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Remixes of the paranoid London police "anti-terror"/suspect your neighbours posters

Cory Doctorow at 6:35 am Thu, Mar 26, 2009

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Yesterday's remix challenge -- to mock the ridiculous new "anti-terrorism" posters the London police have put up that tell you to spy on your neighbors -- was a smashing success. I've collected the 25 or so that came in to date below (sorry if I missed one or two -- I did it all by hand!) -- click through to see them all and prepare to laugh and weep and laugh and weep.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Eurovision 2013: An American in London

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  • I See Modern Britain

    Is there room for more?

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/27128437@N07/3390008754/

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/27128437@N07/3389197167/

  • Anonymous

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/37409123@N06/3440394259/

    The average citizen in the UK is caught on CCTV cameras 300 times a day.

    CCTV evidence in court is found to be inadmissible in at least 70% of cases.

    Home Office research showed that crime rose by nearly 46% after CCTV cameras were installed.

    Only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV

  • adonai

    The Mind Games posters (usually it’s Mind F**k) don’t actually have anything in them to make you shit bricks – it’s a minor trolling technique.

  • andygates

    Oh lordy, there’s one of these pernicious things in Exeter.

    “A bomb won’t go off *here* because Devon bombers are incompetent yokels.”

  • nraustinii

    The juxtaposition of baby and garbage can was just too good to pass up: http://tr.im/hTzW

  • Anonymous

    Terrorism is the commission of acts intended to inspire fear, in order to control or intimidate a population or government.
    Can we call the hotline to report the police for putting up these posters?

  • codereduk

    Fantastic job, every single one!

    Keep ‘em coming!

  • arkizzle

    “Instead of mocking government efforts to prevent terrorism, why not try “remixing” the ad into a more effective campaign??”

    You seem to think there is an achievable compatibility.. But what better than to mock the security theatre the these posters imply?

    What information about terrorism do you have, worth putting in poster form, that will aid the populace of the UK right now?

  • marthagrace

    Speaking of NYC’s subway campaigns – I saw a tourist staring uncomprehendingly at a Metrocard vending machine one day. She was muttering “What the…” to herself, so I peeked over her shoulder. Scrolling across the screen, in lieu of any useful directions about ticket purchasing: If you see something, say something.

  • quiettrickster

    Just heard the radio advert version – it’s not just Londoners they want to be paranoid, you know.

    Strathclyde Police, on the other hand, want us to report hate crime. Hm, I wonder…

  • Anonymous

    Instead of mocking government efforts to prevent terrorism, why not try “remixing” the ad into a more effective campaign??

  • Anonymous

    “A bomb won’t go off here because all it would blow up is this stupid sign.”

    Yeah, this seems rediculous. These signs’ [original] messages seem like they’re trying to PROMOTE terror.

    @ the garbage one: “Whoops, you were just cleaning house? Our bad. Please don’t sue us for slander.”

  • BlackPanda

    This isn’t just a London thing, I’m afraid.

    The posters were spotted at Poole railway station in Dorset, this morning.

  • catastrophegirl

    @#4 CHOLTEN99 – moo.com makes some great sticker packs for a reasonable price if you just upload your own images. i’d do it if i lived on that side of the pond.
    but maybe i can make something appropriate to the US….. hrm….

  • oneplusi

    Yet another police poster spotted in a street in Cambridge:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneplusi/3388175790/

  • BenjieGillam

    Brilliant, every one of them.

  • Anonymous

    Dutch variation:

    Netherlands against terrorism

    and the parody

    Netherlands against bad weather

  • apoxia

    My favourite one is the one using probability to point out the extremely low likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack. That one alone bascially sums the whole thing up.

  • Anonymous

    Absolutely bloody brilliant…Well done everyone!
    Faraz

  • Axx

    What’s up with the Mind Games poster? Is something hidden in the image, or am I just being a dunce and not getting the joke?

  • yopino

    @13strong: genious! can I print that on one of my T shirts and wear it at the G20?

  • Brett Burton

    Someone needs to do these for NYC. I would love to see this type of thing swapped out for the “See something, say something” ads on the subway.

