Attitudes to Surveillance in Public Places

Followers of Road Rage News will not be unfamiliar with this classic which has gone viral in the last few days, having first been picked up by the magnificent Bristol Traffic blog, then mainstream media outlets the Guardian and Telegraph. A business motorist was caught on camera verbally abusing a man who filmed her car blocking a busy road. She threatens to tell the police that he assaulted her.

The YouTube user, intrigued by a truly frightful example of arrogant motoring started filming on his vidphone. The motorist jumps out of her car, and starts pursuing the pedestrian down the street.

"You've been filming me. Gimme that phone - now! You've been filming me - it's illegal! It's illegal! Who the fuck do you think you are, filming me? I'm trying to get to my place of work - how dare you fat little lump?  

[...later...]

I want to know who you are, I want to know where you live or where you work."

She also threatens him with a fraudulent vexatious allegation (of assault) and a man (thought to be the motorist's husband) harangues and intimidatingly menaces the YouTube user.

Leaving to one side the appallingly ignorant and arrogant driving style of the business motorist who is the subject of the video and also leaving aside the harassment and intimidation she and her husband visited upon the pedestrian, what intrigues all the more is the attitude to surveillance in public places.

If Bath is anything like Aberdeen, everyone is almost always and everywhere in the town centre subject to video (and, increasingly, audio - oh, and tracking) surveillance. This surveillance is operated by civil authorities and, again - increasingly, by private security firms. As the driver of a high-ish end Audi, the business motorist who is the subject of the viral movie will doubtless be fully loaded with sat-nav and an anti-theft tracking device. All the information streams from these surveillance data gathering systems are transmitted to people (or AI expert-system statistical analysis and pattern recognition algorithms) in remote locations with unknowable proclivities and uncertain future outcomes. All of this our society has become accustomed to; if it bothers us at all, it does so only marginally. Yet, when the business motorist in the video spots that she is being filmed by a member of the public who is in plain view, who's face she can see and whom she can engage in conversation - she goes APESHIT. Why is that?

Unacceptably Intrusive Covert Surveillance

In the UK, it's a regrettable fact that we're used to being visually surveilled by closed circuit TV at all times and everywhere in public town-centre spaces - either by civic authorities when in public realm space, or by private security contractors when in commercially-operated space. Very often that commercially-operated urban space gives every appearance of being public realm space; a good example being the plaza on the top deck of Aberdeen's St Nicholas shopping centre, which connects pedestrian access between St Nicholas Street, the historic St Nicholas churchyard and Schoolhill/Upperkirkgate. It looks very much like public space, it provides a vital pedestrian access thoroughfare in the heart of the town and it just feels like a public realm space. But it isn't; it belongs to and is operated by Land Securities plc (LandSec, as they are known to insiders, is the UK's largest commercial property developer). Similarly, the border between public realm space and commercially-operated space is often ill-defined and it's difficult for the casual pedestrian to discern at what point his or her rights of way and freedom of assembly have been extinguished in favour of commercial exigencies. One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon in Aberdeen is the interface between the Rail Station and the Union Square shopping centre. The developers of the site have designed the commercial 'offering' (as they say) around pre-existing desire lines so that it's not easy for someone arriving by train in Aberdeen to find his or her way into public realm space without first passing through space which is part of the Union Square commercial venture and as so is operated by a private company.

Anyone who doubts that we have a good reason to be concerned about this; anyone who's prepared to trot out the old "if you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to fear" excuse for kowtowing to those who would surveil us at every possible opportunity should read this, and this, and this, and this. Oh, and this and this.

While we have serious concerns about the normalisation of blanket surveillance in urban space (at the risk of sounding starry-eyed naive) we at least preserve a hope that civil authorities do what they do in service of the greater good, on behalf of us all and answerable to our elected representatives. By contrast, surveillance undertaken by private security firms on behalf of the commercial operators of privately-owned urban space do so only in the service of profit, enhanced shareholder value (as they say). Still, though, at least we get warning of such surveillance - CCTV operators are obliged by law to display signs letting us all know that an area is covered by surveillance. These signs are indeed visible (adding ever more to streetfurniture clutter) in both town centre public and private realm spaces.

But now news reaches us via The Scotsman newspaper of an insidious new form of surveillance being 'rolled out' (as they say) across the shopping centres of Aberdeen.

Movements of shoppers tracked by 1984 phone technology

http://www.scotsman.com/business/technology/movements_of_shoppers_tracked_by_1984_phone_technology_1_2043604

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...unsuspecting shoppers who enter a shopping centre are now often tracked on a screen by retail staff – using their mobile phone signals to locate their path through the shops. 

Many Scottish centres are using the technology – which has been adopted by property giant Land Securities, which owns a large number of major shopping centres and has installed the tracking devices in ten of them – as well as rival Hammerson, which operates the technology at the Silverburn shopping centre in Glasgow and plans to install at its Union Square development in Aberdeen this year. 

The Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow, the Bon Accord and St Nicholas shopping centres in Aberdeen and Livingston’s The Centre are also among those north of the Border using FootPath, created by Path Intelligence, which is behind a range of technology to help shopping centre bosses plan their layouts. 

