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Ed Does anyone here believe that Princess Diana's car crash was suspicious?

BartholomewWest said:
Excuse me but we had municipal cameras in the 90s. I was alive. I remember it.

Maybe they were hidden. Maybe you didn't notice them. But they were there.

Even before 9/11, Big Brother was everywhere.
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Even if that is true of the US, it was not true of Paris.

What part of this are you refusing to understand?
 
We're talking about Paris bro. You were not there.

CCTV has been around for a while in small areas, usually in areas of high security concern. Widespread grids that would track a moving car across several streets is definitely a 21st century gig.

Do you have a more robust argument other than "I don't accept that technology moves linearly in time and has always been so"?

Eta: did you know the first iPhone came out in 2007? They haven't been here since medieval times either
 
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malbui said:
On the bookcase opposite me right now there is a photo of Mme Malbui and me taken at the Pont-Neuf in the summer of 1997. I’m learning so much from this thread about what Paris was like at that time. We must have been wandering around with our eyes closed.
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I guess I should recuse myself from this thread since I was out of Europe for three months which included the day Diana died and her funeral (and the un British emotional incontinence which followed). For the rest of the 90s I was there, however, and I don't recall universal CCTV coverage.
 
I'm actually getting a bit worried now. Back in the day I rented a little apartment at the foot of the Tour Montparnasse where I got up to all kinds of no good. It never occurred to me that I might have been under constant surveillance.

To anybody who watched any of the footage, I'm truly sorry. Young, horny and reckless. You know how it is.
 
Thermal said:
Even here in the States, it was super freaky in the early 2000s to see traffic cameras being installed. Everybody was up in arms about the Patriot Act getting carried away.

And since France has been brought up, I am compelled to say that no matter what anyone says of France or the French, it is a wonderful, beautiful country, as are its people, IMMHO.
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To be fair, some of us are complete dicks.

But overall the countryside is lovely.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Again, it's so long ago now it's hard to remember that the reason France suddenly became the butt of innumerable American jokes, and the toe-curling term "freedom fries" was coined, was resentment that they had the audacity to suggest invading Iraq didn't sound like a brilliant idea. Seems so quaint now.
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I'm sure I've mentioned here before that I had to go to Dallas for work at the beginning of March 2003 and I arrived at DFW airport as Bush was telling Saddam he had 24 or 48 hours, whatever it was, to come to his senses. My colleagues in Dallas were on the whole lovely and friendly but I did feel very alone there when suggesting that bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age maybe wasn't the only way forwards. My masculinity and virility did come into question.
 
By European standards I'm not very well travelled, I never left England until I was in my mid twenties and now my passport's expired because I didn't bother renewing it since I wasn't using it, but in between I've been to (off the top of my head) Wales, Scotland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, The Gambia, The Dominican Republic, Venezuela and three states of the US (New York, Texas and Florida), that's probably less than most, if not all, the other European posters in this thread. One of the things I learned from that travel is that "Other Places Are Different".
 
BartholomewWest said:
I just can't concede this point. The government had satellites that could watch a woman's breasts from outer space....in 1970.

I just can't fathom ever-present surveillance NOT being in France in 1997.

Especially if it was a famous woman who was the enemy of the military industrial complex...no, she was under constant surveillance by both the government and the paparazzi.
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Have you considered that 'not being able to concede that point' might be your problem rather than reality's?
 
malbui said:
To be fair, some of us are complete dicks.

But overall the countryside is lovely.
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Without a few dicks in the mix, the population would die off. I mean, biologically.

Giverny was beautiful, as were those rolling hillsides of yellow flowers on the way to Normandy. I want to go back so bad.

[/mooning]
 
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P.J. Denyer said:
It's okay, being a not particularly smart 9 year old in rural America doesn't stop one from denying reality so I think a few months away is okay. Are we being haunted by the ghost of Caroline13?
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We need a skull reaction put in the lineup. Sometimes a thumbs up doesn't convey the bite.
 
