    Well, I have already long-since given up going out of the house for pleasure or recreation. My immediate environment is too unpleasant for that. It feels like a concentration camp. Still it is never good to hear that it continues to get worse out there.
    Actually these things are becoming available on the open market. Perhaps I ought to get one of my own, so I can engage the police drones in arial battles in case I ever want to go for a walk in the countryside with a rucksack on my back and risk triggering a nationwide flytipping alert.
    The police are just people like anyone else, good, indifferent or corruptible to the same degree as the rest of us. How long before we hear of these drones being used for unofficial surveillance of ladies sunbathing in their back gardens? Or worse.
    I do not believe that all the people in this government are as ignorant as their totalitarian policies suggest, but they seem unable to shake off the toxic residue of Mr Blair’s horrible antinomianism.
    Are we not men?

  • David in Scotland

    Time to take up clay pigeon shooting and get some practice in, I reckon.

  • j

    This is actually sick.
    It crosses the line.

  • http://www.gocmc.org Gasper

    I agree with your post except the bit about our current political leaders. Do you think this kind of thing will change under anyone else?
    Bottom line is that all governments want more control over their electorate/citizens/slaves and it will happen no matter who is in power.
    The balance of power is far on the side of those in control, those who are supposed to work for us. Soon we’ll all just accept our place unless we wake up and start demand services rather than directives.

  • http://jess-the-dog.blogspot.com/ Jess The Dog

    I can’t see this ever getting “off the ground”!
    Military UAVs are “flown” by aircrew – pilots and navigators. UAVs will have to comply with CAA regulations regarding the use of airspace, to the standards of flight safety. The costs in training will be way beyond the means of any police force.

  • Mishmash

    Re the sale of data: DVLA are already doing it and the councils’ electoral services departments are getting ready for it: “Britons to be asked for NI number, date of birth and signature to get right to vote”. See more at:
    http://www.no2id.net/newsblog/2010-01/revealed-britons-to-be-asked-for-ni-number-date-of-birth-and-signature-to-get-right-to-vote/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+no2id-newsblog+(ID+in+the+News)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a66f1060970b twitter.com/capybara10

    Time to get the radar installed in the loft and watch for the drones intruding over my airspace.

  • http://yahoo.com kate

    there is no way to stop what is happening to all free people. We are slowly all becoming less free every day. I see a future of police states, cameras, taps, bugging our phones and computers. OH wait…they already do all of that, thanks to homeland security. This will all end very badly if fear. All I know to do is pray but we mut not be complacent. If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. pink floyd

  • J. Swale

    Whether it happens or not, this shows the thinking of the police as to how they regard limitations on their power, i.e. none.
    This and the many other things they have imposed on us without any oversight whatsoever, ANPR being just one, show just how out of control they are.
    They must be reigned in.

  • LeChiffre

    @Shy Hermit re the Q-word
    “Britain falls to 25th best place to live in the world… behind Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Hungary
    Packed roads and a soaring crime rate helped put Britain 25th in the Quality of Living index, leaving us behind countries such as Lithuania, left.
    Full Story:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1240988/France-tops-list-best-places-live-world-fifth-year-row–Britain-languishes-25th.html
    07 January 2010
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk “

  • ZacS

    Hmm, how much for an automated model rocket launcher?

  • http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com FaustiesBlog

    This is the result of the police being 51% owned by a private corporation. What do corporations do, if not try to make money?
    People railed against privatising the NHS – why did they imagine that privatising the police was going to be somehow more acceptable?
    Many believe that Orwell’s 1984 was just a novel. In fact, Orwell was privy to the goings on in his time (the Fabians, the eugenics monsters, the scientific socialists and the occultists), and sought to warn the world – which he did, via his book.
    At the time, these issues were openly discussed and it was only when the public became outraged that it went underground, assisted by the silence of the press. So much so, that people who spoke about it were labelled conspiracy theorists!
    You couldn’t make it up!