I don't think there's anything wrong with police recording the streets though. At least in the US, anyone has the right to record in public places. Why shouldn't the police be able to do the same?
Dump it out of a buffer? Or store it, and process it with number plate and face recognition software?
Living in UK (bafflingly high number of CCTV) cameras makes me gently wary of this kind of surveillance.
Having said that I'm in favour of anything that helps prevent abuse by police officers. I used to trust police but recent scandals in UK prove that corruption and blatantly illegal practices are common.
Police (ordinarily) cannot throw you in jail without probable cause. If you're taped committing a crime, members of the public can just forward the tape to the police, and you'll end up in jail anyway.
If you are in favor of mass surveillance, you should at least argue for a drastic simplification and excision of laws from the books.
LOL. Have you missed the hundreds of stories posted in forums, newspapers and websites?
This is untrue in many, many places. Some states require consent (to record another). There are many restrictions around infrastructure and specific events.
Police go into private places.
The police regarding all interactions is something a lot trickier, because they have much broader influence.
It's a matter of scale.