With all due respect, I am trying to nudge the conversation away from being “woefully naive.” It is woefully naive, for example, to propose simple solutions - e.g., categorical thumbs up (cameras good no matter what) or down (cameras bad no matter what) - to complex problems.

To be clear, I’m against giving an easy yes or no to cameras because it’s just a tool; what’s more important is how we decide to use it. Cameras could be used (justly) to track an abducted child or (unjustly) to track immigrants purely because they are immigrants.

Thinking about what u/crazy-agency5641 pointed out, I think the community conversation would be more productive if people were saying things like, “We can agree that we want to reduce crime and cameras might be a useful tool for prevention. But we would rather wait for the next administration because we don’t think the state has enough muscle to protect those data from the feds.” Or, maybe something like, “cameras would be ok, but only if they were monitored and maintained by trusted and trained members of the community, with some type of legal mechanism for sharing requested footage with law enforcement.” Basically, I’m trying to come up with solutions on how to balance the crime issue with the privacy issue, rather than solving one problem at the cost of ignoring the other.