In 1970 the US did indeed have satellites photographing everything from space. I've seen low res samples of some. You can buy copies these days, if you want a black and white photo of some particular strip of the earth, maybe a km wide and several km long, from some date in 1970. I think the full resolution is something of the order of 1m features or even a bit less. Whether you would be able to tell if a sunbather was clothed or not, I can't say. You would probably be able to tell it was a person.

These were photos taken on big rolls of film which were later ejected in a capsule and fell back to earth, and I believe they were intended to be caught in mid air as they hung on a long line from a parachute. Quite extraordinary.

However amazing this was for the time, you have to keep it in perspective. They were not of course live photos. They could not be viewed until brought back, developed and printed. The satellites scanned strips of land one after another, whether there was anything interesting there or not. It's not James Bond: the CIA could not press a button and zoom in on the girls lying on the beach.
 
junkshop said:
Paris is not in Poland.


Again, Paris is not in Poland. 1997 is not recent. Your recounting anecdotes attributed to your wife is not evidence. Also, this is utterly irrelevant. Please try to maintain focus.


Citation, please.


Your inability to fathom a thing has no effect on history.
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Also: your wife is a member here. If she has arguments to present, then she can do that herself.
 
junkshop said:
Have we ever seen them both online at the same time? I'm not sayin' anything, but I'm just sayin', you know. Makes you think, right?

ETA: Common sense, obvs.
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You don't see Christopher Hitchens in the same room as Hillary Clinton either. At least, not since he started trash talking her.

*tries awkwardly to give maloik*
 
Jack by the hedge said:
In 1970 the US did indeed have satellites photographing everything from space. I've seen low res samples of some. You can buy copies these days, if you want a black and white photo of some particular strip of the earth, maybe a km wide and several km long, from some date in 1970. I think the full resolution is something of the order of 1m features or even a bit less. Whether you would be able to tell if a sunbather was clothed or not, I can't say. You would probably be able to tell it was a person.

These were photos taken on big rolls of film which were later ejected in a capsule and fell back to earth, and I believe they were intended to be caught in mid air as they hung on a long line from a parachute. Quite extraordinary.

However amazing this was for the time, you have to keep it in perspective. They were not of course live photos. They could not be viewed until brought back, developed and printed. The satellites scanned strips of land one after another, whether there was anything interesting there or not. It's not James Bond: the CIA could not press a button and zoom in on the girls lying on the beach.
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IIRC, the older digital imagery satellites were sold to Google Earth when the US Govt upgraded? Old Google Earth imagery shows you exactly what they could see. You could see a human, but not bosoms that were sub Dolly Parton-esque.
 
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Thermal said:
You don't see Christopher Hitchens in the same room as Hillary Clinton either. At least, not since he started trash talking her.

*tries awkwardly to give maloik*
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Well, duh! Hitchens don't wanna get deaded again, not after he faked his deading so good the firstly. Is simples, obvioid.

The beastly Hilly is ever watchful, your symbols, cymbals and finger wriggles shall not cloud her vision.

She sees all. She kills all. She killed Dirty Diana (what did you think that song was about? - pay no attention to time, it is irrelevant), she will kill you, too.
 
I still maintain that you have this backwards. If even a silly hotel had surveillance even in the kitchens and the elevator, it is inconceivable that the city didn't, too!

Even back then, you could hide a camera in the kitchen clock. Which is precisely what the Ritz did.

Years ago, when I was still in school, I actually used to be a skeptic about conspiracies. People would tell me the FBI and the NYPD could spy on you through your webcam.

I expressed disbelief. One guy retorted, "Listen, as a civilian, I could spy on you through the laptop! If I can do it, the FBI sure can!"

Looking back on it, he was probably correct.

Please don't try to flip this logic and argue that the FBI has fewer powers than we do.
 
You are simply making up whatever fantasy you feel happiest about and insisting it is true. You are not arguing in good faith. You are outright saying that where reality and your fantasy differ you will stick to your fantasy. That isn't sceptical. It isn't even rational or smart.

Did you watch the video posted talking about the installation of Paris' camera system in 2012?

The FBI can probably do that now yes, but not in 1997.
 
You missed the point (among other things.) If a person can do it, and a corporation can do it, and a silly hotel can do it....then something even more powerful than them can do it, too.
 
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