Are UK citizens overtly encouraged to spy and inform on each other by the government?

[astro]

I know people are concerned about terrorism but this articlemakes it seem like people in the UK are practically recruited and encouraged oi inform on and spy on each other. I had not idea it was this bad, is this an accurate perception?

If you want to rat out your neighbours, allow the home secretary to enumerate the ways. Do you know someone who claims more from the state than they’re entitled to? Who is “picking the pockets of law-abiding taxpayers”? Not politicians over-egging their allowances, obviously, but “benefit thieves”. If so, call 0800 854 440 now. “We’re closing in with hidden cameras. We’re closing in with every means at our disposal.”

Do they own more than one mobile phone? Then call 0800 789 321. “Terrorists need communication. They often collect and use many pay-as-you-go mobile phones, as well as swapping Sim cards and handsets.”

No mobile phones? What about if they’re “hanging around”? Or, as the Home Office-funded radio advertisement puts it: “How can you tell if they’re a normal everyday person or a terrorist? The answer is that you don’t have to. If you call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321, the specialist officers you speak to will analyse the information. They’ll decide if and how to follow it up. You don’t have to be sure. If you suspect it, report it.”

It’s such a lovely turn of phrase, that. If you suspect it, report it. Don’t wait for evidence. Or question your own prejudices. If someone’s not a “normal everyday person” exactly like you, then they could well be a member of al-Qaida. What flawless logic that is. We’re already described as “a surveillance state” by Privacy International, one in five of all CCTV cameras ever made are currently in Britain, and Smith is drawing up plans to intercept every phone call we make and every email we send. The Taplins weren’t snitches - they were perfect citizens in her New Model Army. And while her critics invoke the analogy of the Stasi, a more accurate comparison would be with a suburb in Connecticut, circa 1961

[Busy_Scissors]

@astro

I know people are concerned about terrorism but this articlemakes it seem like people in the UK are practically recruited and encouraged oi inform on and spy on each other. I had not idea it was this bad, is this an accurate perception?

The first point is true, and quite well-established in the UK. Cracking down on benefit fraudsters - people who work for cash in hand jobs whilst claiming the dole - by encouraging others to ‘inform’ on them via an anonymous phoneline has been going on for years. It probably works to a degree, just from speaking to benefit fraudsters I have known. There’s a (very) low chance of being caught, but it creates a feeling of paranoia that the dole spies are watching you as you slink off to work in the morning.

[Lo-Slung_Denim]

Yes, there have been several high profile advertisement campaigns to encourage people to dob on benefit thieves. I’m not sure of the tone of the article but it does sound a little to me like our correspondent is going over the top when the topic turns to terrorism.

I have never seen any advert anywhere in the UK imploring me to report terrorism if I suspect it. Hopefully a few other Brits can shed some light on this?

I did a quick poll in my office about a week or so ago about benefit fraud. I manage a team of seven outreach workers in a deprived borough - I asked how many of them would report it if they knew(not thought, but knew) one of the people they work with was committing benefit fraud on a small scale. Answer: no one. Statistically insignificant, I know, but just a little insight.

[Kal]

@Lo-Slung_Denim

I have never seen any advert anywhere in the UK imploring me to report terrorism if I suspect it. Hopefully a few other Brits can shed some light on this?

I’ve heard of it. After a bit of Googling around, here’s the Met’s page about the campaign - Link.

[coremelt]

just moved from London in december, it’s true there are “if you suspect it report it” signs all over the place on the London tube.

however a quick google revealed there are “terrorism tips” hotlines being advertised in many US states as well. Whats the difference?

[glee]

There is a running campaign here to report benefit thieves. It consists of some posters, plus an occasional TV advert. (I’ve seen more publicity for the SuperBowl.)

As for terrorism, we have had decades of IRA threats, now followed by a couple of Al-Qaeda outrages.
The publicity I have seen for all this was posters (mainly at railway stations and airports) asking the public to report suspicious packages.

