This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, February 14, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Dozens of police cameras have been operating in the District of Columbia for more than a year,

following cities like London, Baltimore, Chicago, and New York,

with cameras meant to catch criminals in the Act.

But where does effective police work stop and tracking law-abiding citizens begin.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, weighs in.

This from the Washington Post, DC police are now watching live images from dozens of

surveillance cameras posted in high crime parts of the city hoping to respond

faster to shootings, robberies, and other offenses and and cash suspects before they get away.

Since August 2006, the city has installed 73 cameras across the city, mostly on utility poles

at a cost of about $4 million, but until recently officers were using them

mainly as investigative tools, checking the recordings after crimes were

committed in hopes of turning up leads in evidence. Police Chief Kathy Lanyer said she thought the

department wasn't making the most of the technology and was missing opportunities

to more quickly solve crimes or even stop them in progress. I thought, quote, why the heck aren't we watching them, Lanyer said.

Cameras are obviously in a lot of use in the UK and more and more in US cities and in New York City for example

there they've talked of replicating the UK experience and the assumption the

wide assumption is that this is an effective law enforcement tool.

Studies in the UK have not found this to be the case,

and logic helps bear that out.

Frankly, you can, from the presence of cameras you can get forensic information you can find out after the fact what happened

...