Almost too hokey to be scary - almost.

Sure it's scary. I can't imagine who thought this was a good idea. Perhaps someone just thought of it so that they could have a job making anonymous snarky remarks to strangers all day. It might be even more fun than blogging.

Well, it does sound very Big Brother and all but in certain situations, I don't see an issue with cameras. I know in some crappy hoods in Chicago, the police have put up cameras to curb drug dealing and hookers in certain areas- seems to be somewhat of a deterent. Conspiracy kooks must be having a field day. I don't think this is the New World Order or any of that crap. The bottom line is the government, local or federal, cannot monitor everything- it's impossible. Creepy, yes but I don't seem to care.

Al Kida,

The right answer for both prostitution and drugs is to legalize them. There is no such thing as a victimless crime! This would also put drug dealers and pimps out of business instantly, both of whom often commit real crimes with real victims.

Also, when face recognition software gets a bit better, yes, we can watch everything. It's just a matter of getting bigger faster computers to do it for us. The hardware is now getting into petaflops (quadrillions of floating point operations per second).

Nothing really new here. Back in the late 1960s when they put in the PATCO high speed rail line from suburban NJ to Philadelphia it was highly automated and ran 24 hours, both features a novelty back then. Late one night/early one morning, when I was returning from Philly, waiting on the platform, I noticed a camera mounted above me and aimed right where I was standing. Teenaged wiseguy that I was back then, I flipped it the bird and got an immediate response via the public address system, "watch your language kid!!" That would be just shy of forty years ago.

this concept (of big brother-style surveillance) cannot be allowed to spread in the US. what i want to know is how come they don't have to prove probable cause to observe you? for example, if the cops pull me over in my vehicle, they have to have probable cause to search me, so why can they just film huge segments of town with no suspicion that something illegal is happening? (i realize that this does not apply to the slightly pre-1984 england that the original article was about)

Misanthropic Scott- I agree only to an extent on drugs and prostitution. I am here in Cali and for the most part marijuana dispensaries are allowed in most of the state. I happen to live in one of the counties that has banned them- San Diego. But not all drugs are equal my friend and I think it's idiotic to argue for the legalization of Meth- get real. Hard drugs like this ruin lifes and do have major impact on society. Last thing we need is a bunch of tweekers who can't function in society. There are plenty of tweekers as is with it illegal.

Secondly, prostitution has been around forever. Sure, it will never go away. It's legal in NV and not too hard if you know where to look on Craigslist- not that I would know or anything...

I suppose the only somewhat valid argument for increased cameras would be to prevent Johnny Jihad from blowing himself up.

But I do think cameras everywhere is a little creepy.

Sorry war pigs, you must not have read the PATRIOT act. You have no rights. If they claim you are a possible terrorist or an illegal combatant, they can quite literally make you disappear. No phone call. No right to a speedy trial. No lawyer. That they have not yet done so should not allay your fears.

Got ACLU?