There was a time when if you got the strange feeling someone was watching you, you could usually write it off to paranoia. Those days are long gone. Maybe you've gotten used to the idea that your every move will be recorded as you try to decide which snacks you want to buy in a convenience store or while you pump your gas, but in a growing number of towns and cities, the scrutiny you are under is becoming more intense.Civil liberties groups estimate there are as many as 3 million surveillance cameras currently in operation in the United States, making it seem that the "surveillance society" civil libertarians warn about is already here. Was George Orwell just 20 years off?"The case against the cameras is hard to make quickly, because it's more about the long-term effect of a surveillance society," said Jeffrey Rosen, a professor at George Washington University School of Law and author of "The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age.""It is quite feasible and easy to imagine a system of ubiquitous surveillance of anyone at any time," he said.In New York City, a couple of groups have been trying to do something to help people avoid the attention and to try to bring greater attention to the issue.The New York Bill of Rights Defense Campaign has begun a project to map surveillance cameras that are pointed at public spaces around the city. The project will initially map all the cameras in Manhattan and selected neighborhoods in the other boroughs, but the eventual goal is to cover the entire city, NYBORDC project director Udi Ofer said.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy, a technological research and development group that says it is "dedicated to the cause of individual and collective self-determination," has created software that can be downloaded from its Web site that it says allows a user to plot a video surveillance-free path between any two points in Manhattan. The information on the location of the cameras was provided by the New York Civil Liberties Union, according to the Web site.Ofer said the concern in New York is mostly about private surveillance cameras, but in other cities law enforcement itself is stepping up the use of surveillance technology.

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I remember watching I think it was a news cast about video cameras installed near
cross walks either in New York or in Toronto. Anyway I can't quite remember were I saw it from. But interesting topic.

Cameras are everywhere. As I drive down the freeway I point them out to anyone with me. Big brother is always watching and I don't think it will end any time soon. Law inforcement says it's for our protection but we know it so they can site us for misdemeanor crimes to fund their growing numbers. We are under a state of Marshall Law and we don't even know it.

With the amount of crime on the increase; I feel much safer. Being a victim of violent crime and having been enforced to put in security-I feel much safer at night; especially after somebody coming into the garden to look into our flat just after we moved into the property.

To be honest-cameras in the city don't bother me. I live in the city, where violent crime is on the increase. However, if the authorities don't use the evidence and convict the 'perps', who use violence against people than the cameras aren't any good.

There was a recent crime around the corner from where I live. A friend of mine just missed being attacked by three hooded robbers. The police were able to use the video and the evidence to gain an insight into the criminals.

I would only be paranoid if they were being used for anything else other than crime prevention.

Then again, I am not one to give into paranoia. People have camera phones now and video cameras; so if they want to film you they will.

I just get on with my life; and as I am not of the criminal fraternity-why should I feel intimidated. The ones who should be paranoid are the ones who have something to hide, or are intent on committing a criminal act, or act of violence against another person.