CCTV has always been touted as a crime prevention tool. Privacy advocates have long argued that they don’t work as prevention tools. They are only good after the fact to, possibly, search and find the guilty party. It doesn’t stop crimes. This argument has been glaringly clear over the past few days in London.

From Big Brother Watch:

1) Not one aspect of our ubiquitous surveillance network, erected to watch all of us all the time, just in case, has done anything to protect Londoners in this, our hour of greatest need; and

2) In an environment in which only a finite pot of capital exists to spend on any given portfolio, that tremendously expensive network soaked up vast amounts of capital – at least some of which might have been spent on training more police officers to deal with these situations?

I’m sure all the politicians touting that CCTV will catch the rioters provides little comfort to those who have lost their homes and businesses.