Reply #8: I'm not afraid of life and I don't go around picking my nose [View All]

or scratching my ass in public. However, I would deeply resent cameras that talk as much as I would resent knowing they were being watched in real time. The kid who committed the petty crime of nicking a traffic pylon would soon realize that crime doesn't pay every time he tripped over it in his apartment. That's how kids learn about petty crime. Those Big Brother cameras are a terrible idea. They need to go.

Cameras have managed to identify many violent criminals. If they are used for this purpose, if the information is not viewed unless a major crime has been committed in the area, I have no problem with them. It's like having an eyewitness who has been trained to identify people, not a causal stranger who gets nearly everything wrong as most of us do.

I see the biggest danger with totalitarians like the GOP getting hold of them and using them to identify and harass protesters. They are a mixed bag and need to be regulated to death with stiff penalties for any official, elected or appointed, who uses them for a purpose other than identifying criminals committing major crimes.

Remember that horrible case in the UK of two eleven year old boys murdering a younger boy? If those cameras hadn't been there, those two murderous brats would never have been caught. No one would have thought to look for school age murderers.

We already have webcams all over the place. Just Google it if you don't believe me. They won't make us safer, but they will help us put predators in jail. Like everything else in life, they can be good or bad. Having them watched in real time is bad, as is having some Nanny in the Sky nagging us is. Having the data available in case a major crime is committed in the area is good.