By Frank Manning
It seems some councillors cannot see the writing on the wall when it comes to councils using covert surveillance to snoop on residents. The Northern Echo reports that Darlington Borough Council considers their use of surveillance (a frankly staggering 124 times since 2007) appropriate.
The Conservative councillor Charles Johnson criticised the Council’s use of the RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) last week, instead advocating their use only for serious crimes such as benefit fraud. But Chris McEwan, the Council’s Cabinet Member with the Portfolio for Efficiency and Resources, was bullish in his response:
"I make no apology for using these powers… If people object to the use of these powers, they need to speak to the residents I deal with who are asking for us as a local authority to deal with inconsiderate neighbours who make noise, people who cause anti-social behaviour and shops who sell to underage drinkers.”
Considering those residents have no way of knowing if they themselves have been under surveillance, I wonder if they would appreciate the use of expensive, wasteful and intrusive methods of snooping on local residents. These people have been monitored without their knowledge, simply on the whim of a council, with no accountability and no requirement of reasonable suspicion. How anyone can justify using these methods to deal with something as trivial as noise is astounding.
In a statement which showed his lack of awareness on the issue, another councillor Bill Dixon, claimed:
“Whose civil liberties are we putting first here? I would put the civil liberties of the victims above the civil liberties of the perpetrators…. I don’t understand why something that works so well, and has no history of abuse, is being targeted in this way. It beggars belief.”
Aside from the litany of abuses of the RIPA, discussed at length by Big Brother Watch before, including monitoring a family to check if they lived in a school catchment area, the fact that Mr Dixon does not even realise the damage done to civil liberties by the misuse of the RIPA truly does beggar belief.
Thankfully the coalition has announced that:
“We will ban the use of powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) by councils, unless they are signed off by a magistrate and required for stopping serious crime.”
The sooner these changes come into effect and councils no longer have the power to justify these wildly disproportionate levels of surveillance the better for everyone… except Darlington councillors, apparently.
I can't understand his reaction!
Posted by: jobs online | 19/04/2011 at 02:07 PM