Path Intelligence chief executive Sharon Biggar refused to admit whether the technology was even in use in Scotland for “data protection” reasons – although she did acknowledge that it was utilised in centres in the UK and six other countries around the world.“We are not allowed to reveal the names of any of our clients because of data protection laws,” she told The Scotsman. However, while the company fiercely protects its paying clients, it does not give shoppers the same privacy. 

The refusal to list where this technology is in use means that shoppers are unaware that they are being tracked – unless they spot the small signs alerting them to the practice. However, even if they do see the signs, there is no option for them to opt out of the scheme without turning off their mobile phones. 

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To which we'd add that the great majority of today's mobile phone handsets cannot be fully powered down without removing the battery, and so your phone will respond to a tracking ping even if you might think you've turned it off. 

This same Ms Biggar, of Path Intellegence, manufacturers of the intrusive surveillance technology, is also quoted in the Aberdeen Citizen freesheet ("BEST [sic] free newspaper in Scotland"):

"We are very open with the public. We ask our clients to have signage up where the system is operating. The signs are exactly the same as the ones for CCTV"

Yet, when we pass through Bon Accord and St Nicholas shopping centres, while we can see the signs which warn us of CCTV surveillance, we see no signs whatsoever warning us that we are to be subjected to this new form of distasteful electronic-tracking intrusion. The only indication of this novel and intimidating privacy-busting technology you get is if you manage to spot the sensors themselves. Here's one, it's about the size of a hardback book:

See if you can spot them next time you visit the Bon Accord and St Nicholas shopping centres! 

FootPath Technology 

http://www.pathintelligence.com/en/products/footpath/footpath-technology

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The Path Intelligence FootPath system consists of a small number of discreet monitoring units installed throughout the centre. These units calculate the movement of consumers without requiring the shopper to wear or carry any special equipment. The units measure signals from the consumers' mobile phones using unique technology that can locate a consumer's position to within a few metres. These units feed this data (24 hours a day 7 days a week) to a processing centre, where the data is audited and sophisticated statistical analysis is applied to create continuously updated information on the flow of shoppers throughout the centre. At any time the shopping centre management can access the data via PI's secure web-based reporting system.

The FootPath technology is the only system available on the market today that can gather information on shopper paths continuously and accurately. FootPath can be installed in one centre or across a portfolio, providing you with quantifiable information to help you monitor your centre and assess the impact of your business decisions.

[our emphasis]

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Interesting to note that the system is not closed; that is to say that it is not an discreet network within only the building it serves. Rather, the data that the system gathers is transmitted to a Path Intelligence central processing facility. (Who knows where? Most probably this function is itself outsourced to an offshore number crunching data centre.) The data, once analysed, is then distributed via the internet back to the subscriber. We cannot know whether this is local Bon Accord or St Nicholas centre management, or some central management facility of Land Securities plc. In any case, it's not just the shopping centre security contractor, nor the shopping centre management or owners who have access to information about your movements, the providers of the tracking technology also gather that data. We have to ask ourselves how we feel about this. Did you like the bit where they said that shoppers are "not required to wear or carry special equipment"? We suppose we should, at least, be thankful for that!

It is telling that, even as the operators of our shopping centres fail to notify us of the fact that this intrusive surveillance is taking place, the providers of the tracking technology make capital of the fact that the monitoring units are discreet. Why, unless they fear a backlash of public disgust and outrage, would the unobtrusive physical footprint of the tracking units be regarded as one of the benefits - the unique selling points (as they say) of this highly intrusive development in our cities? It's as if they're trying to keep their data-gathering activities as covert as possible.

Someone should tell them - if they've nothing to hide, then they've nothing to fear.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Nos!

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If you ever think about it, you might simply assume that the minds at the other end of these cameras must surely belong to police, or at least directly police-employed civilians; if not that, council-employed security 'professionals'. In any case, we think, they must be vetted and qualified (if only by our tacit consent) authority figures. We might not even think about it at all; the cameras which surround us being the quintessential symbol of authority, we intuit at a non-conscious level that the surveillance system is operated by the same authority which operates the mechanisms of the law (or at least civic order within the public realm). The surveillance system is the law, the law is the state and therefore, the surveillance system is the state. While everything's going along nicely, we have no reason to imagine that there's any distinction. While everything's going along nicely, we might even imagine that, as citizens of a democracy, we are, ourselves full active participants in that Leviathan state, happy to submit to authority because that's us - l'etat, c'est nous. It is only when things start going wrong - economically, socially, politically - that the contradictions inherent in our comforting and comfortable assumptions are exposed.

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As with all things, the market changed the reality while our lazy statist assumptions had us looking elsewhere. All that is solid melts into air. CCTV control rooms up and down the country are outsourced to Big Name Brand security enterprises like Optimum, Reliance, G4S (web address: policingsolutions.co.uk) and the like. And these big box security brands themselves routinely subcontract the monitoring of the CCTV feeds out through recruitment agencies who also provide their employee/subcontractor operators with the necessary SIA Licence training (for a fee of about £150). The subcontracted staff often work at home, using their own PC's to monitor the CCTV feeds they are allocated over a 'secure' internet link.

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The market accommodates all needs, so the race to the bottom is on. With a certain acknowledgement of inevitability, we learned of a burgeoning trend - CCTV crowdsource monitoring. 

