 | Space Hijackers Causing Trouble In Leipzig 1 - 4 Dec 2006 |
After an invite from German anti-CCTV group Leipziger Kamera, The Space Hijackers pulled together a team of troublemakers to head off to Leipzig for a long weekend of talks, actions and a fair amount of drinking, ahem networking.
2006 marks the 10th anniversary of police surveillance cameras in Germany, with Leipzig being the first to have CCTV installed. Leipziger Kamera have been tirelessly working to combat the cameras, and critique their usefulness, claiming that it has been proven that they do not combat crime, instead just providing the police with a means of watching the population.
The UK, currently the most surveilled place in the world with one camera for every 16 people, is testing out a number of new CCTV systems including ones where the operators can talk back to you via speakers in the street and ones which record pinpoint sound as well as images. Leipziger Kamera invited the Space Hijackers to come over to Leipzig and give a number of talks on English protest history and law, tactics of the Space Hijackers and on developments in CCTV. We also arranged to organise a Space Hijacking in Leipzig with the aid of our hosts.