[btbuildem]

Not sure, they'll just throw more resources at the problem.

I think the problem is in "the few". If they snoop on us, we should be able to snoop on them -- especially since it's our tax dollars that pay their salaries and (although yes it's a joke of a broken system) we elect these officials more or less directly.

Just to level the field a little bit. For example, London is full of CCTV cameras -- why is it that only a small group of twisted perverts has access to the feeds? The cameras are in public places, the public should be able to see what the cameras are seeing.

[robeasthope]

It's a bit much to call bored security staff perverts and opening up the data to the public is guaranteed to attract the crazies - Would you want your (crazy) ex to be able to follow your new love life with a new partner via CCTV?

FYI it's not all bad: the UK automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) CCTV network run by the police (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK) is currently being legislated by the Coalition to bring it under statutory regulation - considering the revelations about police conduct over undercover cops it can't come to soon either.

P.S. Bless the UK gov, a full surveillance state can't happen because it's rubbish at IT: 'The current restraints on police use of ANPR data have been dictated by pragmatism rather than a concern for civil liberties. Giving every police officer free access to the system would overload the system, "make it unstable, slow it down", said John Dean, National ANPR co-ordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers.'

[kintamanimatt]

I've known one of those people that watch those cameras and I'd struggle to call him a pervert. He's was just normal guy who paid his bills by doing an incredibly dull job. All it came down to was making sure that when petty shit happens in the street (drunken fights, etc), the police and so on are called to the scene.

I'm usually someone that's very fond of privacy, but I'm not entirely sure I have any qualms with CCTV in public places and in fact I'd love to hear arguments against them.

[Torgo]

I had a friend who worked as a security guard at a factory. Sometimes I would come down and visit him in the guard shack. He showed me a controller he could use to point a security camera, and he excitedly showed me how it could be pointed and zoomed directly at the bedroom windows of several of the houses on the other side of the fence. And yes, we peeped. It was so easy and there was no way to be caught that it perverts your morals. You would have to be a strong person to resist the temptation. This was in the 1990s. Mass surveillance destroys the dignity of both the people spied on and those doing the spying.

[criley2]

Aren't the majority of London's CCTV's privately owned and operated?