  • carlmorris

    I just saw one near my house in Cardiff. I’ve seen it all now. This is Wales! Greetings!

  • nathanjm

    Here’s mine,

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/masseyrocks/3389441427/sizes/l/

  • Anonymous

    a new message should be place prominantly in torbay by the bent torbay council and its chums at devon and cornwall police as follows:

    you are being watched, yes we will make up as many fake statements as we can about you, and its got bugger all to do with anti-social behavour!

    welcome to the new KGB its the british democracy system, we know your a terrorist.

  • TroofSeeker

    Okey, kids, here’s mine (not sure if this will work):

    http://pixpipeline.com/st/09b2bb888484.jpg/img/url

  • cory

    @adonai 38: it’s particularly appropriate here. The whole goddamn original ad campaign is a major, government-organized trolling technique.

  • jarv75

    Arggh, missed this. Did mine a few days ago…

    http://s3.amazonaws.com/jarv75/public/stuff/btp_poster_1.jpg

    http://s3.amazonaws.com/jarv75/public/stuff/btp_poster_2.jpg

    http://s3.amazonaws.com/jarv75/public/stuff/btp_poster_3.jpg

  • Anonymous

    Fantastic!! Well done guys!

  • Anonymous

    My attempt…
    http://www.kryogenix.org/code/metposter/?main=7+weeks+ago+a+family+of+American+tourists+made+a+quick+glance+at+the+CCTV+cameras.They%27re+dead+now.&extra=SUPPORT+THE+PARANOID+STATE&credit=Confidential+Anti-Neighbour+Hotlinewww.kryogenix.org%2Fcode%2Fmetposter&mimg=people.png

  • Anonymous

    Funny & pointed – brilliant. Reminder: Hitler was democratically elected. Big Brother Brown worries me.

  • Anonymous

    #10: There are some in Leicester too. Because Terrorists like targeting small countryside cities.

  • MrsBug

    Frikkin’ genius!

  • Anonymous

    Need same approach on the ‘what you say will be taken in evidence’ police posters we are seeing in Bristol. Someone?

  • Mindpowered

    Please. Someone start to poster these over the met posters.

    Any of them! All of them!

    I’d do it too, if I lived there I’d be doing it too.

    And sending them to irreputable media outlets.

  • Anonymous

    My mother told me that during WWII the Nazi encourages children to spy on and renounce their parents who spoke against National Socialism and the war (but maybe that was propaganda too?!) Doh, now I’m confused.

  • cory

    I don’t see anything suspicious in Mind Games either. Pretty sure that’s the point. ;-)

  • OP_TIMUS

    Here’s one from Nottingham:

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3591/3404507622_6f07f4f1bf_b.jpg

  • richphill

    Hi just checked out the Aussie sheet and was amazed to learn that Phase 3 would follow on from Phase 2 just shows how educated some gov. persons in this world can be!!

  • Anonymous

    http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/-FPM8tXgzLqrHan-DbwaBw?feat=directlink

    is my effort

  • richphill

    Hi again in the post from Nottingham the other advert should provoke more fear and will possibly cause more deaths in thelong run.

  • tonyb

    @#19 Brett Burton
    I just made one for New York’s posters :)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyb2007/3387780687/

    (The idea is that there is nothing there, see http://www.mta.info/mta/news/newsroom/images/high-res/seesomething_hi.jpg)

  • Anonymous

    Here’s my attempt

    http://www.kryogenix.org/code/metposter/?main=These+chemicals+won%27t+be+used+to+make+a+bomb+because+this+isn%27t+Fight+Club+and+your+neighbour+isn%27t+Brad+Pitt.&extra=Be+afraid+of+everything.They+want+you+to+be+scared.&credit=Confidential+Anti-Neighbour+Hotlinewww.kryogenix.org%2Fcode%2Fmetposter&mimg=bin.png

  • Anonymous

    Can anyone tell me where’s there’s an outdoor version of these posters in London. So far I’ve only seen them on the tube. I’m working on an assignment for college and I’d love to photograph one of these ridiculous posters.

