That's a general statement given with no real proof. The same argument can be applied to any criminal countermeasure. i.e. "We don't need to hire more police; criminals will adapt."
This is based on a false premise, but even so, who cares?
Can't the world already see what's put in the public sphere? A record of it doesn't mean anything... It'll just make people think about things they do in public more.
I think the sole source of your complaint is the possibility for abuse; yes, it's there. But any power can be abused. That doesn't mean the power shouldn't exist; just that it shouldn't exist unchecked.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-tens-of-thousands-of-cctv-cameras-yet-80-of-crime-unsolved.do"In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average."
Now that's just regarding solving crimes, not even preventing it.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-16856213-cctv-does-not-stop-crime.do"Closed circuit TV systems are of little use in the fight against crime, a surprise government report claims today.
Home Office researchers who studied 14 schemes across Britain found that only one had brought a clear fall in the local crime rate.
While there was strong public support for CCTV before it was installed, opinion began to shift when people realised the cameras made little difference."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1 A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.
· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet from next month.
· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined."
Etc, etc. It's been shown quite a bit, hence why I said it. Just didn't feel like posting the links with the original post.
Who cares? Smart people should. If it's costing taxpayer money, is not doing what it was intended to do, and IS unchecked....yeah, you should be against it.
It's just getting worse and expanding. Furthermore, cities and police departments are basically putting the videos and pictures out there for people to see, which is wrong.
There was a news story recently in the states about a town that was posting people's mugshots on the internet for hits. People's lives are being ruined because of it, they're basically being put in digital stockades for public scrutiny. It's akin to Dateline:To Catch a Predator basically publicly humiliating people, and there being very few convictions following this.
I'm going off topic here, but yeah it's a big problem to me. It goes in line with further militarizing our police forces, people being tasered more and more often, etc.