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http://interneteyes.co.uk/

Internet Eyes

Detecting Crime As It Happens

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Internet Eyes is an online monitoring solution, allowing our registered members to view live CCTV camera feeds from our Business Customers, and notify them the instant a crime is observed.

"The Internet Eyes system does its job! I've caught a number of people stealing or acting suspiciously."

Amit, Bargain Booze - Cumbria

Viewers of Internet Eyes will have their ID and ages verified and are required to pay a membership fee to join our community. Payment of the membership fee helps prevent misuse of the system and acts as a barrier to entry to stop voyeurism. Internet Eyes has therefore established a rewards policy as outlined below so that memberships fees and more can be returned to Viewers in proportion to their usage of Internet Eyes and their vigilance.

• A reward fund of a minumum of £1000 pounds per month will be shared between most vigilant members who have made the best contribution to the prevention or detection of a crime.

• A usage reward for time spent helping the community by monitoring live CCTV footage

• A reward for recommending a friend 

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We observe with curiosity the hollowing out of arbitrary monolithic state-enabled authority as surveillance turns itself inside-out and, under the logic of market forces, metamorphoses itself into something else. (Crossveillance?... Transveillance?) Are we watching the development of a grass-roots culture of voyeristic paid and amateur delatores? Is the CCTV/laptop nexus the new bocche dei leoni?

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Disorderly events in England have provoked an outbreak of grass-roots "name and shame" initiatives on social media. We relish the irony that some aspects of that same social media are blamed by the statist politicians for enabling those same disorderly events, and we note that, with their knee-jerk responses being unhindered by their feet of clay, the statist politicians call for a ban on social media. It is also true that some aspects of the disorder were enabled by the oxygen which is present in our atmosphere. Will the statists seek to ban that next?

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http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/pm-tries-lock-down-social-media-police-virtually-name-and-shame-134096

ADWEEK

PM Tries to Lock Down Social Media As Police Virtually Name and Shame 

Riots and social media, help or hindrance? 

By Kari Lipschutz

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British Prime Minister David Cameron told an emergency meeting of parliament that he wants to crack down on rioters, and the social media that helped them to organize.

Cameron said he would like to meet with industry leaders, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Research in Motion, in order to see what could be done to prevent future riots from being orchestrated online. "[W]hen people are using social media for violence we need to stop them," Cameron said. "So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these Web sites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality." His comments caused outrage among free-speech groups.

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Notwithstanding the present difficulties between some communities and certain police forces, one of the cornerstones of our freedom against arbitrary state action in this country remains our centuries long tradition of policing by consent. The police are civilians and civilians are the police. Police organisations are not subject to political control and do not stand separate from the communities they serve and are integral to - to draw a distinction is meaningless (at least for the time being). Police organisations must remain integrated with our communities at the most local and closest, most immediate possible levels for freedom against arbitrary state action to be maintained. Contrasting with his soft-anarcho "Big Society" platitudes of the last few years, current events have revealed our prime minister's Big State authoritarian instincts. Mr Cameron wrongly believes that he is the state and demonstrates that he would very much like to rule by decree. The police are rightly happy to point out the error of these assumptions: Sir Hugh Orde of ACPO has quickly and publicly rubbished our prime minister's salivating desire for watercanon and rubber bullets on the streets; Sussex police call social media a "force for good"; and Manchester's police are cocking a snook at the pm's dislike of social media by using it as a cornerstone of their riot follow-up policies. Lipschutz' article continues...                      

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As the prime minister tries to clamp down on social media use in the face of rioting, the Greater Manchester Police are doing just the opposite. The police force there has made more than 170 arrests in connection with the riots thus far, and have launched an initiative to virtually shame those that have been convicted. Using their Twitter feed, the Greater Manchester Police has starting publishing the names, birth dates, partial addresses, and sentences of perpetrators. "We promised we’d name all those convicted for their roles in the disorder — here we go …," the Twitter feed read. The police force is aware that their line of action is controversial, but is unapologetic for their choice of tactics. "Lot of debate about publishing details – courts very clear, justice should be done publicly," they tweeted.

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With thanks to regularly contributing commenter uair01 for drawing our attention to "Internet Eyes"

NTHNTF

In the flat bottom of the broad valley of the Ruthrieston Burn, between Garthdee and Morningside, lies an old fashioned public playing field. Overlooked by two or three blocks of recently-refurbished tenements on one side and the disused railway line on the other, the full-sized football pitch is complemented by a kiddies playground with swings, a chute and the like. The old railway line, trackbed now tarmac, is today a major commuter route for cyclists and an evening stroll for dogwalkers. But no-one ever uses the football pitch for football. Once muddy six yard box now tussock heavy grass. No nets are ever strung from these corroding municipal goalposts. The bar has fallen rusted broken from its supports at the east end of the pitch. Last week we noticed that now even the posts are gone. A football pitch with only one goal.

Just a little further down that same valley, high fenced and high-tech locked £35-a-match astroturf football pitches for rent are high-energy blue mercury-arc lit at all times to a certain level of brightness. The CCTV system which operates primarily as surveillance of the adjacent ASDA car-park provides the security footprint. Shipping containers double as changing facilities and equipment lockers, raising in our minds the questions: Just what exactly is the nature of the commodity being freighted? By who's agency is this freight being consigned, and to whom is it being delivered?

