West End Extra - Letters: Big brother is watching you

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 18 May 2007

Big brother is watching, but not very effectively

• THE Americans have provided us with the useful verb surveille, a back formation from the noun surveillance. It means to keep under observation.
Unfortunately, this age of surveillance is so full of gaps and inconsistencies that nobody takes it too seriously. For example, news released by the Department of Transport reveals that one in 15 of this country’s 33 million vehicles is untaxed. That’s more than two million car owners failing to meet their responsibilities.
Meanwhile, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has estimated that about 80 per cent of untaxed vehicles also have no insurance and that around 70 per cent of their drivers are people with criminal records. And uninsured motorists are 10 times more likely to be convicted drunk drivers. Sobering facts!
A sub-culture of “motoring outlaws” can thus be identified, namely those who fail to register their vehicles so that they can avoid paying speeding or parking tickets and bus lane or congestion charge fines. Many vehicles have cloned or false foreign number plates.
Why then are some aspects of our lives subject to surveillance but not others? How are ID cards supposed to benefit us all when so few attempts are being made to track and trace the kinds of dangerous drivers described?
A PORTER
Ashmore Road, W9

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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