WE’RE THE METRO POLICE, AND YOU ARE ALL UNDER SUSPICION, HAVE A NICE DAY

[defrog]

In which Cory Doctorow continues his coverage on efforts of the London police to fight terrorism with ad campaigns that urge citizens to report suspicious activity – even when it’s perfectly ordinary activity that people do every day.

These new ads, for example, urge you to go through yr neighbors’ garbage and report anyone who seems to be looking at those CCTV cameras over there.





Bruce Schneier calls this the War On The Unexpected, and he has a brilliant essay (written a year and a half ago) explaining why it’s a bad idea, along with dozens of links citing examples of this sort of thing (many of which occurred in the US as well).

It’s worth reading.

Refuse to be terrorized,

This is dF

Comments

[zen-kitty.livejournal.com]

Whoa. This sounds too much like the 21st century version of McCarthyism.