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ABERDEEN CITIZEN

"BEST free newspaper in Scotland"

MATCHES AIM TO KICK OUT BAD BEHAVIOUR

A NEW scheme has kicked off in an Aberdeen community in a bid to cut antisocial behaviour. Grampian Police are running football matches in the evenings for youngsters in Garthdee. The initiative, being run in conjunction with ASDA Garthdee, hopes to slash problems caused by youths.

ASGA general manager, said: "ASDA Bridge of Dee is delighted to be giving youths the opportunity to participate in regular football matches."

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"This election Communication printed and published on behalf of Gordon Townson"


SNP DELIVERING FOR GARTHDEE


There is a council by-election taking place on 23 June in the Garthdee ward. The SNP candidate is Gordon Townson. As a former police officer with 30 years experience, Gordon has worked as a community officer and education liaison officer.


A former chairman of Grampian Police Diced Cap Charitable Trust, he currently coordinates the Jasmine Charity Challenge, working with several schools across the region, bringing schools, charities, and businesses together to help young people maximise their potential through career opportunities.


Gordon has a wealth of life experience and is well placed to serve your area with enthusiasm and integrity. He will work hard for his constituents if you elect him on 23 June.


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http://www.prosource.it/sparkie.html

Grampian Police has been gifted a new pint-sized patrol car.

The fuel-efficient Chevrolet Spark - the smallest in the force fleet - has been paid for by Belmont Chevrolet and Aberdeen-based Prosource.IT.

Now the car – the first to carry the "Local Policing. Closer to you" logo – will be used as part of a cost efficiency drive by officers of the divisional Mobile Support Unit (MSU)

Aberdeen Division Chief Inspector George MacDonald said: "I would like to thank Belmont Chevrolet and Prosource IT for their generosity."

Belmont Chevrolet Aberdeen sales manager Mark Stevenson said: "The Chevrolet Spark has a low vehicle excise band of £35 per year and a combined urban fuel consumption of 55.4mpg. This makes it a cost effective motoring platform. With its punchy engine and manoeuvrability it's ideal for use as an urban commuter vehicle. Belmont and Chevrolet are delighted to support Grampian Police and we feel this is an excellent example of the Chevrolet Spark igniting its appeal to our communities for cost effective motoring."

Prosource.IT director Alan Cowie added: "We're an award-winning global company headquartered in Aberdeen. We decided to put our money where our mouth is by supporting our local community in this innovative way. We see this partnership as an extension of our business principles and are delighted to support Grampian Police."

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http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/scots-film-on-trump-resort-ignites-anger-1.1106366


A BITTER row has broken out over a documentary film on the building of Donald Trump’s controversial new £750 million golf course and resort near Aberdeen. The film, which includes footage of Baxter’s arrest, is very critical of the behaviour of the Trump organisation, the economic and environmental planning of the golf course, Scottish reaction to it and Grampian Police’s apparent determination to defend Trump’s interests.


“Water and power is cut off, land disputes erupt, and some residents have thousands of tonnes of earth piled up next to their homes,” the storyline runs. “Complaints go ignored by the police, who instead arrest the film’s director, Anthony Baxter."


Baxter said he was particularly concerned by the role of Grampian Police. Within half-an-hour of interviewing one of Trump’s employees he claims he was put up against a car, handcuffed, taken away, had DNA and fingerprints taken and equipment and footage confiscated.


“After all this I am supposed to think the police are impartial. I call on them to make an apology.”


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http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.com/2011/05/scottish-police-chiefs-back-single.html

O'Connor who is president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (Asps) said:

"The election is over, the new Scottish Government is in place, and now is the time to get down to business. I hope we will see an end to the negativity and scaremongering in the debate on the future of Scottish policing."

O`Connor added:

"The majority of Asps members support a single force. Even with significantly enhanced collaboration between the existing eight forces, the service is not sustainable. Similarly, we do not believe that moving to a rationalised regional model would deliver the level of savings and improved outcomes that would be available in a single service. More importantly, if we are going to change we should do it only once. We do not want the cheapest service, we want the best."

O'Connor’s final pitch was:

"A single police service would mean that policing would be directed nationally, but delivered locally."

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1 COMMENTS:

Anonymous said...

I agree with your narrative all things being equal. Although to balance the proposal this will be more centralisation of a potential malicious police-state in what is already a covert police-state.

Where will the checks and balances sit in this? Freemasons? Jesuits? Bankers? Who will wander onto these [local and national] boards? Common Purpose graduates?

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Barriers to the Increase of our Aberdonian Photon Collection

Earlier this week, we were at Aberdeen Art Gallery, looking at the Aberdeen Artists' Society 2011 show. Which we recommend.

But that's not what we want to discuss today. During our visit, I took a handful of photos - some interesting photogenic aspects of the building's structure caught my eye. Here's some:

No sooner had the shutter closed on that last photo than an attendant started hassling us, saying that photography was forbidden. He indignantly told us that it was forbidden in some parts of the gallery, but not others. In those areas where photography was not forbidden, we'd have to fill in "a form" with "all your details" and then wait to see whether permission to take photos would be forthcoming. We were told that this system had been instituted "in the last few months". 

