Surveillance is an 'inescapable' part of life in modern Britain

Today when I visit the UK I see cameras almost everywhere. In restaurants, traffic lights, street corners, offices, hospitals, stations and even in public rest rooms. The government also has satellites orbiting the world capturing, among other things, information about us.

Then there are the commercials on TV, in which they say that no matter where you go the police will find you and give you a ticket for not wearing a seat belt.

Do you feel as if you are watched? Chances are your 100% correct. It is the pretence that you are unobserved that is an act of self-delusion in modern Britain.

In the UK people can expect a camera to record them up to 300 times a day.

UK privacy campaigners claim that Britain has the most cameras per head of any population in the world. In 2004 the European Commission found 40,000 cameras monitored public areas in 500 British towns and cities, compared to fewer than 100 cameras in 15 German cities and no open street CCTV in Denmark.

Click here to check out photos of surveillance cameras in London.

Primary schools are using surveillance cameras to track down and punish children behind childish classroom pranks.

Lynch Hill Primary in Slough, Berkshire disclosed how it used the sophisticated equipment to identify an eight-year-old girl who hid her friend's shoes during a lesson.

The school has cameras in 12 classrooms, three corridors, the school reception area, the music room and the canteen.

As a parent, I fully understand concern over protecting our children from danger. But is this really how we want the cameras used?

What do you think?

Erosion of Privacy

I enjoyed 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley immensely when I was a young teenager. But then of course it was all science fiction. The world these books described would never happen.

How wrong I was.

Today with the way the world is changing, the realities of these two books is becoming closer at an astonishing speed.

In particular the United States and the United Kingdom are the leaders in this encroaching Orwellian nightmare.

"War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength," wrote George Orwell in his book 1984.

In recent years in the name of peace wars have been fought and entire populations controlled all in the name of freedom. While government spin and an acquiescent media help to keep people ignorant of their leader’s real motivations.

Technology today has altered many lives for the better. Several of these advances have made day-to-day life more pleasurable. But at the same time not everyone is aware of the sinister dangers that lie behind many of these technological advances.

Slowly our privacy is eroding without us realizing to what extent. Governments use technology to snoop on us and it is becoming more and more invasive. It distracts us with inaccurate subjects; misrepresents history in order to “protect” us from various multiple threats.

We are being schooled to fear asylum seekers, climate change, deranged terrorists and even one another.

Western governments, I believe, are perfecting the politics of fear because fearful citizens will do their bidding without question and voluntarily subject themselves to control.

And Great Britain has become the expert of this technique in the western world.

The British House of Lords has reported this month (April 2009) that Britain has constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world in the name of combating terrorism and crime and improving administrative efficiency.

What do you think?

Catbook

Then I thought, but surely there's not a Catbook as well. But guess what?

And don't dogs and cats in many countries now need to be microchipped?

Will it be humans next?

Oh dear-is the fear of the surveillance society getting to me?

What are your views?

Dogbook

Purely out of curiousity I wondered if anyone had decided to start a facebook for dogs. So googled dogbook and guess what?

Facebook

Unfortunately, shortly before signing the contract for my book I discovered I had breast cancer.

Having to concentrate on writing focused my mind away from lingering on this fact too closely. And with all the excitement of finally having it published and its promotion I barely had time to think.

However, radiotherapy does leave one exhausted. So when I returned to Mallorca I was ready to hide away and concentrate on rebuilding my strength. There were also rather a few other major personal issues taking place in my life.

It never rains but it pours is a cliché that could well describe my life then. But that is subject material for my next book.

While I was convalescing I received an invitation from a friend to join Facebook. He thought it would be a useful tool to help me publicize my book. I accepted and joined. What I saw appalled me.

Many years ago in the mid 1980’s, a friend of mine and Howard’s, Tom Sunde, who had connections with the CIA turned up on our doorstep. He had with him various documents that he claimed he had procured from the DEA. One of these documents named almost everyone we knew, from the family doctor, various dodgy characters to the children’s baby-sitters. The DEA had obviously painstakingly gathered all this information.

Read my book to find out more

Mr Nice and Mrs Marks: Adventures with Howard

As I looked at Facebook this memory came flooding back. No longer would the DEA, CIA or whatever government agencies have to labour away at proving these connections. People were readily supplying huge amounts of data about themselves.

