I am perfectly comfortable with surveillance - it may not stop terrorism, but it could help prevent / prosecute other crimes too. It doesn't, though. That's the problem. A friend of mine recently (along with half the other people in the street) had his car tyres slashed. Despite there being CCTV everywhere, none of it seemed to even have a hope of actually seeing the gang of neds doing all the tyres. Of course, the police were right round there within *hours* of it being reported, and got right to checking all the tax discs and tyre tread depths...