If you don’t read Famous for 15 Megapixels and you live in Britain, your quality of life and understanding is not really where it could be.
My friend who is responsible for the inspired Minority Report alerted me to a video that Stef had posted about, which reminded me of my Oyster card(s).
I recall that I have two, both unregistered of course. Not that it really matters.
If you register your Oyster Card, the police can, without your knowledge, determine the extent of all your London Transport wanderings. (Am I the only one bemused and irritated about “London Transport” becoming “Transport for London”? Why add an extra word? Why change the word order? Was it to make it sound more cuddly? Did some agency get paid to come up with the new name? Was there a tender? Did someone get bribed? Why????)
My cards are anonymous, unregistered. If they get stolen, I lose what’s on them. Tough. I just look after them. Not difficult, because unlike some people, I am not going to get stupidly drunk and leave my wallet in a cab or something.
Talking of drinkers, does anyone notice how people drink beer and lager and alcopops? The way they prepare for the alcoholic onslaught by opening their throats and mouths to get as much reason-bypass-fluid down their anti-social, selfish, boorish gobs? Makes me sick just watching how society is just turning into a simulacrum of the gin-drinking-proles of Orwell’s 1984. Which brings me neatly back to my point….surveillance.
In the whole of 2004, the Metropolitan Police made 7 requests for access to the Oyster Database, but in January of this year alone, they made 61 requests.
Not having my card(s) registered is not going to make a big difference. If Big Brother really exists, he knows how to add 2+2 and identify my Oyster Cards with the rest of my electronic existence already.
I’m not sure I actually buy the whole Oyster card as Surveillance thing. It sure is convenient - and it saves paper - and it saves time. It doesn’t however, save lives. There is no evidence available on whether the 7/7 suspects used Oyster cards (unlikely, they weren’t from London), so if they really were terrorists (unlikely on the balance of probabilities) then looking at the Oyster database wouldn’t have yielded any clues. Looking at surveillance tapes on the other hand, or rather, hard-disk data, would be very revealing. Nothing from the Underground has ever been released.
It’s simple. The Democracy That Keeps Us Safe doesn’t want to catch terrorists. Determined terrorists are never caught. What the bastards want to do is watch and control us, while constantly keeping us in fear. I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
Access to the Oyster database is just about defensible in the search for truly abhorrent criminals, but Tony Blair, George Bush and the corporate raiding scum of the earth don’t use public transport. They’re the ones creating the systems.
“Suspect Nation” also mentioned a new child register, on which the details of all 11 million of this country’s children would be kept, available to 400,000 civil servants nationally. Top politicians and celebrities would be able to opt their kids out, for the sake of security. I’m sorry, but I don’t want a nonce (or ten) in the fucking civil service to know about my kids, thank you very much, while Madonna’s or Tony Blair’s kids go about un, erm, molested.
Surveillance is apparently good in underground car parks. I say, pay a security guard! Nothing deters violent, predatory criminals like human presence. Well, uniformed human presence anyway.
While I’m moaning about good jobs being taken away, I don’t recall any stabbings on buses manned by a conductor in addition to a driver. Now, they are routine. All of the crime on buses today, including the petty stuff like scummy people damaging public property by putting their feet on seats, gum on seats, piss on seats - that doesn’t happen with a conductor.
Society pays a price for efficiency. Just like we pay a price for an ID card system that isn’t designed to stop terrorists, but to spy on us. Al Gore in the programme I’ve referred to likens the addition of surveillance data to that already available as “piling on more hay when we’re trying to find a needle in a haystack”. You’ll never find the needle. Accept that there’s a price to pay for liberty. Accept that it is a very small price in comparison to drink driving or being invaded by America. Accept that the only way to reduce the chances of a terrorist attack is not illegally occupying land and stealing its resources.
The worst kinds of terrorism are tyranny, poverty and genocide. The answers are liberty, equality and justice.
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Patricko 11.27.06 at 3:13 am
I stumbled across your blog a few days ago whilst googling for something quite different and it’s been an excellent read (it’s now bookmarked, in fact).
Incidentally - if you care - the reason that London Transport became Transport for London lies in boring technicalities. When the Greater London Act was passed, TfL was set up as a new subsidiary of London’s government, directly answerable to Lord Ken. Due to Ken’s objections to PPP funding for the tube, central government retained London Underground in the old LT (which until TfL’s existance also regulated buses and suchlike) until the PPP contracts were sorted out. Thus Ken’s new body needed a different name. They handed LU to TfL in 2002 when the PPP contracts were finalised, tying the Mayor of London to PPP for a decade.
Olive Ream 11.28.06 at 11:48 am
Once again - a perfectly penned post for public perusal. Bloody well done!
shahid 11.28.06 at 12:37 pm
@patricko - thank you for the education - so these things *do* have a reason…and yes - I do care!
@Olive Ream - Bro - thanks for the support - you are on of the biggest reasons this blog keeps on going!
The Antagonist 11.28.06 at 4:35 pm
Sorry, Mr Suspect Paki, you’re wrong about the Oyster Card and I have a feeling you’ve not filled out an application form for an Oyster Card for your kids yet.
Quoting directly from a 14-15 Oyster Photocard Application form:
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Section 2: Signature (Parent/Guardian’s consent) (Mark [x] where appropriate)
I consent to the Metropolitan Police Service and other police forces in areas where TFL services operate transferring the information set out in Section 3 paragraph 5 (see page 4) for the purposes specified.
If you do wish to give such consent, mark [x] here [ ]. If you do so, the applicant will be eligible for the free travel concession on London’s buses and trams.
If you do not wish to give such consent, mark [x] here [ ]. By doing so the applicant will not be eligible for the free travel concession on London’s buses and trams.
Section 3, Paragraph 5
If you have been granted the free travel concession on London’s buses and trams and your parent/guardian has given consent in Section 3 overleaf, the Metropolitan Police Service, British Transport Police, City of London Police and other police forces in areas where TFL services operate may transfer to TFL details of any criminal convinctions, warnings or reprimands, and the cirumstances relating thereto, issued in relation to offences committed by you on the TFL public transport network. We will use this data for the purpose of ticket administration, including the possible withdrawal of the photocard and/or free travel concessions.
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Poor and working class people are criminals because they are poor. Meanwhile, the rich, ruling class fucks whose every effort is dedicated to ensuring the poor and hungry remain poor and hungry, are all above the law - even when they are provably genocidal mass murderers who should swing for their crimes against all of humanity in much the same way as previous Nazis did.
If ever a revolution of the people was needed, it is needed now, before - and this is the crucial bit - before they bring the psychotic, trained-to-shoot-two-year-olds troops back from their dehumanisation missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other less well reported parts of the world.
shahid 11.28.06 at 8:53 pm
Dear Mr. Antagonist, there will be a part 2 to the above post and I will cover Child Oyster cards. Thank you for reminding me of why I didn’t fill out the form I read about a year ago…but then….I might have no choice…which is exactly what the fuckers-who-should-swing-for-their-crimes want.
Dave 11.29.06 at 12:41 pm
Yeah…
I think coercing people to register their cards through bribery isn’t much better than forcing them. At least we know about it this way.
FYI in many cities, such as Strasbourg when I went to university, registering your “badgeo” (equivalent of Oyster) is compulsory unless you want to buy single tickets every time which comes to twice as much. I ended up walking everywhere, but at elast in London it’s still possible not to register your Oyster.
Nice blog BTW