No CCTV - campaigning against camera surveillance in the uk and beyond
no cctv

Site Search:

Privacy Protected search  

Latest Reports

 
Latest Articles/News

UK state makes play for ''law breaking powers'' - more...

''Proportionality'' used to rubber-stamp mass surveillance - more...

Mass Surveillance & the Dark Web of Pick'n'Mix Law - more...

New mass surveillance database and 1984 action day - more...

The silent increase in London's mass surveillance network, one year on... - more...

Magna Carta - our ancestors never imagined we would stop short - more...

When The Language Of Freedom dies, Freedom Dies With It - more...

Orwell's warnings as relevant as ever - more...

CCTV Looking Out For Them Not You - more...

8th June 2014 - Time For Big Brother to Retire - more...

Body cameras - The 5 Laws of FFUCams - more...

The Manufacture of ''Surveillance by Consent'' part 2 - more...

International Group condemns Facewatch - more...

Landmark CCTV case in Australia - more...

The Manufacture of ''Surveillance by Consent'' - more...

New CCTV Code Consultation - more...

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Hits Out At ANPR - more...

Government appoints CCTV yes man ... again - more...

Open letter to UK Surveillance Regulators - more...

Where to mate? 1984 please - more...

Britain under attack from 'talking' CCTV cameras - more...

Internet Eyes and media politics - more...

Back to the Future - UK CCTV debate stuck in time loop - more...

Royston's ANPR ''Ring of Steel'' - more...

Surveillance Camera Code Con - more...

No CCTV's Freedoms Bill submission - more...

CCTV / ANPR and the Manufacture of Consent - more...

Face Covering: Guest Article - more...

Mr Jolly at Parliamentary Committee - more...

Protection of whose Freedoms Bill? - more...

Exposing Naked Scanners - more...

Bad Boy of the Week - more...

BrumiLeaks, CCTV and democracy - more...

The true cost of CCTV? - more...

ICO's Surveillance Society follow up report - more...

CCTV citizen spy game launches - more...

Freedom not Fear demo in Germany - more...

Speed Cameras, ANPR and Project Columbus - more...

It's not as simple as CCTV cameras or crime - more...

Fox to review Birmingham CCTV chicken coop - more...

Rubbish CCTV - more...

CCTV in tower blocks - more...

Have your say on naked scanners - more...

The Surveillance State will not be beaten at the ballot box - more...

Pre-election warning - more...

CCTV election plege - more...

CCTV Robo-wardens - more...

Naked scanners update - more...

CCTV drones - more...

Naked scanners, naked CCTV and barefaced lies - more...

No CCTV on Red Ice Radio - more...

Scots fast becoming most surveilled in the UK - more...

Government appoints CCTV yes man - more...

BBC runs prime-time advert for CCTV game - more...

CCTV in Scotland: Broken Record - more...

Watch No CCTV's presentation - more...

ICO complaint seeks to halt CCTV game - more...

ANPR - policing by consent? - more...

Intenet Eyes - more...

Project Javelin - more...

Hounslow's ''Promise 10'' - more...

Silly Season, Schools and CCTV - more...

BBC breaches charter - more...

CCTV makes crime go up! - more...

CCTV Agenda creeps forward - more...

ANPR - the expanding network of checkpoints - more...

Proposed bill - CCTV expansion in disguise - more...

Students fight school CCTV - more...

Police's surrealist CCTV poster - more...

Victory in police surveillance case - more...

Study confirms ineffectiveness of CCTV - more...

Google Street Update - more...

Anti-CCTV advertising campaign - more...

Surveillance related consultations - more...

Councils misuse of surveillance - more...

Pub Landlord's CCTV victory - more...

Google takes curtain twitching to a new level - more...

Police admit storing images - more...

Back door CCTV expansion - more...

CCTV in pubs - more...

Modern Liberty Convention - more...

Surveillance report slams CCTV - more...

CCTV case at High Court - more...

Forest Fields Folks Against CCTV - more...

Cowley Road CCTV switched on - more...

Play the CCTV Treasure Hunt - more...