    Anyway… Here’s my contribution… http://www.sheridanflynn.com/blog.html

    Cheers,

    S.

  • Anonymous

    @27
    I spotted that one yesterday in Peterborough too. Unfortunately, I might get arrested because I stopped to laugh at it.

  • James Holden

    Make your own here:

    http://jamesholden.net/billboard/

  • Anonymous

    Can the people in the picture complain if they dont want their images used in this way?
    I presume they are real people.

  • SilverBack

    These were amazing! Someone needs to print a couple and hang them about. Being paranoid won’t solve anything…being knowledgeable helps. :)

  • Anonymous

    Hilarious ! What a tonic. I didn’t realise they were so widespread until now. I’ve been silently seething thru the bus window at the (CCTV) one that’s been up in Luton for the last three weeks…

  • Anonymous

    these are great! if only it was just a fraction of our society that saw terrorrism as the controlling government PR stunt that it is rather than the other way round.

  • Anonymous

    Absolute genius, especially “Minesweeper”, “He’s dead now” and “…arrested for photographing CCTV camera”

    These posters have also reached York. “A bomb won’t go off here…” is displayed at this location:

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/db5avb

    The billboard is the long grey shape in the middle, in case you were wondering. Now, call me complacent but I would suggest that a bomb won’t go off there because there’s *sod all to blow up*!

    Anyone else seen these in completely inappropriate locations?

  • ColmR

    Here’s another..

    http://picasaweb.google.com/cfryan01/BoingBoing#5317556767975897650

  • newe1344

    @ #2

    thank you, I genuinely laughed out loud!

  • mrdavidcolin

    ……having glanced at a cctv camera today I think i’d better turn myself in………………better still why isnt there mass phone in to report me….?

  • 13strong

    This was my mash-up in response to the attack on the home of criminal banker Fred Goodwin:

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3385733606_e0c7d70fdc_o.jpg

  • 13strong

    Oh, and these are great. Well done peoples.

  • Anonymous

    We’re way ahead of the Brits in Australia. Our National Security Hotline for the Terminally Paranoid was launched in 2002 and is still going strong with radio, TV, press and bus shelter ads advising us to report our neighbours for anything suspicious or acting ostentatiously normal

    http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/agd/www/nationalsecurity.nsf/AllDocs/D1197555B9B04E9FCA256FAB00168903?OpenDocument

    http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/agd/WWW/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(CFD7369FCAE9B8F32F341DBE097801FF)~l000PRESS+AD+Mojo+-+Press+FINAL+-+31+July+2007.PDF/$file/l000PRESS+AD+Mojo+-+Press+FINAL+-+31+July+2007.PDF

  • Anonymous

    Another one here:

    http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2009/03/if-you-suspect-it-report-it.html

  • hbl

    I know I’m late to the party, but here’s my offering.

    sheet_road_cctv

  • Anonymous

    We´re probably all gonna be arrested for taking the piss and laughing about these. ;)

    Regards,
    Barbarella B.

  • vetnoir

    Absolutely Brilliant. Particularly the BB one.

  • Philipp Lenssen

    HUMOR IS CRIMETHINK

  • XtraXtra

    and yet another one:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/36779121@N05/3388998905/

  • Anonymous

    Excellent!

    Now how do we get these on the side of every bus in town?

  • Anonymous

    For how to post them around the city, use a projector.

    no need to pay for media, just a good wall, in high traffic location, will work.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t read too many paranoid posters!!
    you could die laughing.

  • Anonymous

    deluded…perceptive…optimistic, yet full of submissive fear…your notions carry nothing without the rationality and submissive self belief to mobilise a mindset which so begs for a figurehead who simultaneously embraces all thy notions yet in doing so with the vigour to enact, thereby destroys

  • cholten99

    Now, if only someone were to sell packs of A5 stickers made up of these…

    A good old flysheeting campaign never hurt…

  • hbl

    Er, try again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hbl/3388966957/sizes/l/

  • 13strong

    I’d like to flypost copies of the original posters behind CCTV cameras.