We do have a lot of CCTV.
TV programs show this footage is used to catch drunken violence in city centres and speeding drivers.

The current Government has (in my opinion) gone too far in using anti-terrorist legislation for purposes such as removing a political heckler and checking the placement of rubbish bins.

However none of this adds up to ‘people in the UK are practically recruited and encouraged to inform on and spy on each other’.
And of course most of the UK deaths (soldiers in Iraq; civilians in UK bombings) and paranoia can be blamed on Bush’s idiotic invasion of Iraq.

[slaphead]

@astro

makes it seem like people in the UK are practically recruited and encouraged oi inform on and spy on each other. I had not idea it was this bad, is this an accurate perception?

Oh, certainly. One of the most popular TV programmes (CrimeWatch) is based around pleading with the public to phone in and tip off the totalitaran agents of oppression that friends/relatives/neigbours may have been Fighting The Power by raping, murdering, robbing or viciously beating people.

Then there is a nationwide network of fascist vigilantism known as ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ whereby informants carry out surveillance of homes in order to faciliate the persecution of brave Wealth Redistribution Volunteers who are repossessing the assets of the Burgeoise in order to pay for the heroin, alcohol and tacky jewellery needed to sustain a minimum of civilized life.

Lastly there is the ongoing and deeply pernicious campaign to persuade citizens that it is in their interest (rather than that of their fascist oppressors) to report any activity that might be related to efforts being made to blow them or other people into little bits. Clearly this is a totalitarian campaign to subvert every human’s inalienable right to be blown up while using public transport.

I mean, seriously. The OP is having a joke, right? I can’t imagine there is a country in the developed world that doesn’t encourage people to call the cops with tip-offs about suspicious activity - it’s one of the key ways that police catch criminals. If a country has a regular problem with terrorism, why wouldn’t that get lumped in with drug dealing, car theft, child abuse, tax dodging, cheating on food stamps, cattle rustling and all the other things that the police would just loooove to be informed about?
The UK has always had a bit of a centralising, authoritarian streak that is coming to the fore a lot at present, but then so does the US - remember the great TracFone panic of 06?

[Wallenstein]

The UK has a long and noble tradition of twitching net curtains as people skulk in their suburban bungalows checking up on what their neighbours are doing. The government doesn’t need to overtly encourage us, as it’s part-and-parcel of British life.

The benefits hotline was introduced at the request of the public, many of whom were heartily pissed off with seeing their hard-earned taxes going to the dole scroungers next-door.

“In Britain, they came first for the benefits cheats, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a benefits cheat;
And then they came for the drug dealers, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a drug dealer;
And then they came for the dangerous drivers, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a dangerous driver;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And turns out I hadn’t done anything wrong, seems the police had spotted a couple of shifty characters on CCTV on our street and just wanted to make sure we were OK, which was nice of them.”

[Staggerlee]

@slaphead

Then there is a nationwide network of fascist vigilantism known as ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ whereby informants carry out surveillance of homes in order to faciliate the persecution of brave Wealth Redistribution Volunteers who are repossessing the assets of the Burgeoise in order to pay for the heroin, alcohol and tacky jewellery needed to sustain a minimum of civilized life.

Ah yes, the much-feared Neighbourhood Watch Alliance…

Also there is Crimestoppers - http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/ - who pay up to £1000 it seems, for information leading to a criminal prosecution.

In regards to the culture of ‘snitching’ or ‘grassing’ - in my experience it is not considered good form at all; except, I imagine, for universally unacceptable offences such as sex crimes.

[willthekittensurvive]

Regarding welfare fraud, when I was growing up my mother spent a short time on the Dutch dole, a single mother with two children who just moved back to Holland with no work experience, she got subsidized housing and a minimum income.

I still remember how we were visited more then once by officials who acting on anonymous tips from concerned citizens, entered my mothers apartment to count the number of toothbrushes and check that there was no shaving gear in the bathroom.

