***Bad News.... The gruesome reality of ANPR***

Earlier there were leaked documents that suggested that the police were

using the ANPR (automatic numberplate recognition) CCTV network to

target innocent members of the public for fines and arrests, simply to

meet government targets.

Now documents released by the police have revealed the full, gruesome

extent of the ANPR system.

The ANPR network has expanded unchecked by parliament since police

first decided to develop a national system in 2006. It is now linked

to more than 10,000 CCTV cameras discreetly placed on motorways,

main roads and in petrol stations. It has also been integrated with the

cameras originally set up in 2003 to enforce the congestion charge in

London.

Software being developed for the system will eventually allow police

to track the movements of up to 100m vehicles at any time, more than

double the number currently on the road. The database can also be

"mined" to track the past movements of specific vehicles

New police figures show that the number of images stored from vehicles

in the Milton Keynes area alone has risen from almost 1.8m in 2008 to

8.9m last year.

Acpo said that between 10m and 14m images were being stored nationally

each day. The article also says that Liberty are to launch the first ever legal

challenge to this nationwide surveillance network - it can't come soon enough.

We are being tracked from the moment we leave the house, to the moment

we return. This sort of sophisticated and intrusive surveillance is more reminiscent

of Soviet Russia than Twenty-First Century Britain.

The state has already made its mind up and we are all potential criminals.