This is bizarre and disturbing. Taking photographs in art galleries is not something weird, unusual or sinister or dangerous. It's not subversive and it's not harmful; I've been doing it all my adult life in art galleries all over the world. Let us be clear: we can understand a restriction on photographing new work - the new work in the Aberdeen Artists' Society exhibition, for instance. It is perfectly reasonable that the artists would prefer that that new work not be photographed. (Yet the paradox exists that photographic copies of lots of the exhibited work are available in the exhibition catalogue for three quid, and the Aberdeen Artists Society Facebook page has lots more.)

But that day I wasn't even photographing any of the artworks in the gallery - and I told the attendant so. "Oh aye, they all say that" he retorted pugnaciously, but he did not ask to review the shots I'd taken. He appeared elbows-out chin-juttingly personally resentful of the very fact of our existence, and the fact that I laughingly questioned his unquestioning enforcement of a nonsensical rule nettled him greatly. He nearly had steam coming out of his ears. 

This is the fourth time that I have been approached and dealt a rebuke for simply taking photographs - collecting photons - in Aberdeen. First time was a couple of years ago on the top deck of the St Nicholas Centre, the second time was the now (in)famous incident on the top of the car-park of the Union Square shopping mall. Thirdly, the police traced and interviewed me after I'd photographed an office building in the west end of Aberdeen, and now I am told of severe restrictions on photography at Aberdeen Art Gallery. The frequency of these ridiculous rebukes is increasing. What's going on?

A contrasting experience perhaps helps illuminate the situation in Aberdeen. We were in London earlier in the spring, and found the time to visit the world-famous Tate Britain gallery. Stuffed full as it is of artworks of permanent global importance, we took loads and loads of photos there. At Tate Britain (just as at all other public galleries, except in Aberdeen) the attendants appear to actively accommodate visitors who want to take photos. Sometimes restrictions are put on flash photography for understandable conservation reasons; but otherwise, photography is regarded as desirable and normal; expected and even necessary for the living artistic health of a gallery, its patrons and its attendees. Why is it different in Aberdeen?

William Blake
'Thus did Job...'
One of many photos we took in Tate Britain

After enjoying Tate Britain, we crossed Vauxhall Bridge and took loads and loads of photos of the most security sensitive building in the UK. We hung about on the waterfront terrace in view of  CCTV clusters and MI6 spooks on balcony ciggie-breaks, who could see perfectly well that we were openly photographing interesting aspects of the building. We were not approached; we were not prevented from doing what we wanted to do. Earlier in the day, we'd passed outside the Ministry of Defence and we took a few photos. Again, unchallenged. And we'd lingered outside the fabulous modernist slab-and-plinth edifice of Millbank Tower, home of the ruling Tory Party, and again we took some photos. Again, unchallenged. Why is it different in Aberdeen? 

Spook Central

 

General Central

Tory Central

How is it that we can take as many photographs as we like in a world famous art gallery in London, but we're effectively prevented from doing so in the minor provincial gallery in Aberdeen? How is it that we can take as many photographs as we like of extremely sensitive sites involved in national security, defence and government in London, but the police only take an interest when we photograph a shopping mall and office building in Aberdeen? What the devil is wrong with this town?

A room in the Aberdeen Art Gallery complex where we were told that photography is strictly forbidden is the fantastically neoclassical Memorial Court. We were told by the attendant that it is "disrespectful" to photograph war memorials. What? Why then does the Aberdeen Art Gallery website host its own photos of this room? Is this photo somehow less "disrespectful" than any I might take?

Again, to contrast this attitude with what we experienced during our recent visit to London; when we walked along Victoria Embankment we were entranced to see the new-ish Battle of Britain Memorial; a high-relief frieze by Paul Day. So emotional, engaging and moving is this memorial, so popular is the site, that kids even pose for photos interacting with the memorial; they act taking part in the fighter-pilot scramble, they touch it, understanding history. Photos help reinforce these impressions, they buttress our memories - helping us remember; a personal memento for a public memorial. What's disrespectful about that?

Why is it different in Aberdeen?

I Walk, I Cycle, I Look, I Think. I am the Bad Man of Rubislaw Hill.

I've just been Krakened!

After yesterday's upbeat feeling when we reported that maybe the tide was turning for the creative and progressive sections of Aberdonian society, we've been brought back to earth with a thump provided by the agency of our burgeoning police state and its ad-hoc amateur army of self-appointed busybody petit-police informants who have been empowered by the urgings of Operation Kraken - which we've complained about specifically before.

Denburn flows beneath Seafield House
'underground' carpark at Hill of Rubislaw

A little while ago, on the 10th of April, I was up on the Hill of Rubislaw. There are many, many interesting aspects to the geography, industrial archaeology and current use of this part of our town and the human interaction with that geography. We've got quite a lot to say about it, and will do so over the coming weeks and months as part of several interestingly intersecting projects. So there I was, on a mountain bike that day, photographing the Denburn as it disappears underneath the carpark of Seafield House. There are no signs which prohibit access, there are no notifications that the space is private; footpaths and roads criss-cross the site providing access from all sides and various routes across the campus.

