two approaches

[solarbird]

Big Brother is shouting at you. Quoting from the article:

Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

I mean seriously.

"Smith!" screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade."

The really creepy part is the comments section on the news item - specifically, the comments from all the people who like it.

Of course, I should be used to that sort of creepy WTF at this point, given the arguments I've been having over torture and executive power - not Presidential, we no longer have a President - but I guess it's good that things can still creep me out. For some low value of good. I mean, hell, it could be worse. The executive could be handed the power to unilaterally declare martial law or something, over the objections of governors, thus gutting posse comitatus and nationalising the various state National Guards. Oh wait - that already happened. Congress added a little clause in the 2007 National Defense Authorisation Act - in conference committee without debate - making it dramatically easier for the chief executive to do exactly that.

Not only does this Conference Report unfortunately drop the Empowerment amendment entirely, it adopts some incredible changes to the Insurrection Act, which would give the President more authority to declare martial law. Let me repeat: The National Guard Empowerment Act, which is designed to make it more likely for the National Guard to remain in State control, is dropped from this conference report in favor of provisions making it easier to usurp the Governors control and making it more likely that the President will take control of the Guard and the active military operating in the States.

The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor. When the Insurrection Act is invoked posse comitatus does not apply. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy, and it is for that reason that the Insurrection Act has only been invoked on three — three — in recent history. The implications of changing the Act are enormous, but this change was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.

I guess between the style of authoritarianism and the substance, Britain is picking the style, and the US is, well...

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

Wheee! http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/06/10/28/1934208.shtml

and http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/

[banner.livejournal.com]

Has that bill been passed yet? And where the heck is the news media? This is just the kind of crap that they're supposed to be reporting on!

I hate not hearing about this crap until it's too late. There was a big change made in Posse Commitatus when Clinton was President in his 6th year that was equally ignored. This makes me really worry what the next step will be and just who the hell is pushing this? Why are both parties apparently turning a blind eye to it?

I'm not so sure that this is a Bush issue or a War on Terror issue, because this ties in to well with the previous change 8 years ago. This may be leading up to the ultimate State's Rights vs Federal Rights court case. In which case I think pushing for Justices that lean towards state's rights over those that lean towards federal rights should be the litmus test.

While I'm willing to give the government and the executive some extra powers during a war, there is a big limit, and posse commitatus has always been a wall I didn't want to see weakened. Nor do I want to see the executive given the right to declare national emergencies and martial law without Congress agreeing to it.

I think it might be time to go buy some more rifles...

[solarbird]

Has that bill been passed yet? And where the heck is the news media?
Yes; it was signed the same day as the torture/habeas corpus bill in a private signing session. And I don't know, in that order. It's a huge change - yet another huge change towards consolidating unfettered power in the executive - and yet there's hardly anyone talking about it other than a tiny handful of independent lefties, a short list of Democrats, and Slashdot. firni's links above are pretty much the only other two out there other than Free Market Network News, and even their blub was just a link to the second story above.

[risu.livejournal.com]

Do you have a pointer to info on the previous Posse Commitatus change? (Ideally a neutral source but anything with enough data to investigate further from would be great.)

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Nice to see the effect of small government and protecting state's rights in action. Ayep.

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

Given that they're watching you already, I don't think it's a huge problem to let you know about it. It's not much different from what they've done on railway stations for years - they'll do announcements over the PA system if they see some kid riding a bike on the platform or whatever.

[solarbird]

...I'm surprised you don't seem to mind. That's not what I'd have expected. Really, you don't think this is a one-way turbo-charger for arrogant government employees? There's a big difference between in person (where you can be seen) and by remote (where you can't), psychologically. The CCTV enforcer is anonymous, and the target surely isn't. I'd call that a big change.

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying I don't mind, just that it's the same as on railway stations. You can't see the announcer on railway stations either.

If I were going to mind something it would probably be that we have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else in the world. Bit late for that.