Councils use Big Brother anti-terror law to wage war on dog shit
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), part of the government’s anti-terror drive, gave councils the power to use surveillance and to access phone and e-mail records. It’s also the law that makes BT’s plans to monitor every website its customers visit, in order to place targeted advertisements, illegal. Not that BT gives a damn. It’s happy to flout the law, because it’s big enough for the law not to be applied to it by its political allies. The RIPA was allegedly brought in to help fight terrorism, but Local Government Association chairman Sir Simon Milton has written to councils warning them that overzealous use of the powers could alienate the public, and not to use the anti-terror law for ‘trivial offences’ such as dog fouling.
Wyre Council in Lancashire believes dog shit to be at least as important to tackle as terrorists, if not more so. It has used hidden cameras to catch people who let their dogs foul public places, an action chief executive Jim Corey said was justified. “Certainly the reaction from the local population about the work has been nothing but complimentary,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “Dog fouling is at the top of their list in terms of issues they want the council to be tackling on the ground, so I know the public are only too pleased to see us catching people.”
Ah, the wisdom of crowds. A certain significant percentage would also like to see criminals of all kinds executed without trial if caught in the act. They’d also like huge tax cuts. They want petrol at ten pence a litre. And, of course, let’s not forget the classic: anyone who isn’t white to be shipped out of the country, no questions asked. Does Wyre Council intend to act on every majority prejudice and priority of its voters? In which case, we can also be sure environmental measures are off the agenda, because it is still the case that most people do not give a monkey’s toss about the planet and only care for their food and fuel being dirt-cheap.
Before you know it, Wyre Council will be holding the first new wave of witch burnings and queer-bashing parties. Because what the public wants in Wyre, the public is promised it will get. And if men are in the majority there, we can surely expect in time to see women’s rights go down the toilet and arse-pinching once again legitimised in the office and on the street. Because what the men of Wyre want, they will get.
First they came for the dog shit. Then they came for…
Crowds are invariably stupid, ignorant, ghoulish and thuggish. That’s why public executions around the world are popular spectacles, as are car crashes on motorways with other motorists and their passengers crawling at 0.2kph past any scenes of carnage in hope of seeing detached heads and blood so they have something interesting to tell folks back home for once in their lives. The twisted side of human nature is also catered for by newspapers, with lurid headlines about this or that celebrity having a boob job or fatal disease, and television dramas claiming extreme violence necessary to portray reality ‘as it is’ for mobsters and serial killers.
It seems so much easier and preferable in this late-stage society to continue feeding on the darkness rather than cultivate the light and take us higher rather than lower down the evolutionary ladder.
Politicians should, of course, listen to the people. But they should also have the courage to lead, and the intelligence to know not to introduce sloppy laws—and, when they’ve gone and done that, to have the ability to recognise at long last that they’ve made a huge mistake, go back to the drawing board, or scrap the law in question altogether.
But for now, rest assured, it is unlikely your town centre will be blown up by labradors skilled in covert turd operations working for Al Queda. Your heroes, local council officials, are on the case, bravely looking for shit everywhere except in the council chambers and their own personal lives (for the latter, we have the press to do some poking around). And remember, if you catch a council official going through your dustbin, he has the right to do so under anti-terrorism legislation—because who knows what explosive devices might be lurking inside your used tampons, baked bean cans, and snotty tissues. A family in Dorset was even followed for several weeks to see if they really did live in a school catchment area.
So what brings you to the attention of council officials? Other than your dog crapping where it shouldn’t—an issue which, while undoubtedly annoying and risky to public health, isn’t fairly handled because cat owners like myself aren’t pursued for our felines’ predilection for fouling neighbours’ gardens, simply because you can’t stop cats going where they will—nobody can ever know why they’re being watched until a court summons arrives in the post.
It’s highly debatable whether we are actually safer in the post-9/11 world—I obviously don’t think so, quite the opposite—but is life any better? And don’t we need more protection against officialdom in the day-to-day than we do from terrorists? Of course we do. For now, all we have—and it still remains powerful, in potential at least—is the ballot box. Come the next General Election, try to use your vote wisely and with some long-term thinking involved, but absolutely no focus on short-term gain.
Don’t, whatever you do, listen to the crowds. If you do focus on the short-term, and populist feeling, everyone will suffer. Including you. And your little dog too.
tags: anti-terrorism, Big Brother, crime, crowds, democracy, dog shit, elections, ignorance, law, legislation, street cleaning, votes
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