Ill admit it.....im amused.

hell yeah!

That's the right thing to do if you ask me.

Heroic and necessary.

Couple of thieves, making sure they don't have to wear their ski masks later that night during the breaking and entering phase.

Why cctv cameras in neighborhoods? How about an armed community watch?

Hippies.

Awesome. Vandalism? Fuck you. How about "rights activists"?

So they cut the feed? Did they knock it over?

Yap, the pole collapsed.

Did they carry it away and sell it to scrap metal dealers?

this warms my heart

Hurray for destruction of cctv!

But lawls at idiots cutting metal without protection and getting sparks in the face.

Because humans who are not paid to do something are lazy.. fn lazy.. and that does not make a good community watch. Kind of like the armchair policing you are doing right now.

Seriously...I will give 10 bucks for one good reason to take these down. Sorry you are going to have to jerk off in public elsewhere!

Was that guy putting his arm right next to the saw blade?

1. Lower taxation, these things cost money (initial outlay and ongoing costs) to keep an eye on a populace that, by and large, aren't doing anything wrong. Most of us don't want em, don't need em and don't want to pay for them.

2. Changing rules aka slippery slope. The people who agree to big brother on the first day might become victims of it later down the track. Once you establish a state where the citizens are constantly under surveillance and have accepted that onus, you can implement worse measures. Look at post 911 USA... Land of the free? As long as you don't mind the government setting up camp in your rectum 24/7.

3. There is no such thing as "safe". CCTV doesn't deter crime, it just catches the idiots too stupid to take it in to account (ie. people who cut down poles sans facial coverings for example...). Much like any other precaution, criminals find ways around CCTV. That is not an argument for more surveillance, it's an argument about the futility of it in the first place.

4. Sometimes the rules should be broken. How many things were illegal 100 years ago that are perfectly legal now? Worse, think of the things that were legal 100 years ago that are outlawed now (*hint: most of them are self harm crimes such as drug use etc) How often have nanny states tried to decree what you can and can't do only to find that people do not want to live under that rule? The camera is the start, if they can see what you are doing constantly, they can stop you. Why do you think organisations like Anonymous exist? To quote a memorable cutscene from Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri, "We must dissent...".

Send 10 bucks to the charity of your choice.

Lower taxation? Much like people who say it's against their so-called privacy to run red lights without a camera taking their picture? Because I'm pretty sure spending 20k is cheaper than 50k it'd cost to hire just 1 officer to stand at an intersection and chase people down.

Cameras aren't some big evil. It's improper use of the cameras that's evil. It's illegal wire tapping that's evil. It's the recording of all text messages without any safe guards in place that's evil. You're worried about a camera? Seriously, what are you doing that makes you so terrified of a little camera?

Why do police cars have cameras? I doubt it's so they can be all big brother on you. It's to keep the officer honest. It's a non-biased witness to a crime. In most cases a camera isn't going to prevent a crime, but it certainly helps when it's a he-said/she-said incident.

I think I vaguely recall some discussion about guns not killing people. Or something along those lines. If guns are perfectly okay despite the massive evidence of the rampant gun use and rampant gun sales to foreign entities that use them to suppress and murder, I don't see the same argument being applied to CCTV. Why is the gun ok but the owner bad, but the camera bad and the owner is never talked about?

Maybe instead of cheering on the destruction of tax payer property we should discuss the rules and regulations of handling the data from these cameras. After all, I for some reason see tons of idiot criminals on here due to these things. Obviously that benefit outweighs any lame excuses listed above.

1. CCTV is a lot cheaper than an armed guard at every intersection, every school blah blah. Not to mention, armed security hasn't really been all that effective. Hell, someone just shot a few cops the other day. I'm pretty sure the cops had guns. But who's counting.

2. First they make us drive on roads. Next they're going to make us get LICENSED! OMG! Pretty soon they're going to require us not to run over babies, or run red lights, or shoot people who are going too slow! Jesus we're becoming such a nanny state! Why can't I just hire a doctor who went to Joe Bob's School or 3 Day Medical Training?

3. Aside from all the evidence pointing to the fact that CCTV does deter crime. If 1 out of 5 crimes don't take place because of a camera, that's called a Deterrent. But I could be thinking of statistics and not emotion. The reason why these cameras catch idiots is because they're stupid enough to do them in the first place. Locks don't stop criminals. Locks determine your level of honesty. If you're determined enough, you will get in no matter what. If I reaaaaally want in your car, I will find a way, even if you lock it. So why bother locking it? Oh, right, because 1 out of 10 will be super desperate while 9 out of 10 will be ok with just opening the unlocked door.

4. Yeeeeaaaaaaaaah. That's such a good reason. Hey, I don't really like these whole murder laws. I say I should dissent. Or I don't like financial regulation, let's just crash the entire countries economy . . . or sell futures for a product that doesn't exist. See your number 2. Slippery slope here . . . so while I agree with you that some laws should be broken, ignored, fought etc, it's not exactly a "one good reason".

#1 what DOESN'T cost money? I'll tell you what cost LESS money..video cameras. If I can't have a cop monitor an intersection 24/7, then I am fine with a red light camera.

#2 Well getting caught in your own traps is just your own problem. Has nothing to do with changing rules or slipper slopes. I think I understand what you mean by rules being added allowing the govt to add more rules un-opposed, but this MAINLY has to do with the publics becoming more lazy and not bothering themselves with politics, ie people not involving themselves with the rule making process anymore.

#3 CCTV Does it's job. It helps identify and catch spur of the moment crimes (Abuse, attacks, robbery) and at least causes planned crimes like drug trafficking to be moved elsewhere. You can't really STOP this with public CCTV coverage but at least you can prevent it from happening in front of your house or on the playground near the kids.

