Posted on 02/26/2025 6:15:48 PM PST by BenLurkin
Taliban's police force proudly shows off its newly-acquired network of 90,000 CCTV cameras - used to watch over the day-to-day lives of millions of people.
"We monitor the entire city of Kabul from here," says Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, pointing to one of the screens.
The authorities say such surveillance will help fight crime, but critics fear it will be used to clamp down on dissent and to monitor the strict morality code enforced by the Islamist Taliban government under their interpretation of Sharia law.
The BBC are the first international journalists allowed to see the system in action.
Inside the control room, police officers sit in rows watching the live streams from thousands of cameras, keeping tabs on the lives of the six million people who live in Kabul.
From car licence plates to facial expressions, everything is monitored.
"In certain neighbourhoods, when we notice groups of people and suspect they might be involved in drug use, criminal activities, or something suspicious, we quickly reach out to the local police," says Zadran.
"They arrive swiftly to investigate the nature of the gathering."
Under the previous government, Kabul was threatened daily with attacks from the Taliban and so-called Islamic State militants, as well as high profile kidnappings and car-jackings. When the Taliban retook power in 2021, they promised to crack down on crime.
The dramatic increase in the number of surveillance cameras in the capital is a sign of growing sophistication in the way the Taliban enforce law and order. Before their return, just 850 cameras were in place in the capital, according to a spokesman for the security forces that were driven from power.
Taliban authorities have also introduced a range of draconian measures limiting people's rights and freedoms, especially those of women.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Sounds like London.
Probably paid for by USAID.
The meritless Garland would be proud.
“Probably paid for by USAID.”
Or the sale of all those American weapons Biden dropped in their laps.
L
Many governments would like that .
“... police officers sit in rows watching the live streams from thousands of cameras...”
I guess it’s faster and easier to find goats that way.
Only people without a taught inner moral system need to be compelled to be good.
A dictator’s dream come true.
That was my first thought!
Then, I got to thinking how many we have here. So I looked up how many CCTV cameras per capita, and we’re worse than the UK:
“The United States has 15.28 CCTV cameras every 100 individuals, followed by China with 14.36 and the United Kingdom with 7.5. Other top 10 countries include Germany with 6.27 cameras per 100 individuals, Netherlands 5.8, Australia 4, Japan 2.72, France 2.46 and South Korea 1.99.”
Link: https://aithority.com/news/top-10-countries-and-cities-by-number-of-cctv-cameras/
In the USA those are private cctv though right?
Did anyone think this would lead to anything else?
Some are private, not all. Some are government installed (like those traffic light cameras). Plus, privately owned cameras are increasingly being shared with law enforcement agencies, including in real time:
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/us-surveillance-camera-statistics/
terrorscum kgb/stazi/cia/fbi...
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