In Britian, Not Much is Left Outside of the Camera's Eye
在英國,沒有什麼能躲過攝影機

-By Mark Landler, August 20, 2007-

LONDON--With video cameras watching silently from so many London street corners,
it is likely that the police had at least some images of the men
who stuffed two Mercedes sedans full of gasoline, gas canisters, and nails,
and parked them in the West End nightlife district in late June.
因為倫敦的街頭設有那麼多無聲的監視器,
我們幾乎可以相信六月底在西城的那個案件裡,
警方掌握了犯人的影像,他們在兩臺賓士驕車中塞滿汽油、瓦斯罐和釘子,
並且將車子停在夜生活區。

But they did not distribute grainy pictures to the public,
as they have after other terrorist attacks, to help track down the suspects.
This time, security experts said, the terrorists left behind something even more easily traced:
cellphones that were meant to trigger the explosives and that contained a wealth of numbers
stored in their memories.
但是這些監視器不是拍東西給大眾看的,而是當遭受恐怖攻擊時,協助追蹤嫌疑犯。
安全專家說:「在這種時候,恐怖份子留下的手機更容易取得線索,
不只是用來引爆,也是貯存密碼的工具。」

Perhaps that explains why this plot, which included the fiery yet unsuccessful attack on
Glasgow's international airport, has not set off another round of calls for increased
video surveillance in Britain.
Or maybe it just shows that after a decade of turning this society into a kind of
round-the-clock, communal home movie, little is left outside the camera's eye.
也許類似這種發生在Glasgow國際機場中激進而不成功的情節,並沒有設定在英國監視錄影機的使用目的裡。
或者可以說,近十年來社會上幾乎所有大大小小的事件,早已經難逃監視器的法眼。

Video surveillance is widely accepted in Britain, viewed as a fact of life
rather than an Orwellian intrusion.(*1)
There are an estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras here as part of
the city's so-called Ring of Steel.(*2)
In London, a person can be caught on tape hundreds of times a day.
錄影監視在英國已被人民廣為接受,英國人當成是生活的一部分,而不會認為是政治入侵。
估計有420萬個閉路電視攝影機組成了倫敦所謂的「鋼鐵之環」。在這裡,一個人每天可以被錄影好幾百次。
 (*1)所謂的Orwellian intrusion,字面上為歐威爾式入侵,來自於英國作家喬治.歐威爾在1949年所出版的
  小說《1984》,這部小說描述了一個被政府全天候監視的世界,人們的一舉一動都被錄影並且被批判。
  而且政府也會將不合規範的行為視為反判,並在群眾面前加以公開,使人們彼此鬥爭,以達到政治洗腦或
  達成某個政治目的。2006年上映的德國電影《竊聽風暴》(Das Leben der Anderen)所描述的故事與
  《1984》不謀而合,這部獲獎不斷的電影值得一看:
  http://blog.sina.com.tw/others/article.php?pbgid=34971&entryid=365336
 (*2)Ring of Steel 則是40年代一部很有名的美國電影,當時是以一個一次大戰老兵的回憶,來吸引年輕人投
  入二次大戰,在此姑且譯為「鋼鐵之環」。報導中倫敦的鋼鐵之環,指的是圍繞倫敦市的警戒哨,這是為
  了反恐而設置的防線,以現今的監視器的普遍性來說,其實也就是某種程度的警戒哨了。

In a reminder of its crime-solving value, CCTV(*3) video figured in the recent trial of six men
accused of plotting to bomb the London subway in July 2005.
The court was shown images of a suspect boarding a train, turning his back to a mother and child
and trying to detonate a bomb.
一個監視器打擊犯罪的重要案例發生在2005年7月,它錄下了六個人預謀佈下倫敦地鐵大爆炸的過程。
在法院公開的畫面中,一名嫌疑犯搭上地鐵,背對著一對母子,並試圖引爆炸彈。
 (*3)CCTV= Closed-circuit television, a television system often used for surveillance,
  即前述之閉路電視攝影機。

Yet the wholly unexpected nature fo this latest plot--coming as it did from a circle of doctors
from the Middle East and India--reflects something else about video surveillance:
it is better at unraveling crimes than dettering criminals,
particularly Islamist terrorists bent on bringing a holy war to Britain's streets.
但是這些中東和印度醫生們以外人無法理解的想法所犯下的罪行,反映出錄影監視的另一個要點:
與其叫他們不去犯罪,不如解決犯罪本身,特別是在伊斯蘭恐怖分子致力在英國街頭發動聖戰的時候。

"The idea of CCTV as a deterrent for something like this is no longer accepted,"
said David Murakami Wood, an expert in video surveillance at Newcastle University,
who helped write a report on the spread of CCTV for Britain's information commission.
"if you don't think you're coming back, you're not going to mind if you're caught on a camera.
新城大學錄影監視專家伍德說:「叫監視器去嚇跑什麼東西的想法已經落伍了。」
他的工作是幫英國的資訊委員會撰寫推廣監視器的研究報告,他還說:
「如果你覺得想不起來某個東西,你就不會介意是否攝影機把你錄了下來。」

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