We never found out the identities of the snitchers, but I think it was either my father or a (married) neighbour who found his romantic overtures rejected

[sailor]

In the USA:

• https://tips.fbi.gov/
• http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/reportincidents/
• http://www.homeland.ca.gov/info_report.html
• http://www.njohsp.gov/report.html
• https://www.ciac.co.gov/
• http://www.vsp.state.va.us/FusionCenter/Report_Suspicious_Activity.shtm
• http://www.georgia.gov/00/article/0,2086,4802_4961_76268511,00.html
• etc.

[Mk_VII]

Try lighting a bonfire on Sunday in Germany or washing the car when you’re not supposed to, and your neighbours will cheerfully drop a dime on you to the authorities because “you broke the rules”. They don’t need recruiting. They’ll do it out of civic duty.

[Rayne_Man]

Back in the 1960’s the Post Office used to operate the TV licence detector vans. I once got talking to a guy who worked for this department, and he told me that a lot of their work came from anonymous tips from people who had fallen out with their neighbours and wanted to get their own back by reporting that they had no TV licence.

[Wallenstein]

Case in point from my local paper this week:

Some […] residents have contacted the Weekly News complaining about people burning wood in what they say is a smokeless zone. Several readers have responded defending the practice - and one has claimed that a person is going round the town noting down which houses are emitting smoke.

No encouragement needed when Middle England get a sniff of someone failing to follow a bylaw.

[Bijou_Drains]

A guy I knew was stiffed out of $100 so he was going to sue the guy. Then he remembered the guy told him he was cheating on taxes so he told the IRS. The IRS loves to hear about tax cheats.

[slaphead]

@Staggerlee

in my experience it is not considered good form at all; except, I imagine, for universally unacceptable offences such as sex crimes.

Or having gnomes on your front lawn, or overfilling your rubbish bin, or lighting a bonfire, or wearing a loud shirt in a built-up area during the hours of darkness, or being in possession of a suspicously ethnic appearance, or any number of other things. It never fails to amuse me that the assorted pseudo-nazi rags (Mail/Express and the like) are always full of rants about Political Correctness Gone MAD and people being arrested for tidying the street outside their house or painting their fence without planning permission. A good proportion of their readers are exactly the kind of petty-minded jobsworths and curtain-twitchers who initiate those kind of incidents in the first place.

@Wallenstein

No encouragement needed when Middle England get a sniff of someone failing to follow a bylaw.

And if there isn’t a bylaw against [random thing] then there bloody well should be - time to get a petition started and write a stronly worded letter to the local MP. And to the Daily Mail!

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

Ironically, that very Home Secretary is in the midst of a scandal now, as she was reported cheating!

Seems that she’s been claiming her legal residence is outside London, so she gets extra compensation for renting space in town – but she was actually living in town, with a relative. Neighbors of hers in the outside town reported her, after hearing this speech and being upset at the hypocrisy of it.

How appropriate.

[bonzer]

While many of the points made above are valid, it’s worth bearing in mind the specific context of the piece quoted in the OP. Carole Cadwalladr was standing in on the Observer’s usual provocative sort-of-diary/sort-of-columnist page. It’s very much intended as “strong opinions, weakly held” stuff. Hardly anybody reading this in the physical paper would take it particularly seriously. Exaggerated and entertaining with an element of truth, but nothing more.
The obvious clue is surely the opening two paragraphs:

Hardly anyone actually shoots themselves in the foot or literally gets egg on their face, so it was a real pleasure last week, in so many ways, to witness Jacqui Smith being hoist with her own petard.
A petard was, in the original French, an explosion of intestinal gas which, in turn, gave its name to a small bomb, such as the one that erupted across the papers last week, when the neighbours of her sister’s house in Peckham, south London, came forward and told the press that she was only there a couple of days a week.

Clever, but Cadwalladr can’t actually have been expected to be taken literally here.

The whole item is self-conciously deep into Glenda Slagg territory.