Private mobile surveillance cameras, the latest intrusion

The Yorkshire Ranter has a post about an encounter with a private vehicle decked out with surveillance cameras:

There it waited, with a 4-way CCTV installation lunging out the roof like a Blairite erection...I took photographs, and the driver suddenly reversed. But he or she didn't go. So I called the phone number on the side - 08705 899799 - and demanded to know what they were looking for. They said - Surveillance. They wanted to know where I was. I wouldn't tell them. Why should they know? Shouldn't they be answering the questions?

So I asked what it was surveilling. "Well, things," said the Geordie on the line. I asked him who the scheme controller was under the Data Protection Act. "I don't know." "IT'S YOUR LEGAL DUTY TO KNOW." So, I said, I'll just have to report the company to the polis then won't I? And I will, as soon as I've consulted the guys from Spyblog.

When and how did we get to this? We seemed to have moved from the police doing surveillance to local authorities to what appears to be approved vigilantes.

I liked this in the comment section:

I'm going to adopt a black-and-white check scheme on my car, plaster it in "Working in partnership with the police" stickers (I have my council tax bill to prove it) and see what happens.

Whenever I saw things like this I used to comment using well know quotes "all it needs for evil to triumph...." or that we cannot sacrifice freedoms for security and all the rest of the well known quotes. But as I comment on the post there is a standard rejoinder from the hard of thinking, who seem to be in the majority, or at least have politicians quaking:

If you've nothing to hide....

Pleeeease, won't anyone think of the chiiiillldreen....

Go and read the full post and omments and look at the pics, it is frightening.