Glad to hear there is now a campaign against the Mosquito, a device which makes a high-pitched unpleasant noise, audible only to young people (under the age of 25) due to its high frequency. The campaign not only has youth groups and civil liberties groups like Liberty involved, it even has the backing of the Childrens' Commissioner. (Liberty website: Help us stamp out the mosquito)
The whole idea of creating a virtual exclusion zone for young people using what is tantamount to sonic warfare, is abhorrent enough. Innocent kids, babies included (whose parents may be unaware of the presence of the Mosquito), are affected just as much as the small minority of criminals. (This is also my argument against dispersal orders and curfews on young people). Not only is use of the Mosquito a form of child abuse, it may even be economically counter-productive; it risks actually losing shops money, by deterring young people from shopping there!
There have also been cases of kids living near to shops using the Mosquito suffering from the noise. Yesterday morning on the radio, a report mentioned a kid living in a flat opposite a shop being kept awake at 1am by a Mosquito. If a young person was playing music at 1am loud enough to keep people awake, he/she would soon get as ASBO!
Then there's another issue ... if kids can hear it, what about animals? It's hardly fair on dogs (and their owners) going for a walk, cats living nearby, and birds flying nearby.
Despite all this, the government have said they're not going to ban the Mosquito. Surprise, surprise, considering this government always did care more about capitalist businesses than about ordinary people. Then again, it sometimes seems like the only thing the government don't want to ban. For example, in the last blog entry, I described how the government want to ban P2P file sharing.
Thought for today: maybe someone should release the sound from a Mosquito as a record, then hammer everyone using the device for illegally playing copyrighted audio :-P
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