BANKSY SUMS UP MODERN BRITAIN WITH ICONIC MURAL: 'ONE NATION UNDER CCTV'

by newsalliance | April 16, 2008 at 10:26 am | 378 views | 5 comments
Folk hero Banksy has pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London and again succeeds to put two fingers up to the authorities. His latest mural sums up modern Britain perfectly with the simply but damning statement: 'One nation under CCTV.'

But to the millions of sheeple who are not concerned about CCTV and the total surveillance society he should have painted the Government's mantra: 'Nothing to hide, nothing to fear'. Because no matter what the message the sheeple simply plod along 'blissfully' unaware and unaffected by the total invasion of privacy operated by the forces of the Police State.

The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera just inches away. Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on 'Big Brother' Britain.

And the scaffolding gang returned to remove all evidence - again without the camera operator stopping them. This shows that the CCTV operator turned a blind eye to Banksy's latest political stunt or that no one was manning the operations centre. If the latter is true, we must ask if there is a purpose of having so many CCTV cameras if no one is watching. What does this say about the so-called increased vigilance borne of the war on terror?

The iconic work, above a Post Office yard in Newman Street near Oxford Circus, shows a small boy, watched by a security guard, painting the words: 'One nation under CCTV.'

Whatever the purpose of the Banksy's latest daring act, this highly politicised mural should become the icon of the increasing number of people opposed to the spread of largely unnecessary CCTV cameras in the fight to preserve our privacy.

At News Alliance we rate Banksy highly both as artist and socio-political rebel and we look forward to more stunts of this nature which should awaken more sheeple from being herded into the State's CCTV animal farm.

Add a comment Comments (5)

liamssoft
good stuff:

newsalliance, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Jarrett Martineau

Thanks for this, however, we already published this story almost 3 weeks ago:


http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/graffiti-artist-banksy-pulls-grandest-stunt-date-despite-being-watched-cctv

liamssoft

Looks like the Police agree with you on CCTV...


Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:

· A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.

· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet from next month.

· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.

generaldecay

And it's true. Banksy seldom gets it wrong!

spookwatch
good stuff:

Yep, Banksy is spot on again!

Sign In or Join Add a comment

Your email is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

April 16, 2008 at 10:26 am by newsalliance, 378 views, 5 comments

is reporting from

closeSign in to NowPublic