The British government has begun installing loudspeakers on closed-circuit surveillance cameras to allow government monitors to directly talk to anyone on the street. British Home Secretary John Reid has defended the technology, but critics warn it lurches Britain toward becoming a surveillance society. Britain is already considered the most watched country in the world. With an estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit cameras, there is now one camera for every 14 people in Britain. It has been calculated that each person in Britain is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily. Government officials recently demonstrated how the new system works.

Security Guard: “So the female with the white shirt and blue jeans on, you’ve dropped your cigarette on the floor. Can you pick it up please? Thank you.”

The civil rights group Liberty has described the new cameras as a “high-tech toy” that gives camera operators massive powers to invade the lives of ordinary people. British Home Secretary John Reid has defended the technology.

John Reid: “And as always, (there are) people who will claim when we do that, oh, it’s a police society. It isn’t. It’s a society where people are doing their utmost. The vast majority are law-abiding, hard-working citizens who respect each other, but there’s always a minority, and this is a way to try to embarrass the minority, short of taking people to court, short of getting the police involved to make sure it’s a better local society.”