FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Europe to crack down on ‘passive drinking’, says leaked report

name

wrote:
> In uk.legal name > wrote:
> > Stopping binge drinking is not the issue. The issue is stopping people
> > from misbehaving as a consequence of binge drinking. You can require
> > people to show their ID card whenever they buy alcohol and use some
> > kind of memory on the card to keep track of their record of misbehavior
> > under the influence of alcohol on the card. Once they have screwed up
> > one or more times under the influence of alcohol, you modify their card
> > so the next time they try to order alcohol people will not serve it to
> > them because they can be identified as people who are not able to
> > behave responsibly under the influence of alcohol by means of the
> > trackrecord in that respect stored on the card. Similar to how people
> > have their driver's licence revoked if they persist in reckless
> > driving.
>
> Then the person concerned would only need to get a friend to buy a dozen
> bottles of vodka or whatever for him.

That means that friend would lose his right to buy booze as well, just
like when
he would buy a bottle of vodka for a 10 year old.

>
> >> Can you explain how the carrying an ID card would have done anything to
> >> prevent the suicide bombers in London.
>
> > Not just an ID card, but cameras everywhere. Artificial inteligence to
> > monitor people's behavior and notifying authorities in case it detects
> > anything suspicious.
>
> There are cameras everywhere these days. Except inside peoples
> houses... yet.

Insides people houses it's still on a voluntary basis. I don't really
mind cameras in public places. In fact I feel safer knowing that if
some prick decides to harass me in public, his face is captured on
camera and it should be easier to capture him. I reckon many more
criminals are caught with help of modern technology like DNA analysis
and camera surveillance.

>
> > Terrorist acts are not actions on impulse but things that require a lot
> > of preparation and planning. You can detect this because it will
> > involve unusual patterns of behavior compared to people involved in
> > normal activities.
>
> I suppose it could with intrusive surveillance of everyone.
>
> But then you will just have the 'lone wolves' emerging a la the Shoe
> Bomber.

I think there are very few terrorists who come up with their plans for
terrorism
in isolation from terroristic organizations.

>
> >> The same goes for hijacking a plane and doing whatever with it -
> >> to get on a plane requires ID so it does not prevent such actions.
>
> > ID cards by itself don't, but combined with profiling of what people
> > do, who they meet, etc. does.
>
> Again intrusive surveillance. I am sure that *most* people would
> very strongly object to such surveillance as a total outrage.

Depends whether or not the government is deemed trustworthy enough to
handle such responsibilities. At this moment I wouldn't trust them, but
I think the government ought to be more transparant and accountable
anyway.

> Especially when such surveillance would be combined with swooping
> on and questioning people behaving suspiciously. I am sure a married
> man taking lengths to avoid his wife finding out his mistress would
> be love to be interrogated as to why he had been acting in the way he
> did, probably with the others involved also being questioned.

How about someone living in the city buying massive amounts of
fertilizer with the intention of blowing up government buildings.
Wouldn't it be nice if the government kept an eye on such people in
case they find them to have links with extremist groups?

>
> Actually your ideas closely match those in _1984_ and the old
> Communist countries when neighbours were expected to spy on each
> other and even children on parents and teachers. And people would
> report 'suspicious' activity (although then what counted as suspicious
> activity was not terrorism) since if they did not do so and someone
> else did, they might also be carted off for their failure to make
> an accusation.

Except that in the "1984" scenario and former communist countries or
other totalitarian regimes there was no governmental transparancy or
accountability whatsoever. Technology that invades privacy is on the
rise anyway and there is little you can do about it. In the near future
people can have a camera built into their glasses or even their head
and record anything they experience. Wireless global communication
becomes practical and affordable. Society in the near future is
completely transformed by technology and this might require us to
rethink about notions like privacy.

>
> I for one would not live in such a country.
>
> Axel