Seafield House is a huge office building, once occupied by UK state oil corporation Britoil, latterly occupied by multinational plc oilco Shell, now split into suites with various occupants, some empty. Shell are still in some of those suites, I think. I took a handful of photos and had conversations with a couple of private security guard petit-police who (obvously having espied me on their CCTV panopticon monopticon screens) emerged from their airless cabin and took an indignant interest in what I was doing, they asserted (incorrectly) that I required permission to take photographs. I told them I was working on a writing / geography project, and they seemed to accept that. They didn't bother asking to see the photos I'd taken. They did ask my name. I declined to provide it. In hindsight the way they 'dealt' with me is quite fascinating and enlightening. One of these private-security guards was a blond-dreadlocked white-rasta multi-pierced crusty-type. When I explained the parallels between the non-underground underground carpark of Seafield House at Hill of Rubislaw - the way it fills the valley of the Denburn at that point - and how it parallels and provides a precident for the notorious proposal to fill in another part of the Denburn Valley further downstream, he agreed with my aims in wishing to point out this parallel. I can now see that this was one of the ways that these people have been trained to 'contain' non-conforming behaviour - I thought I'd made an ally for progressive urbanism - I thought I'd made him think, but all the time he was making me reveal my hand, reveal details about myself, and once I'd gone he got on the phone to the police. Stupid me.

Denburn re-emerges from beneath carpark
and Seafield House

So today, the police come to the door of our studios in the upscale heart of downtown Pituxton, demanding to be let in to interview me about this "incident" at Seafield House. ("Incident"?) As far as I was aware, I had a conversation with a couple of over-officious security guards who appeared to accept my explanation as to what I was doing - it's stretching a point to label this an "incident", surely? As I hadn't provided the petit-police with my name, I was surprised that the real police had managed to connect me with the "incident" at Hill of Rubislaw. It is of great concern to us, and a source of anguish and worry that police resources and capital have been expended in reviewing, cross-referencing and collating CCTV footage in order to arrive at an identification of me.  The footage was circulated within the police, presumably via some sort of internal notification communication system, and seen by a significant proportion of their officers, until one could identify me (no doubt from my 'footprint' left by the famous 'incident' at Union Square.) We cannot say how many police man-hours have been expended in making that cross-reference identification. Maybe they have AI expert systems based on fuzzy logic which help them make these connections. But perhaps we're getting just as paranoid as they are if we start to think like that - robot overlords, the singularity is close, etc...

Sign says "Underground car park"
But it isn't "underground" at all...
It's build into the natural contours of the Denburn Valley

In any case, with so much time and manpower being spent on mopping up the fallout from our perfectly legal activities which impinge on no-one else's rights, it seems clear that we've become quite a pest to the authorities (or businesses, or something) - what with all that walking and cycling around and noticing stuff and thinking about it and writing about it. How dare they accuse me of any wrongdoing or assume that I am intent on causing harm? Our intentions are quite the reverse. Yet there they were, in our studio, two Grampian Police officers excusing themselves that they had to investigate the "incident" because of the "terrorist threat". Really. The female officer said that she understood that what I had been doing at Hill of Rubislaw was harmless, but that nevertheless she was duty-bound to follow up, just as the petit-police were duty-bound to report me to the police. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, it all sounded a  bit "we're just following orders" to me.

During the interview with the police, which was conducted in the working studio of our business, surrounded by the tools of our trade and by artwork in progress strewn around the place in various stages of completion, I was insultingly asked by the interviewing officer: "Do you work, at all?" It was firstly incredible to us that she didn't notice that she was actually within a place of work, but secondly, and probably more pertinently, what difference should it make whether I work or not? Is it as if the unemployed are all evil with malfeasance on their minds, more likely to be involved with terrorism?

"Ground" level. Parking in the Denburn valley beneath.

I expressed my incredulity to the police officers as they stood in my studio, implying stuff. I expressed my incredulity that the petit-police at Seafield House, while appearing to accept my explanation on the day had actually taken the puffed-up indignant and self-important time to take the 'matter' further. "Oh, but they've got to report 'incidents' like these, d'you see" the female police officer patronisingly assured me.
"Incident?" I asked, eyebrows raised.
"Oh yes, there's a heightened level of threat at the moment," the policewoman told me. "Just look what happened in Morocco."

Yes. That's what she said. Words almost fail us. We find it offensive in the extreme that my taking photographs of buildings and burns in the West End of Aberdeen should be compared to the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents in a faraway foreign country characterised by unstable social, political and religious conditions. It is sick and sickening. The minds which make these connections are sick, it sickens discourse (this being an example) and it is part of the ongoing pathology of the society which we had hoped to help to remedy. It makes us nervous about our whole lives - nervous of finding things interesting - structures, textures, imprints, buildings - nervous and afraid to share the delight we find in the things we find interesting. Nervous to even write this. I steel myself and write on...

It sickens us to our stomachs that we're being made to feel bad about our way of life, our interests and the way we explore our city in order to reach an understanding of its past, present and future. In this way; in our own small way we hope to help influence societal development here, to try to make our future in our town better, livable, human. We care about our lives in our town, we care about this passionately - which is why we look so closely. And then for this we have to explain ourselves at length, to authority figures (and petit-police para-authority figures) who think it's just weird to look at a river and wonder where it goes. We submit that it is we who are normal and they who are weird, using as they do their authority to nosey in about and ask us impertinent questions, to compare us to terrorist murderers and to keep and refer to records on us at the behest of private security part-time self-empowered petit-police squinting suspiciously at their CCTV screens, hating, fearing, paranoid. We have done nothing wrong. We should have nothing to fear - yet we feel the yolk and shackles of suspicion beginning to chafe. As they have managed to identify me, and come to my door simply from pictures of my likeness, we wonder just how deeply their investigations into the background of my private life have gone. It's a creepy feeling.

