Taxi Driver Online

Yes TDO parking in a disabled bay may be an offence, and if someone does so they may be fined or whatever, but I am not so sure about these things being done remotely by CCTV for example, after all you may have broken down or been taken ill, how would they know?

The point I was making was about Civil Rights, does CCTV breach article eight of the ECHR, and what about the Data protection act?

What about intels lip reading software,

http://www.intel.com/technology/computi ... /avcsr.htm

AVSR could be an interesting one as it develops, not only will they be able to watch your every move they would also be able to lip read what you were saying


The funny thing is when a crime is committed, and by crime I mean a crime against the person or their property,assaults, murders, rapes, burglaries etc these are often seen as the norm now in this Country now, try having a Cigarette though, even although they are very happy to take your tax you are public enemy number one.

Wars TDO, it's all wars these days

Theres a war on everything and a csar for everything, funny thing is though we are in a worse state than ever.


Is that why they have these cameras, so a working person, a self employed one at that, can be watched over to make sure he is carrying out his own business in a way they see fit, rather than in way he sees fit, which brings us back to the main thrust of the debate, should someone who owns say an off licence have a council CCTV installed in their shop so that they can be watched at all times by an operator?

I simply do not except that this amount of intrusive behaviour by the state against a working person is or can be morally justified.

Do you think we should give up our Liberty for Freedom TDO I get the feeling you are trying to justify living in a surveillance society, you know it feels wrong TDO, but you are now firmly in the authoritarian camp, you wish to stifle the debate by steering it away from the Spy cameras to one of law breaking which you say is now rife in this Country, funny that do they not say the crime figures are down all the time.

Crimestop

"The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short....protective stupidity." - George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty Four)

I am sorry, I am guilty of Oldthink, but life seemed so much more enjoyable then, I felt kind of free back then, I think I liked that feeling, a prison without bars thats where we are headed TDO, still it's for our own good.

many years ago we had a bit of a strict Enforcement Officer, going back maybe 15/18 years ago

it was a Saturday night around 2330 hrs, the pub rush had finished so half a dozen of us decided that it time for our usual tea break at a mobile food stall, so there we were taking a break supping our tea etc, when out of the blue came this EO

[He reminded me of that actor who was the Inspector off On the Buses, Blakey, thats the actor [I hate you Bultler] ]

he came up to us and said in a strict voice, "right you lot, I've been watching you all, youv'e had 20 mins, get back to work now, get those unattended taxis off this street and back working"

we all scattered, but thinking back he had no right or did he?

Your implication seems to be that I said that people should be brougth to book on the flimsiest of evidence without due regard to due process etc, when in fact I made the opposite point.

In fact the essence of my earlier point is that if these people are guilty then it would save a lot of time and hassle if they would just do the decent thing and put their hands up - presumably you have no objections to that?



The DPA? Let's not go there again



Interesting, but if such a system is ever used then presumably the pros and cons will be debated and appropriate safeguards put in place?

The thing is that I can't really see what the problem is with things like CCTV. For example, say a driver was suspected of cherry-picking by asking for three times the meter (say). So suppose licensing staff watched him and perhaps intercepted a few of his knockbacks and asked what he said. The more general surveillance could be done either visually or using CCTV, so what's the difference between using CCTV evidence as corroboration as opposed to the visual evidence of a council employee, since of course the CCTV evidence is likely to be a lot more effective and reliable than a written or verbal account of what a council employee saw?


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Well I did agree that smoking bans etc were a step too far, particularly given the extent of current rule-breaking, but you seem to take the view that only more serious offences should be pursued, which comes back to my earlier point?

So which offences should be ignored?



Yes, but isn't that because the measures are largely ineffective, and more spin than substance?




I don't really think that would be justified unless there's a suspicion of wrongdoing, but I'm not really sure if that's a good analogy with the taxi trade.

But I take it you're saying that there shouldn't be any rules for the taxi trade, or which rules would you like to see discarded, which is presumably better than non-enforcement, which just benefits the cheats and penalises those honest enough to abide by the rules.



So you would dump all CCTV, taxi trade rules etc?



Au contraire; I was not trying to steer the debate away from spy cameras, all I was doing was to point out that you seemed to object to rule enforcement per se, rather than the methodology adopted, which I assumed from your statement:






Well of course things were better in the past - I'm not that old, but old enough to remember that my dad didn't lock the car up at night.

But in my view what you call the authoritarian tyranny is necessary because it's required to stop society falling into an abyss.

Personally I think that if the surveillance society that you object to was reversed then life would be a lot less enjoyable still, and I don't think feeling 'kind of free' would quite compensate for that.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Is this a serious question Pete? If it is the answer is NO.

Regards

JD

I'm most grateful for this Streetcar, I was informed by an official who attended the meeting, that the drivers admitted the offence. These minutes would seem to prove otherwise.

