Belly,

"....the world is a better place for the use of cameras."

Are you sensing that there is less community violence now, as opposed to way back when before CCTV?

I'm not.

In that case, how, and in what way, is it effective?

Poirot, please understand I am a fan of yours, but find reason to disagree often.
And often ask my self why folk can think so very differently on some things.
Not a bad pass time, reviewing why we think as we do, and why others do not.
I learn much that way.
Let me tell you what life has taught me.
My wasted and breaf youth, saw me active in one of this country,s then Communist trouble making unions, not my life,s one.
We youths, big strong and headstrong, brave along with it, had schooling,just before a needless strike or meetings, we learned story,s off by heart, untrue but gave the meetings them word for word.
I woke up to what a lie that was, when two older wiser meat boning men and three woman packers jolted me for it.
You do not have to disagree or agree, with every thing, just because you think it may lessen your values if you do not.
It stood me in good stead, all my life,it will again, after the coming election defeat of every thing I believe in.
But I hope in the ruins my party rises, knowing it must not tilt at windmills.
Fighting the cameras, because a case, feeble miss jointed and untrue can be made they intrude on privacy we never had,will change nothing.
World wide evil or just plain bad people are caught because of these cameras.
Your challenge Poirot is to prove to me, what damage they do, and to who.

without street camera's it would be very doubtful that the rapist/murderer of Jill Meahger would of been found along with the Boston bombers. enough reason in a couple of months to justify existance.

Belly,

I take your point....that a filmed society apparently hurts nobody...

Could it be that cameras are perceived as keeping us safer, when the reality is that society has continued on an equally or more violent, less connected and caring path.

Could it be that we've come to the point where we don't expect or feel the need to be looking out for each other. That close-knit communities are now a thing of the past in our centralised conglomerations.

Our streets are now probably more unsafe - especially at certain hours - than they've ever been.

How can that be with the plethora of surveillance on hand?

Poirot I honestly welcome street cameras any thing we can use to combat crime.
Watched a British Cop show, based on police using them, liked what I saw.
I could list reasons for concerns other than them, why constant demands for drivers license not related to driveing ?
Why do judges and others sitting in judgment hand down sentences so bad we cringe?
Like the 6 years for a child killer on tv last night.
All those things are in a way damaged by things like one person! a single one! seeing at least for some time these cameras turned off.

On balance I think the cameras are a help in detecting perpetrators, not so sure that they are effective as a deterant although they should be.

I do have a concern about the creeping intrusion of monitoring into our lives. Generally the individual components have validity but the sum of the parts is something those who value personal liberty and privacy find disturbing.

Belly and I have been over this before a bit in relation to workplace drug and alcohol testing. Differing world views and a divide of understanding.

I don't deliberatey break the law, I've never been drunk or taken illicit drugs but that does not mean that I welcome intrusions on my privacy because someone has a policy. Part of that is just a liking for privacy, some sense of control over my own life and choices in a world where governments seem increasingly determined to remove that control and choice. There is also a practical element to my concerns.

I don't have the level of trust in government (or its agents) to always act ethically with the power at their disposal. Technology is advancing rapidly, tools such as facial recogition and data matching means that data and images gathered today may be able to be used quite differently in a few years tie to the way it can be used now.

Government agendas and poorly thought through laws may well mean that those who have not done wrong may well have something to hide or fear and governments always seem to be able to find people willing to "just do their job" without regard to the fairness or ethics of that job.

I don't have neat answers to the conflict between finding wrongdoers and arming government with more powerful tools to control the population than have ever existed in history. Its and answer we do need to find though.

R0bert