It is becoming clear that by looking at, thinking about and writing of our surroundings in the way we do, we stand out to a degree which is increasingly regarded as unacceptable in our society. There is a Japanese saying "The nail-head that stands out will be hammered flush". Our interest in urbanism has prompted a three-week police investigation and has brought officers to our door: We just felt the hammer.

We'd like to say to the interests which wield that hammer:

Stop guessing! Go out and catch some effing criminals; go out and gather some intelligence on those who perhaps do wish to cause harm to people, property, society - these people emphatically are not us and you know it. Stop trying to stifle the creative people in Aberdeen, for one day you'll find there are none of us left. Our patience is wearing thin.

Of course, by writing all this, we are putting ourselves further in view as outliers. We are nail-heads that stand all the further out. By oppressing us and attempting to suppress our perfectly innocuous actions - by attempting to hammer flush the nail-heads - the authorities and para-authorities provoke our further criticism.

And so on...


Edit:

A friend points out that I'm probably not right to believe that I've been tracked by my likeness on CCTV:

...the way I'd do it would be look at the cellphone info to see whose phones were in the cell, get their numbers, id the owners. Fairly straightforward if you are in a position of power. Not that I do, but just saying. Going to CCTV mode is so inefficient.

Indeed, and thanks for that.

After having had a few days to reflect, we think that the most interesting aspect of the story is that the police went to the bother of tracking me. It strikes me that the Oilco's here in Aberdeen may be behaving a little like those A+ list celebrities (Tom Cruise and the like) who ban eye-contact with their underlings. Shell are saying "don't you dare look at me!"

We think that there are three possibilities for the police having followed up on the security guards' reporting of my presence in this semi-private semi-public place.

1. Oilco paranoia - police willing to act as oilco agents and deliver me a fingerwagging rebuke for daring to notice that there are oil company premises in Aberdeen. Police owned by business. We're doomed.
2. Genuine fear of terrorist attack by slightly chubby middle aged man making no attempt to hide his actions and happy to discuss what he's up to with the security guards. In which case the three weeks they took to getting round to intercepting me simply demonstrates their incompetence. We have no hope of these officers protecting us from genuine malfesance. We're doomed.
3. Mechanical box-ticking follow-up by-the-book. 

Of these, we reckon that the third is the most likely. It's the book that's wrong. It still makes the security-guards and police guilty of 'just following orders' by the agency of 'by the book' and incapable of autonomous action which would allow an independent response to unique circumstances. We're doomed.

Unplugged Panopticon Brimmond Hill

The young man, pulling his overcoat around him against the late-winter windblast, sits enthroned on the topmost cairn which marks the summit of Aberdeen's Brimmond Hill.

The summit of Brimmond Hill is overburdened with a surfeit of psychogeographical artifacts: An OS trig-point pillar; the large summit rubble-cairn; a flagstaff - the saltire flapping and snapping, the banner new this year but already fraying from its extreme exposure; a dual-use war memorial/orientation rose; picnic benches and an earth-station for the microwave relay network. The summit of Brimmond Hill thrums with metaphorical and real-world significance. A nexus of networks offering different meanings to all the different (but few) people who come to the summit - every one for a different reason.

From his vantage on the summit cairn, the overcoated man can scrutinise the airport and its splendid new Buckydome-encased landing-radar station and he can discern the harbour's sea-wall and its guiding light. He can make out the route of the current A90 and he can pick out the planned route of the forthcoming Aberdeen bypass. He can see the Aberdeen exhibition centre, the telecoms relay station at Cairncry and the industrial estates of Altens, Bridge of Don, Kirkhill and Westhill. On a clear day, and if his eyes are good enough, he might be able to make out the standing stones at Tyrebagger. Maybe, if he squints, he can see some of the public art on the side of Elrick Hill. And, if he's really eagle-eyed, he'll be able to detect the OS trig-point pillar on the summit of Kingshill.


As I approached the cairn. I noticed that the young man was hunched over - intent on his task; earnestly working at a sketchbook. I didn't interrupt his work, and stayed out of his eye-line. I wondered what was the specific subject of his sketch. So much to see - too much, surely, to draw as-seen in one panoramic artwork from the viewpoint of this natural Aberdonian panopticon. Perhaps he was sketching the topography of our town, for this would be about the best place to discern the three-dimensional shape of the landscape we inhabit. Perhaps he was drawing something unrelated to the view - sketching from memory or imagination and his location here was merely for the peace and solitude. Maybe he wasn't drawing at all, maybe he was writing. I don't know.

One thing I do know is that - as I sat at a picnic bench sipping my coffeeflask and regarding the transmitter trusses and stanchions, taking photos and speculating upon the young man's endeavours - both of us were engaged in activities which some officers in our police force would like members of the public to report to a special hotline.

[On March 1st this year, Assistant Chief Constable Bill Gordon of Grampian Police appeared on local TV news, calling on members of the public to report "suspicious activity". This "suspicious activity" taking the form of individuals snapping photographs or making notes regarding (amongst other things) "significant buildings", "locations" or "bridges". This is supposed to protect us from terrorism. Yes, our police are actually encouraging people who live or work on the coast to register with them as "members" of what they call "Project Kraken". We can't remember the name of the society to which the child informants belonged in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but we'll assume that being a member of Project Kraken is something like that.]

