Spy planes should target terrorists, not tractor thieves
Richard Littlejohn The Mail Online Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:19 EST
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A consortium of government agencies, led for some reason by Kent Police, is planning to launch a fleet of unmanned spy planes, similar to the military drones used over Afghanistan.
According to a report in The Guardian, these will 'greatly expand the Government's surveillance capacity and revolutionise policing'.
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Inevitably, the drones will be used primarily to advance the war on motorists, rake in fines and provide exclusive car- chase footage for rolling news channels and shows such as Police, Camera, Action.
You can also guarantee that they will be horribly abused. Already, Town Halls are utilising anti-terror legislation to catch people who let their dogs poop on the pavement or pretend to live inside a popular school's catchment area.
Officials are using satellites to search for undeclared conservatories and patio extensions for the purposes of calculating council tax.
Do we really want to 'greatly expand the Government's surveillance capacity'? Britain is already the most spied-upon country in the so-called 'free' world, cluttered with cameras, most of which turn out to be absolutely useless at anything other than churning out speeding tickets and parking fines.
A motorist in Scotland has just been fined for blowing his nose at the wheel. Imagine what could happen if the zealot who issued that ticket gets his hands on the controls of a drone.
This obsession with technology is another manifestation of the surveillance and punishment culture which has mushroomed under Labour.
Police chiefs and civil servants are always looking for the next big opportunity to extend their powers rather than getting on with the jobs for which they are paid.
If this sinister scheme gets the go-ahead, pretty soon the skies above Britain will be a Dresden of drones.
Quite apart from the civil liberties implications, there's also the cost. These planes are around ?3million a pop, before they're kitted out, and need a back-up ground crew of at least ten people.
Last time anyone looked, Britain was technically bankrupt. We can't afford to allow councils and police forces to spend tens of millions of pounds on military hardware, just so that they can play soldiers.
Oh, and one other thought. They probably won't work.
These drones have been hovering over Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal badlands for the past eight years and they still haven't found Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man.
What chance have they got of catching a tractor thief in Kent?