CCTV spies on diners - more...

2009: will decision makers heed CCTV warnings - more...

Beat the recession - cut CCTV - more...

London: In the Kingdom of Big Brother - more...

Update: CCTV sanity in Devon - more...

UK and Iran agree on CCTV and Human Rights - more...

Senior police officer calls for CCTV debate - more...

DPP slams surveillance state - more...

Body cams - more...

Freedom Not Fear - more...

CCTV in schools update - more...

Guilty...until we get the CCTV clock fixed - more...

NO CCTV in L'Express - more...

NO-CCTV finds the plot - more...

CameraWatch call for ''upgrades'' - more...

Blackpool CCTV review - more...

More evidence against CCTV - more...

CCTV industry calls for more cameras - more...

Security expert's CCTV warning - more...

Brown sexes up CCTV - more...

David Davis resigns - more...

China's CCTV laboratory - more...

Halt CCTV expansion - more...

UK surveillance sharing - more...

Cowley Road CCTV delays - more...

National cctv strategy starts to bite - more...

cctv in schools - more...

Police admit crime falling - so why install CCTV? - more...

CCTV sanity in Devon! - more...

cctv is a waste of money - more...

No cctv at oxford radical forum - more...

Magna Carta - our ancestors never imagined we would stop short - 15/6/2015

Magna Carta
Image by John Vandenberg

The following article from 1817 [1] is as relevant today as it was then.

"All the laws in favour of the people, which form what is popularly called the constitution, are so many proofs of the endeavours of our ancestors to produce a constitution ; they are excellent in themselves ; but they are isolated parts of a whole, which was never completed. Our forefathers no doubt, expected the thanks of their descendants for the privileges they had ensured to them, for the path they had chalked out for us to pursue, but they never imagined we should stop short in the career, and be content with sitting down to admire what they had done, instead of applying our own shoulders to the wheel, and imitating their glorious example, in the perfection of the work so nobly begun.

The mistake has been a fatal one. States must either proceed, or retrograde. While we contented ourselves with boasting of our advance, we have been silently, but rapidly falling back. Abuse has been piled upon abuse, and every popular advantage has been loaded with the weight of corruption. The people ought to have remembered that they were the guardians of the constitution. Instead of that, the simpletons expected protection from the constitution ; which is in fact nothing but the recorded merits of our ancestors. The country has boasted of being free, because Magna Charta was enacted ; when the least share of penetration would have taught us, that Magna Charta was only enacted, because our ancestors, were determined to be free. Our ancestors, with swords in their hands, and the tyrant John on his knees before them, would have been just as free, whether they had insisted upon the signature of Magna Charta, or not. Their freedom was in their power, and their will. It was only to exhibit to their children the means that made them free, that they left this memorial to after ages.

It was the promulgation of the spirit that influenced their actions that was valuable, not the endorsement of a few honest sentences upon a skin of parchment. Our ancestors did more, than could have been expected from the state of knowledge at that time; but they have been far from perfecting the work of legislation, far from finishing the temple of civil liberty. Their progress, however, shames the retrogation of their degenerate race. We have suffered the fabric to decay, and fall to pieces. We have been totally neglectful of repairing the ravages of time, and the pitiless pelting of the storm of tyranny. The foundations are sapped, the baneful ivy has crept into the crevices, and eat away the battlements that it seemed to support. It has become the residence of the most unclean birds, the most obnoxious animals. Let us earnestly set about the work of cleansing and repairing the edifice. Where it has been found weak, let us fortify it ; where it has been found narrow, let us enlarge it. Our ancestors were not led by the dull interpretation of ancient precepts. They followed the light of liberty, wherever it led them. They were not to be intimidated by the power of a prince, or the measures of a ministry. They opposed force to force, and fought their way through all impediments to freedom and to honour. Could this conduct be honorable in them, and would it be treason in their successors, if they were placed in the same circumstances ?"

When the language of freedom dies, freedom dies with it.

Endnotes:


Posted in Anti-CCTV general - 15/6/2015

email:   rss feed