_______________________________ WHAT HE SEES AS THE POSSIBLE LONG-T...

7. _______________________________

What he sees as the possible long-term implications can best be summed up by the penultimate

paragraph of the book: ‘The history of the 20th century should remind us that democratic

institutions are not assured. They can be, and have been, captured by totalitarian regimes of both

left and right. We should not trust in the myth of a benevolent government, for while it may be

only a cynic who questions the benign intent of their current rulers, it would surely be a fool who

believed that such benevolence! is assured in the future.’

A ‘No, probably not,’ he replies after a pause. They can be effective in limited circumstances -

in car parks, for instance. And with the new generation of speed cameras, we have a chance

to reduce pedestrian deaths in urban areas. Their use on railway crossings seems highly

sensible and when cameras allow the police to find a bomber, a mugger or a murderer then

none of us could say it wasn’t a social good.

B Norris disagrees. ‘We all have something to hide,’ he says. ‘People have affairs. People hide

their true feelings about others. Are these really matters of state concern?’

C Answers to these and many other questions are to be found in Norris and Armstrong’s book,

The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise of CCTV. I decided to meet one of them in

person.

D So where is all this leading? Should we be alarmed about what is likely to happen in the

future - not tomorrow or the next day, perhaps, but some years from now?

E In other words the targets are men rather than women, young men rather than middle-aged or

elderly men. If you’re a young man in a baseball cap, then your every move is likely to be

under observation. ‘Older men are largely ignored,’ Norris says.

F Occasionally, we catch sight of ourselves on a screen in one of these places. But the real

addicts of closed-circuit television are the ones who are paid to watch, day and night. Dr

Clive Norris and Dr Gary Armstrong have spent a total of 600 hours in control rooms

watching the people who watch us. Both are lecturers in criminology and both are worried

about the phenomenal growth of CCTV surveillance in recent years. Accordingly, they set

out to ask some questions.

G If the control room spots one of these crimes taking place, it doesn’t mean that the police or

the security guards will respond, he says. ‘They have their own agendas. In our 600 hours

they went into action just 43 times.’

H The present government, on the other hand, has begun a massive program of crime reduction

and they should be congratulated on providing a lot of money for evaluation. But while the

use of CCTV continues to spread, there still hasn’t been a properly conducted survey into its

effectiveness.’

PART FOUR: WRITING

A. Finish each of the sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence

printed before it. (10 points)