The statement, which reads "the balance of probabilities that an offence occurred", will be the undoing of these councillors because the law doesn't work on the balance of probabilities. The balance of probabilities is that these councillors wanted a conviction no matter what evidence was presented to them. I hope the drivers appeal this decision, because as I previously stated it will happen time and again. If they want to enforce cherry picking let them do it manually so that the evidence can't be questioned.

Regards

JD

No-one other than your misses has a right to tell you when you can work, and when you can't.

Even taxi/PH drivers are allowed to have a cup of tea and a p*** occasionally.

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IDFIMH

The problem I have with the way these suspensions occurred is precisely because it appears there may not have been any corroborating evidence? If there was then we have yet to see the weight of that evidence. As it stands, would you personally and categorically convict someone who has denied the offence, on the sole evidence of the driver being parked up, with his light off, turning several people away over a period of 18 minutes? You, I or anyone else might be drawn to the conclusion that these drivers may be looking for a good job but could we be 100% sure and could we categorically say so beyond a reasonable doubt without corroborating evidence to prove it?

Regards

JD

Well that's right, which is why my hypothetical example did not rely on the video evidence per se, but used it only to corroborate other evidence.

But, and as regards your earlier post, aren't council committee decisions of this kind based on the balance of probabilities rather than the case having to be proved beyond reasonable doubt? Ie the proceedings are not criminal?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

[/quote]The Panel's considered view is that, on a balance of probabilities, it is more likely than not what the drivers were in fact doing was "cherry-picking" - that is to say waiting with their "for hire" light off at a time and in a place when they knew members of the public desperate to get home would hopefully be prepared to offer them a sum of money much greater than the metered fare they could lawfully receive for such a journey. : They were sitting a good way from a rank .With their "for hire Lights off" In a free country no one other than your misses, has the right to tell you when you can, or can not work . Who said that? .If they had their Lights on then they may have been Cherry picking . But their lights were off . Surely that makes all the difference OR DOES IT .JD TDO SUSSEX

Yes the law is there to protect individuals from administration decisions that are unlawful or unreasonable. Councillors are supposed to make decisions based on the evidence placed before them and as you rightly say such a committee or hearing is not based on court proceedings. For example there are no cross-examinations of witnesses and as you rightly say reasonable doubt does not have to fit into the equation. However, I did ask if you or I would suspend a license on the same evidence placed before us, without any corroborating evidence to back up the Video film? We may take the view that there is not enough evidence to warrant a suspension.

That was my point when you brought up the subject of corroborated evidence. I agree with you on that matter and probably others will too but only to the point where provision of manual evidence corroborates video evidence? However, relying entirely on video evidence without any corroborating evidence places me in the position where I would have to side with the accused. I have a strong feeling the law might see it that way too?

Regards

JD

TDO Wrote

"But in my view what you call the authoritarian tyranny is necessary because it's required to stop society falling into an abyss"


Will Society fall into an abyss because a taxi driver is cherry picking?

Heres a Paragraph from the Office of Surveillance Commissioners

http://www.surveillancecommissioners.go ... _ripa.html

Local authority CCTV systems

CCTV systems are normally not within scope of RIPA or RIP(S)A since they are overt and not being used for "a specific operation or investigation" (section 26(2)(a)/1(2)(a), defining directed surveillance). But the protection afforded by RIPA and RIP(S)A is available when they are used for enforcement activities. In such cases directed surveillance authorisations should be obtained, setting out what is authorised, how it will be carried out (e.g. which cameras are to be used), and what activity is to be caught and held on the tape or disk that results. Control room staff should ensure that they understand the terms of the authorisation and authorising officers must notify them of any changes. When used covertly, collateral intrusion is inevitable and must be considered by the authorising officer with the applicant. This is part of the proportionality test and may lead to refusal or a different approach. The authorising officer should examine the product which should not be made public except insofar as it shows the identified target.

Local authorities have a keen interest in ensuring that authorisations are properly implemented even when acting on behalf of others, such as the police, since the product is primarily theirs and it may be they who receive the complaints or claims in the case of misuse. It should be noted that Automatic Number-Plate Recognition is unlikely to constitute directed surveillance unless the program routinely captures the faces of front seat occupants, whereas Automatic Facial Recognition can hardly fail to be directed surveillance.

So was that Directed Surveillance?

Do you think they will have followed the rules TDO?

Firstly I'm not a fan of suspensions, you are either 'fit and proper' or you are not. A fortnight's ban isn't going to change that.

As for the issue, well if I was a betting man I would say the lads looked well guilty, but there's no way in a million years any fair court would find the drivers guilty on that evidence.

Will they appeal, I doubt it, do the council know that, without a doubt.

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IDFIMH

No, but again you seem to be obfuscating by taking the discussion from the general to the particular.

But I suspect that if you cease to enforce taxi trade rules and/or withdraw them then the taxi trade will pretty quickly fall into an abyss, which would presumably be the results of your desired course of action?

And society in general would do likewise if we did the same, don't you agree?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Well I don't know precisely what happened in the case because we haven't been furnished with the relevant information.

But again this is taking things from the general to the particular, but I don't know enough about the particular to make specifically comment.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk