Tim May wrote:

Today's newspaper (SJ Mercury News) carried a long article about increasingly ubiquitous video surveillance cameras, and singled out the U.K. as a place that is leading.

There was a news report on this a couple of months ago. In addition to the government surveillance cameras, when there's a major crime in the U.K. the cops have started collecting all the security tapes from offices, gas stations, railway stations, etc, etc in the surrounding area and scanning them to try to find the culprits. The interesting things that they said were : 1. The cameras only reduce crime rates locally, as the criminals simply move to areas without cameras. 2. The real criminals (e.g. IRA bombers) know how to disguise themselves well enough that the cameras cannot easily be used to identify them. 3. The cameras are often pointed in the wrong direction, not switched on or aren't recording. A good example is the London club which was bombed a year or so back. The bomber walked up to the entrance and placed the bomb directly in view of the security camera. It was switched off at the time ... 4. Even when people are recorded, the resolution is often too poor to identify them. So it appears that the cameras are great for arresting people who urinate in bushes, but useless for catching real criminals. Alice de 'nonymous ... ...just another one of those... P.S. This post is in the public domain. C. S. U. M. O. C. L. U. N. E.