Cameras Help Cops Catch a Killer

CrazedWalrus writes "Philadelphia police recently captured a serial killer with the help of a combination of Homeland Security and private surveillance cameras. Police examined video from 50 different cameras and pieced together relevant footage from 12 of them, and eventually were able to identify the murderer. Once caught, he confessed to several other murders spanning the past eight years. Without these cameras this killer would probably be stalking the streets of Philadelphia today. With results like that, is there really a good basis for argument against these cameras?"

Comments

Nothing wrong

[mapkinase]

1. Street cameras are in public places. Everyone can watch you in public place, with a camera too. A policeman on the street is doing exactly that. With camera it is even more indifferent.
2. Street cameras are not spying on a particular person. Everyone is equal.
3. In cases when cameras used in private places, they are clearly visible and are installed with the permission of the owner.

Resume: non-issue.

Re:Same as always

[lewscroo]

Why not move one step further. Everyone should be mandated to have a GPS unit physically attached to their bodies this way if there is a crime committed, everyones GPS unit can be reviewed to see who was in the vicinity, and not just the innacurate GPS capabilities that cell phones afford, but real US Military grade stuff so you can tell where people are to within inches. And why not have this GPS unit also take audio so we can review that and why not take some video snapshots every second as well so it can be correlated with the GPS. And then, instead of only reviewing things after a crimes committed, lets have people watching all the video feeds live to make sure that you aren't doing anything wrong, and then have speakers on those cameras to yell at you And you know what, these things work so great in public, why not start videoing and otherwise tracking people inside of their own homes, cuz as you probably know thats where a big percentage of crimes are committed. Cuz as everyone knows, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear, especially those with way more power and influence than you as they are the least likely to abuse anything.

Re:Same as always

[mrjb]

Of course it does, you do realise it's the first time ever they caught a serial killer. Or a criminal for that matter. It's a major progress !
No, it's not. First of all, they've caught serial killers and criminals often enough *without* cameras. If it is true what you say and indeed this is the first time that the killer was actually caught *because of* the cameras, this only shows how ineffective cameras are for security purposes.
Meanwhile there are plenty of stories around where so-called 'security' cameras were abused to invade on people's privacy.