Roger Moroney: Lights camera action...everywhere

Roger Moroney

Surveillance cameras.

CCTV.

There's a lot of it about, and for some slices of the community who choose to speak under the banner of civil liberties they are apparently threatening to become too omnipresent.

They are too intrusive.

They see too much.

There are too many of them.

We are being watched and that can become an invasion of privacy as well as civil liberties...the civil libertarians insist.

It came to pass last week that footage from around the clock being gathered by a surveillance camera in a large takeaway shop somewhere down south was being beamed to the local police station, and that did not go down too well with some.

Too intrusive, one concerned "they're everywhere" opponent went on air to declare.

But hey, stores with extensive surveillance camera systems end up nabbing many more potential thieves than those that do not.

That is simply a fact.

For that very reason I have no issues with camera systems which are effectively set up to do what they were designed to do.

Be protective.

Because if you do nothing wrong then there is nothing to worry about.

They do help identify and catch bad people, no doubt about that, as we have seen on several occasions where cameras in hardware stores, dairies and service stations have stirred into identification action.

And the little mobile ones clipped to the windscreens of cars are great at recording motoring miscreants for the highway patrol folks to have a good look at.

Maybe they could call them behaviour cameras, because the appearance of them would tend to promote the playing of the game of life decently and properly.

Bottom line is, if you're behaving yourself and doing nothing unlawful then what's the problem?

And if such images are being sent live to a police station then all the better...as long as they have enough staff on deck to respond if something goes belly up.

It has transpired though that there is an intrusive danger when surveillance cameras are turned on.

As it emerged a couple of weeks back, it seems those global online hackers and electronic peeping Toms had learned the craft of tapping into residential security cameras which were operating in private homes and garages...and they were screening some of them online all around the world.

Great way for potential burglars to see what was inside that garage and where exactly the camera was situated.

Now that is ever-so-slightly scary, and another example of how the creative and well-meaning computer savvy human being is able to create something that the computer savvy online underworld is able to apparently tap so easily into.

Back in the '60s we all smirked at school while reading George Orwell's 1984 and how "big brother" was watching over us.

Couldn't happen.

Mmmm.

● In the wake of last week's column, I had a call from a chap I have, on a couple of occasions, shared the football playing field with...although he was a far more accomplished player than I could ever have hoped to be.

Terry O'Neill, a stalwart of Hawke's Bay football who is still devoted to coaching young and aspiring players, ran out on to McLean Park 49 years ago as right back for the Hawke's Bay representative football side who were taking on the Fiji side in an international clash just a few days after the rugby lads had successfully wrapped up their second season of Ranfurly Shield challenges.

The football lads had enjoyed a couple of fine provincial seasons and getting the chance to take on the highly regarded Fijian side was enthusiastically embraced.

"It was my first international," Terry said.

Was he nervous?

At this he chuckled and simply said "nervous?...I was near peeing myself as we went to go on".

He recalled a crowd of around 1200 turning up, which for a football clash in those rugby-saturated times wasn't too bad.

The Bay boys weren't too bad either and when the final whistle went they had indeed won 4-2.

"I think the Fijian side played six games out here and they beat Wellington - I think we were the only ones to beat them," Terry said.

"It was just one of those days - and we were a fair team back then."

At the aftermatch there was the traditional kava, which he was not too enthusiastic about, but tried a few sips anyway.

"Great times because football was really starting to push forward."