Clever.
Richard Bilton's three-part series for BBC2, Who's Watching You? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/) concluded last night, and SpyBlog UK has a reasonable summary of the highlights, including this slyly smart take on the inherent practical difficulties of 'surveillance accuracy':
"We have transcribed a few lines from this TV programme below, from the good quality interviews broadcast or streamed in clear English. This process of transcription (try it for yourself), illustrates just how time consuming and expensive and error prone this must be, for poor quality recordings, with background noises, perhaps in foreign languages or obscure dialects, perhaps using innocent sounding code phrases, done in a hurry by GCHQ or other intelligence agency or police transcribers, translators and intelligence analysts." - http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/06/whos-watching-you---sir-david-pepper.html
The piece mentions, albeit obliquely, the changed status of one of the programme's talking heads - the now former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. Bilton's revised voiceover, reflecting the events of last week, was made all the more amusing since her defence of CCTV and, in particular, overt - rather than covert - police surveillance video taken of just-released prisoners (beginning literally at the prison gates), was characteristically superficial. If she was ever aware of there being a view contrary to her own on these matters, she offered no evidence of any such understanding, and steamrolled over Bilton's attempts to introduce one.
Something missing from the SpyBlog analysis, and which stood out for this observer, was the series' own apparent determination not to include any material - apart from one curious, unremarked-upon still photograph - of the work which goes on at Menwith Hill, and the Echelon project. Whilst the interview with the former head of GCHQ, David Pepper, was undoubtedly a coup of sorts, and much was made of how Internet-based telephony presents a few more practical challenges than traditional wiretapping, the US/UK intelligence services joint op ("Echelon") is all but notorious now, so its absence seemed...suspiciously artificial.
Given that, on terrestrial television at least (I've no idea what digital, multi-channel, satellite TV Britain had to offer last night), the programme went out against the series-closer of Ashes To Ashes, and a handful of semi-sensationalist, child-focused 'documentary' features (problem sleepers, musical prodigies, and "Real Wolf Kids"...God help us), it's probably fair to speculate that the viewing figures for the show were not especially high. Catching up with it via iPlayer, even allowing for its flaws, is highly recommended.
"We have transcribed a few lines from this TV programme below, from the good quality interviews broadcast or streamed in clear English. This process of transcription (try it for yourself), illustrates just how time consuming and expensive and error prone this must be, for poor quality recordings, with background noises, perhaps in foreign languages or obscure dialects, perhaps using innocent sounding code phrases, done in a hurry by GCHQ or other intelligence agency or police transcribers, translators and intelligence analysts." - http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/06/whos-watching-you---sir-david-pepper.html
The piece mentions, albeit obliquely, the changed status of one of the programme's talking heads - the now former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. Bilton's revised voiceover, reflecting the events of last week, was made all the more amusing since her defence of CCTV and, in particular, overt - rather than covert - police surveillance video taken of just-released prisoners (beginning literally at the prison gates), was characteristically superficial. If she was ever aware of there being a view contrary to her own on these matters, she offered no evidence of any such understanding, and steamrolled over Bilton's attempts to introduce one.
Something missing from the SpyBlog analysis, and which stood out for this observer, was the series' own apparent determination not to include any material - apart from one curious, unremarked-upon still photograph - of the work which goes on at Menwith Hill, and the Echelon project. Whilst the interview with the former head of GCHQ, David Pepper, was undoubtedly a coup of sorts, and much was made of how Internet-based telephony presents a few more practical challenges than traditional wiretapping, the US/UK intelligence services joint op ("Echelon") is all but notorious now, so its absence seemed...suspiciously artificial.
Given that, on terrestrial television at least (I've no idea what digital, multi-channel, satellite TV Britain had to offer last night), the programme went out against the series-closer of Ashes To Ashes, and a handful of semi-sensationalist, child-focused 'documentary' features (problem sleepers, musical prodigies, and "Real Wolf Kids"...God help us), it's probably fair to speculate that the viewing figures for the show were not especially high. Catching up with it via iPlayer, even allowing for its flaws, is highly recommended.