I wondered if users understood how their information could be used or if they understood the limits of any notion of privacy "controls" online.

Many friends of mine have said they know more about their children from facebook than they do from normal family interaction!!

Facebook currently holds the personal information of about 58 million users. For obvious reasons in this post 9/11 age, social networking sites will remain an attractive source for government surveillance and data-mining.

And supposing you have inadvertently listed a criminal suspect among your 800 "friends", would this enable the government to lawfully search, arrest or even charge you with conspiracy.

To watch more videos about facebook go to Youtube.

What are your views?

Mr Nice & Mrs Marks

Click on the cover to enlarge

Click on the link below to purchase

Mr Nice and Mrs Marks: Adventures with Howard

Birth of my Book

Three years ago I wrote a book entitled Mr Nice and Mrs Marks.

I had nine months in which to write it which made me think that having a book published is a bit like giving birth. A nerve wreaking and joyful experience combined. And no going back.

Interviews on numerous radio stations throughout the UK followed publication. The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and many other UK newspapers carried feature articles or interviews with me.

Much to my delight I received the following e-mail from my publicist at Ebury Press.

You´ve been selected for Book of the week in the Sunday Express Magazine to run early May

My first publicity schedule is below:

PUBLICITY AND EVENTS SCHEDULE (April-May 06)

MR NICE & MRS MARKS

Tuesday 25th April
TELEGRAPH INTERVIEW – Tom Lennard
GUARDIAN FAMILY – Emma Cook – to run 6th May
Sunday 30th April
11am PHOTOSHOOT for Guardian
Tuesday 2nd May
MAIL ON SUNDAY
Venue: Hotel room
Tues/wed or thurs morning very very latest
Thursday 4th May
2pm THE TIMES T2 LOVE ETC
Interview in Brighton
Saturday 6th May
10.30am LOOSE ENDS BBC RADIO 4 – pre rec
with Ned Sherrin
BBC BUSH HOUSE, Aldwych, London WC2.
Studio: S6 -
Wednesday 10th May
9.30am Good Morning Wales, BBC Radio Wales, Cardiff,
in Brighton
12.30pm Lunch with Ebury
Thursday 11th May
8.25-9am BBC RADIO WALES – LIVE
Confirmed Down the line from Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London WI Studio: 1R
NB: go to reception and they will direct you to the studio.
10-10.30am BBC RADIO LEEDS - live
Confirmed Down the line from Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London
Studio: IR
10.30-11.00amBBC RADIO NORTHAMPTON
confirmed Down the line from BBC
1.30-2pm BBC RADIO BRISTOL - live
Confirmed Down the line from BH
3.15pm BBC RADIO KENT - live
Confirmed
Friday 12th May
11.30 at night BBC RADIO LONDON - live
12-1am 35c Marylebone High Street, London
Confirmed To review the papers with another guest and talk about your book
Tuesday 16th May
11.10am BBC RADIO NOTTINGHAM – live
Confirmed Down the line from Broadcasting House, Portland Place. London WI
7.15- 7.30pm RADIO EUROPE
Phone interview from Brighton
Thursday 18th May
10-11am RTE RADIO DUBLIN – GERRY RYAN SHOW
Confirmed Down the line from Broadcasting House Portland place, London WI
18th June
Train tickets for judy – if late needs a hotel
Kulture shock bookshop – street fair in Norwich
Date to be confirmed
Trip to Ireland
To be confirmed.

This schedule was continually added to. I had magazine interviews with Harpers, Marie Claire and various other women´s magazines. I travelled around the UK doing book signings. The organisers of the Daphne du Maurier Literary Festival in Cornwall invited me to give a talk.

From April to the end of July I lived a hectic schedule and then it fizzled out. My publishers had moved on to promoting their next book.

For me, who is intrinsically shy and had found all the publicity and interviews to be a nerve-racking experience, it was with a degree of relief that I returned to my home on the island of Mallorca.

Once back here all the local magazines, newspapers and local radio stations interviewed me until that too petered out.

Without all the media exposure book sales slowed. During the time of writing the book, its final editing and promotion, Ebury had become to feel like parents. Guiding, directing and advising me.

Back home in Mallorca I felt abandoned. Ebury had new children now.

“You should be promoting your book,” friends would say.

“How?” I would ask.

To which I would receive a bewildered look and no concrete advice.

Do you have any advice?