Awesome for them. All of downtown needs something like this, it's people taking responsibility for deterring crime where they live, and it's a wonderful idea. I have always wished we would get more cameras in the public streets, it not only helps catch criminals, it helps prevent wrongful persecution.

OF COURSE cameras move the bad guys to another neighborhood thus in the same way Seattle's "gentrification" trashed Renton, Tukwila, Sea-Tac . . . .

@2 Evidence? I hear this word "gentrification" thrown around a lot by people who want something to hate so much they will attack privileged people just to fill that hatred. Tukwila was always bad, lived there a few years of my childhood, I know it was bad because I was part of the "hooligans" that trashed people's houses for thrills. Sea-Tac, anywhere there's an airport will be bad because no one wants to live near all that noise, and seriously, can you blame them? Renton has always been a horrible gang location, since I was a child in western Washington it was considered "off limits" to those of us who wanted to avoid being shot. Downtown Seattle is still just as bad as when I was young to. Kent ... Kent got "gentrified", and it's actually gotten worse, when I was a teen my family was living there, and we did stupid pranks like make peace signs in the middle of the road or put garden gnomes on people's roofs .... now it's actually a little worse, and the people there are far richer, specifically in Covington, oh yeah, Covington is now officially a city, that sucks. Anyhow, where is your proof, crime rates in those three locations have actually gone down in the last decade or more.

Hey they could try leaving a cop bike here and there they do at the mcdonalds on 3rd and pine

@4 Yet sadly, 3+Pine is still one of the scariest places to walk through.

One thing we've learned about these systems is people generally use them for reasons other than they were intended for. I predict this will last right up until "interesting" pictures start popping up on the Internet.

@7 meh, that will happen with or without public cams, and if you are willing to do something "embarrassing" in public anyway, then you should stop being embarrassed by it.

@8: Doesn't even have to be in public. Windows are transparent to security cameras as well as to people's eyes.

Yes, peeping toms and neighborhood gossips will always exist, but we don't have to install infrastructure to help them. These sorts of things are more often used to persecute people who aren't well liked in the neighborhood than to prosecute actual crimes.

@9 .... you can't close drapes? Is there some new disability that keeps people from doing that? Seriously?

@10: So if I installed cameras that pointed at your driveway, yard, and windows at all times, and monitored your comings and goings 24x7, you'd be okay with that? Or are you one of those people who supports these things because they only affect OTHER people.

@11 Actually, no, I wouldn't mind. Nice assuming though.

FYI, I live in a building with cameras in the hallways, on the elevator, and in the lobby already, and it's worked great. Someone vandalized our elevator once, guess who had to pay for it? Not us residents who try to keep our building from falling apart, they looked at the video tape, found the person, and prosecuted them. No massive investigation, and the person who actually did it was the only one hurt, the rest of us don't even know who it was because it was taken care of so fast. That's not even technically a public camera, but it's a community ones. The only people really afraid of cameras in public areas are criminals, period. It was cameras that sorted out the mess where a guy got beaten for trying to return a purse he thought someone lost in downtown a few years ago. Cameras help, denying it is like denying the sky is blue.

Gah! I hate having the final word, someone say something please, anything, agree, disagree, just don't let me have the final post in here, please.