As the pair of us surveyed the world we live in (I cannot know what conclusions my summit-companion was drawing - either literally or figuratively) I asked myself whether the police's incitement to suspicion is a characteristic of a country which I would choose to live in had I any other choice. To ask the question is to answer it.

Fear the Kraken

The taste of living in Aberdeen got a little more bitter yesterday with the launch of Grampian Police's "Project Kraken". The Kraken is a mythical sea-monster from Norse tradition - big as an island. Look it up if you want.

The announcement of Grampian Police's implementation of Operation Kraken was, in our opinion, fittingly monstrous. Appearing on North Tonight STV News, Assistant Chief Constable Bill Gordon of Grampian Police called on members of the public to report "suspicious activity". This "suspicious activity" taking the form of individuals snapping photographs or making notes regarding (amongst other things) "significant buildings", "locations" or "bridges". This is supposed to protect us from terrorism. The police are actually encouraging people who live or work on the coast to register with them as "members" of Project Kraken. We can't remember the name of the society to which the child informants belonged in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but we'll assume that being a member of Project Kraken is something like that. There'll be a quarterly newsletter. Really, there will. O how we wish we were joking.

We [Grampian Police] are also asking users and residents of the Grampian Coastline to register with Project Kraken free of charge. As a registered member of Project Kraken you will receive timely information updates by email, and a quarterly newsletter providing a summary of local and national incidents and activity that might be of interest.

In addition, you will be added to an email distribution list which will be used, when appropriate, to circulate urgent information and intelligence updates. There may also be times that we contact you with a request that you assist us in ‘observing and reporting’ particular individuals, groups or vessels.

Well, we photograph a lot of this sort of stuff a lot of the time. We also sometimes take text or audio notes. For instance, the photo at the top of our pages has Aberdeen's North Pier, Breakwater, Guiding Light and Harbourmaster's Tower photographed at the exact moment of the turning of a very high tide at the mouth of the Dee. We exhibit this photograph because it is both photogenic and metophorical. It's apparent aesthetic appeal or esoteric message can be appreciated by the viewer as they wish. Also apparent in the photo is the old, now redundant, Harbourmaster's tower, this too is significant to our aims at Other Aberdeen.

We photograph and discuss infrastructure because our human world is made of infrastructure. Part of the human condition is the story of our interaction with the infrastructure which we have summoned into being, this is one aspect of the human adventure which most fascinates us. Without infrastructure, we are like any other mammal; individual or tribal, our daily concerns are those of feeding, family and shelter. When the individuals and tribes of humanity are connected and serviced by infrastructure we transcend this baseline animal condition and become a collective society, a wider culture: a civilisation. When Other Aberdeen chooses an aspect of infrastructure as a suitable subject for psychogeographical exploration, we are looking at nothing less than the atoms of civilisation. It fascinates to see infrastructre planned and built, it satisfies to see infrastructure humming with vitality, used to full capacity. Then, at the end it similarly delights to see older, redundant infrastructure obsolesce and decay back to a trans-natural post-industrial state.

One Source of the Ferryhill Burn

One of our very first posts last year: Somewhere in Aberdeen coyly alludes to this idea. The photograph is of a pond at Hazlehead which, at one time, was one of the headers to the Holburn/Ferryhill Burn. The dammed pond was used along with a sequence of others to control the volume and speed of the water flowing into the water course. That water, in turn, turning the wheels of industry at the Justice Mills, Ferryhill Mill and Dee Village Mills. This was a water course which worked hard before it was allowed to drain into the Dee Estuary. It powered one of the means by which our nascent city nurtured itself with an industrialised food source.

It's industrial vitality (and vital industriality) now gone, the pond enjoys a photogenic retirement as an ad-hoc nature reserve. Man-made though it was, nature is taking it back, and the process is quite beautiful. Literally and metaphorically.

We usually try our very best to avoid using cliché, but clichés come into existence because they are true. Therefore, today we have no compunction in saying that we can't make up our minds whether a police initiative which might stop us taking nice photos is Ballardian, Kafkan, Orwellian or (Ray) Bradbury-esque (per Farenheiht 451).

That the police are asking members of the public to inform on photographers and others with an interest in this sort of stuff promotes a culture of secret denunciation like that of pre-Napoleonic Venice. Moreover, as pointed out by these people, the collective visual history of our country is extinguished by anti-terrorist initiatives designed to protect the heritage it prevents us recording. The irony is not lost on us. It further troubles us that these exhortations from the police will empower those who have an unhealthy interest in exercising arbitrary power over others. We have famously posted about this before.

Whatever it is, it's disturbing, it's unsettling, it's an affront to our freedom and a constraint upon our ability to go about our lives at our own liberty as free agents. To offer another cliché:

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.  

(As Benjamin Franklin is purported to have said.)

The fact remains: in the west we are by far more likely to be struck by lightning, or killed by our family doctors than we are to be killed in a terrorist outrage.

Here's a photo of a bridge (co-incidentally, at the turning of the tide):

(With our thanks to reader spottiewattie17 for the heads-up.)