[jamiequint]

"Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people."

In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? If anything rampant crime (and progressive legal systems' unwillingness to lock up repeat offenders for a long time or at all) makes life much harder for regular people than a camera just sitting there.

[MSFT_Edging]

A few months ago a woman was harassed over a crime she did not commit, by a police officer using her vehicle driving in a large general area as proof she committed the crime. Officer demanded she admit to a crime she did not commit.

Additionally, the surveillance apparatus enables parallel reconstruction. When law enforcement gathers evidence via illegal means, they can then use the drag net to find cause to detain/search unrelated to the original crime, in order to have cover to gather evidence they illegally gathered prior, aka a loophole for civil rights.

[Vrondi]

By mis-identifying them, leading to 5 months of jail time for a person who has done nothing other than be in public. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/us/north-dakota-facial-re...

[ggoo]

Surveillance tech can alter peoples behavior. I know I'm personally more stressed when I know I'm being filmed, even if I'm doing nothing wrong.

https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510?l...

[jamiequint]

Untrue at a population level, just compare anxiety disorders and self-reported anxiety between USA and China.

[qbit42]

There are certainly no other causal factors...

I'm not saying that it couldn't be true, but we have no way of concluding that from just comparing such rates. There are many differences in daily life and thresholds for reporting beyond surveillance levels.

[Barrin92]

anxiety in the sense you're talking about is a function of private surveillance and in that regard America is much worse. State led surveillance in Chinese public spaces is real and effective in producing compliance (20 years ago public theft, pulling people off motorcycles was a daily occurrence) but in private China is a significantly freer society.

Foucault used to distinguish between models of authority that operate on "make die and let live" vs "let die and make live". China's the former, the US with its moral busybodies both in progressive and religious flavors the latter.

The US now is a society of public disorder and personal policing, China is a society of public order and largely indifference in private life. Of course the former creates anxiety. American Beauty, a film about permanent surveillance without any state, would make no sense in China.

[tokioyoyo]

I think it’s a cultural thing. On average, people seem to hate cops more in the USA.

Personally I like having little cop boxes in 5 minute walking distances in Tokyo. There are people who are very against it, bring up bad encounters, but net positive, I would say.

[text0404]

Biased policing means these systems are used to target minorities, activists, and people with "controversial" beliefs: https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/discriminatory...

[tadfisher]

"Police used AI facial recognition to arrest a Tennessee woman for crimes committed in a state she says she’s never visited": https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/29/us/angela-lipps-ai-facial-rec...

[array_key_first]

There's zero proof anywhere that these devices do anything about crimes. How could they? A camera can't lock someone up.

[loeg]

They provide law enforcement timely information about the location of wanted (e.g., stolen) vehicles. Law enforcement can act on that information. If law enforcement does not have that information, it cannot act on it.

[array_key_first]

Law enforcement can act on that information, but they can do a lot of things. Whether they actually are is a different question.

You're also ignoring the risk here. These devices open up a whooooole new class of mistakes that can be made. There have already been people wrongfully jailed due to surveillance technology.

[vjsrinivas]

These systems have provided incorrect data, and law enforcement often misuse that data to stalk, attack, and wrongfully arrest innocent people. Privacy matters to everyone - especially for ones who don't care about privacy.

[JuniperMesos]

One of the services that is most underfunded is the service of arresting, trying, and incarcerating homeless people who commit petty thefts, vandalism, and in some extreme cases physical assault or even murder. Insofar as cameras drive down the cost to the legal system of gathering enough evidence to convict and incarcerate people who do these things, this would make life better for regular people.

[hackable_sand]

Jesus Christ dude...

[teaearlgraycold]

Police officers have on many occasion used these cameras to track people outside of the scope of their jobs. Usually it's a man tracking a woman (like an ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, or just a random stalking target).

[pocksuppet]

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, right?

[m3047]

1) Surveillance needs to be reviewed. Even if reviewed by AI, eventually that reviewed work needs to be reviewed by a human if we're going to maintain the fiction / friction of "human in the loop". The "hits" will include false positives, unless the system is overtuned so that it rarely kicks an event.

1a) Review will take time / resources which could be spent on human policing, harming the community.

1b) Some jurisdictions may prefer "broken windows as policy", the notion that they can construct a "reasonable suspicion", given enough garbage (some of it outright garbage, the point being there is so much of it nobody cares; don't need to do an accurate drug test until trial, right?).

2) False surveillance hits will make it through human review and result in injury to innocent humans.

3) Police forces already lack the money / manpower to investigate potential crimes.

4) Police forces already "prioritize" other matters than the mentally ill setting their houses on fire or releasing plagues of rabbits into their neighborhoods (actual things that have happened to me!).

[ikrenji]

feels somewhat dystopian, no? the big brother is watching everywhere you go. no way this can go tits up