    Then they could prosecute people for looking at their posters! Hurrah!

  • Micah

    I was wondering how long it would take for someone to point out the non-white people (!!!) in the background of the “a bomb won’t go off” one. Fortunately, I was not disappointed.

  • Anonymous

    http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1556tko&s=5

  • Jingles

    That minesweeper poster is genius

  • edtoo

    enemies of freedom the lot of you

  • Auto Parts for Brains

    Some of these are really well thought out. Everything must truly be done in moderation. Anything in excess is evil. If the government do not exhibit care in all their actions to prevent terrorism, they might end up being the entity they are protecting people from.

    This is just a guess, but in the eye of some of the people of the country we invaded and set war on- like, Iraq, we are the terrorists.

  • Daemon

    Somebody needs to be making REAL posters along the same lines, and having them put up in all the same places the government ones are.

    I’m surprised that I haven’t seen any referances to nazis or any other real-life facist regimes that recommended spying on your neighbors.

  • Trilby

    @OnePlus #27

    Actually, that poster is part of an ad campaign for the new “Police Pledge”. The point of it is that any complaints or feedback the public have will be listened to and acted upon to improve the police force. It’s using the familiar phrase to attract attention.

    Not really something to get angry about, like the comments on Flickr.

  • Anonymous

    this one is nice:
    http://tinyurl.com/cmmgzb

  • Anonymous

    they’ve even got these stupid posters up here in sunderland. they’re huge!

  • Anonymous

    Just to let you know, these posters aren’t only in London. I spotted the CCTV one near my University Library in Sheffield (North England), because Yorkshire is obviously No.1 on the list of terrorist targets

  • greenormal

    oh well we’ll probably be added to the ‘some thousands’ the ever acutely well informed MI5 report said were supporting terrorism
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7718240.stm

    thanks to james h for making it such a synch and to several previous ones for making me almost piss myself laughing (eg @32)

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_x7bhnRA7nIA/Sc2McZgOdjI/AAAAAAAABUE/yQEjckzpGD0/s1600-h/billboard.jpg

  • Anonymous

    and another…
    http://www.kryogenix.org/code/metposter/?main=These+chemicals+won%27t+be+used+to+make+a+bomb+because+this+isn%27t+Fight+Club+and+your+neighbour+isn%27t+Brad+Pitt.&extra=Be+afraid+of+everything.They+want+you+to+be+scared.&credit=Confidential+Anti-Neighbour+Hotlinewww.kryogenix.org%2Fcode%2Fmetposter&mimg=bin.png

    Chris

  • nanuq

    All the more reason to fight the UK anti-terror campaign before it gets proclaimed a “success” and copied in other countries, And it will.

  • Takuan

    beginning of the end for another city

    http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Olympics2010/2009/03/26/legal-requirement-street-cameras-2010/

  • Bugs

    Some of those are awesome. What’s going on with the “Mind Games” one though? Is there actually something changed in the picture, or is it just a “terror posters” = “mind games” joke that I’ve completely sucked the humour out of with this question?

  • Anonymous

    These are great!

    Here’s my contribution

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/34903158@N02/3410840815/

  • Anonymous

    If you ever needed any proof that this campaign is about fearing and marginalizing dark-skinned people, you need to look closely at the CCTV photo.

    Everyone in the foreground is light-skinned, and dark-skinned people lurk behind them.

    It’s hard not to conclude that the campaign isn’t plainly appealing to racists.

  • TheCrawNotTheCraw

    @10,

    “because Yorkshire is obviously No.1 on the list of terrorist targets”

    Because of the Pudding, right?

  • tonyb

    I just made http://crap.tonybox.net/cctv.jpg :)

  • Anonymous

    Too Tasteless?

    http://f.imagehost.org/0587/g20-met.jpg

  • Anonymous

    Great stuff!

    My own contribution

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3647/3410840815_9ee6f81a1d_o.jpg

  • Anonymous

    All brilliant. I wish I could be this creative!

  • Anonymous

    Shtoopid G.Orwell was wrong by about 25 years!