Surveillance

I remember back in in the late 1970s and 19080s, people would speak with horror of the street surveillance in German cities. Street cameras, they said, and everywhere.This must have been in response to the Red Army Faction murders and crimes. And living slap against the USSR and satellite nations: Cold War mentality. About the same time I remember a group of friends walking back through our town, we were challenge by a policewoman with ‘What have you been doing until now?’ I was appalled at this intrusiveness, it became a laughing point for a time afterwards. I just could not allow such intrusion as acceptable. Was it acceptable?I ask, because we were watching an old film, a late 1950s English crime film, set in London. A murder, predictably, and the police detective wanted information on an area of streets. He called in the ‘local bobby’ ie police man whose ‘beat’ that was.He could tell them everything about all the residents: what cars/vans they had, who they were, ages, sexes,…