A number of people complain about government surveillance cameras in public, or just call them a plain old bad idea.

But sometimes they lead to stories like this:

Los Angeles: The recently installed surveillance cameras along Hollywood Boulevard are being credited with the quick arrest of a transient who brutally stabbed a 21-year-old local resident in the neck as the victim sat, eating his lunch in a Hollywood Burger King.

At 3:50 PM on April 16, 2005, the victim was eating his lunch at the Burger King in the 1700 block of North Highland Avenue in Hollywood when the transient walked up behind him and stabbed him in the neck with a large knife. The incident appeared to be random and unprovoked.

The most important civil liberty is perhaps the one that says we're not supposed to be stabbed in the neck, and now one California resident won't be able to do that to anybody else.