#4 While I think shatter went the extreme, I know what you mean. We have lots of old laws we break all the time now. This is not the CCTV's problem though. %99 of the time these laws are also ignore by the police, and we only find out about them when that %1 gets charged with one of those laws. This is just something else that needs to be fixed by the people and really has nothing to do with CCTV.

I understand people are afraid of loosing freedoms, but I also understand that we are not earning it either. Broken economy systems, failing healthcare, and lax education systems are causing chaos and hardship which leads to increased crime. If you want your freedoms back, you are going to have to become involved with politics more and make sure the right people are making your laws.

I don't believe anyone, any council, or any government, has the right to watch me, for any reason, whether I'm doing anything wrong, picking my nose, scratching myself inappropriately or whatever.

Those people watching me are people the same as me, with no greater purpose or rights. I am against public surveillance in any form.

I don't care about arguments regarding money, catching criminals or loiterers, or what ever trumped up reasons authority or the people can come up with.

It's NONE of their dam business what I do as I walk down the street, sit on the curb or lean against a post. I don't need someone in an office somewhere going through my existence with a fine tooth comb monitoring me. I don't want to end up on surveillance tapes somewhere, archived and forgotten about just so one day they can be discovered and used for some other purpose.

If someday, I'm arrested for spitting my gum on the ground, (not that I chew gum or would spit it on the ground), but I don't want every facet of my life being dissected just so they can piece together and use past footage to create some trumped up footage that portrays me as less than I am.

This is a complete invasion of my personal rights as a human being and an individual. I truly believe this is an overstep of authority by a hierarchy that has been put in place to serve ME and the people who pay the taxes to fund levels of government.

(Only applies to Americans)

Unfortunately you have very little understanding of the US legal system.

A) Under the Constitution you HAVE NO RIGHT to privacy, of any short, whatsoever. The word privacy doesn't even exist. I am perfectly 100% legally allowed to sit on a public sidewalk and take pictures of you all day long. If I can see you, from that sidewalk (or any public space) I can photograph, video, draw or whatever your likeness to my hearts content. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Period.

B) By US law, any previous offenses cannot be used against you. If they have footage of you kicking a cat on a sidewalk and you're being charged with a speeding ticket, they cannot use that footage for anything. If they do, you win. It's called a mistrial. Now, if you were being charged with animal abuse by your mom for kicking her cat, they still CANNOT use that footage. Unless, of course, it was her cat you kicked in the video. (This is why you hear being being charged with 7 counts of murder. The previous murders are not evidence that they committed the most recent one, but the evidence applies jointly to several cases such as DNA, weapon, motive, location etc. Same with the animal abuse. You could be charged with 2 counts of animal abuse, but someone would actually have to file that charge.)

C) They don't even store that video. You obviously believe big brother has invented some new fangled massive storage device. CCTV eats through tape/disk fairly quickly, especially higher resolution ones. An average McDonalds has around 12 CCTV's throughout the store. (It's been a while, so don't quote me.) That's a lot of footage. That's one of the big cons is that most systems only record 4 frames a second in SD. Most systems also only store the data for a few days. Essentially long enough for the store owner to realize something happened and pull the tapes.

D) Most CCTV's aren't even monitored. They're there for evidence after the fact. The City of Tampa was planning to use facial recognition software to look for known Top Wanted. Why? Because as much as you think there's a secret lair of lackies watching your every move, a person can only watch one screen full of people. When they're over 10,000 cameras in that city, that's 1% of the population watching monitors. Well, 3% if they go in shifts. And yet, I don't see a "CCTV Watchers Union" anywhere.

E) Again, you HAVE NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY. Only protection against unreasonable Search and Seizure. Which only protects you within private property, or articles on your body. As in, they cannot search you, your vehicle, house or business without a warrant. If you don't want people looking at you, stay inside, close the blinds, and use Amazon to buy everything you need.

I don't have any problem with CCTV in the sense that it should be used as dashcam footage, as evidence in cases as it is more objective than eye witnesses. I do have a problem when that CCTV exists to be sifted through by some government worker trolling for crimes or whatever.

If they had to have a warrant to even look at certain times, otherwise it would be all automated, I have no problem with them recording everything in the public space.

First of all, I am Canadian, not American.

1. Don't tout constitution. I don't care if some lawmaker wrote something down once or in this case, didn't write something down. I don't think government should have the right to film the people it serves.

2. It doesn't matter to me if some person films me in a public place. Or if I end up in the background of some photo snapped by someone else. That's not what I'm referring to. I don't think authority should engage in wholesale documentation of the populous whether through film, internet spying, mail scanning, phone tapping or otherwise.

3. I don't honestly expect that someone will charge me with something I did previously and unrelated. Use something to base a character judgement on? -Maybe. I don't put it past officials/government to use footage unjustly to make a case win in their favor.

4. Of course they can't store up all that footage. I know it's on a loop. And I know all about storage sizes. (don't insult me) BUT, some reels do go missing, get set aside, or get replaced. And many of them are reviewed. I've seen it done in retail stores time and again. (and I may ad that at one place I worked at, the owner would sit there for hours just spying on people and splicing out sections of girls on the film. If it can happen in the private sector, it can happen in the public sector.

5. The fact that people "Have No Right To Privacy" is bullshit. As I have stated, Just because some lawyer wrote something down, or didn't write something down doesn't give them any right over me and how I choose to live. Just the same as I don't have to respect someone higher up in a hierarchy just because they are higher up or make more money than I do. (Insert Grumpy Old Man Syndrome here). I don't trust lawyers, or at least the majority of them (especially corporate ones). I truly believe that they are the downfall of society.

That's all I'll say on the matter. Cheers!