Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Update #1: Odd Photographers


Just a quick update on yesterday's post on the Metropolitan Police's hunt for odd photographers.

Here's the script text from their radio spot"

Female Voice over:
How d’you tell the difference between someone just video-ing crowded place and someone who’s checking it out for a terrorist attack?

How can you tell if someone’s buying unusual quantities of stuff for a good reason or if they’re planning to make a bomb?


What’s the difference between someone just hanging around and someone behaving suspiciously?

How can you tell if they’re a normal everyday person, or a terrorist?



Male voice over:
The answer is, you don’t have to.

If you call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321, the specialist officers you speak to will analyse the information. They’ll decide if and how to follow it up.

You don’t have to be sure.

If you suspect it, report it.


Call the Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321 in confidence.


(you can listen to it here)

This is just bad in so many way's I don't even know where to start (leaving aside the implied sexism of the actual sound version)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Breeding suspicion and paranoia. Sounds like a genuine solution to a problem, and furthermore a clever sidekick to an aggression towards an idea. Finally the IDEA of terrorism will be conquered beneath the "trigger happy" scared observations of the entire populous. While we're procuring paranoid lunatics let's offer everyone free medical body scans so they can know every little minute problem in their body and start farming hypochondriacs as well. First of all, like I read in a previous posting, most photographers are a little odd anyway, with eccentricities that grab attention. It's bad enough that surveillance (especially in England) is at an all time high, slowly stealing any shred of personal space that might exist in the world, that now the government and police have to adopt every pair of eyes with sight as another camera. People cameras: whose the odd photographer now? And furthermore, protecting the people? Protecting their freedom by placing it in a glass box is more like it.... "but you can have it on saturdays".... thanks a ton for all your services, I'll just be on the john while you scrutinize my stool.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a commercial from the 50's.

i hope they get so many calls they wont' know what hit them.