In the bad old crime days of New York City, I spent a Christmas Eve waiting outside an emergency room. Our foursome had been violently robbed in a subway station, and I was eager for the doctor's report on one member who'd suffered a concussion fighting off a mugger.

Because someone got hurt, city detectives took the case seriously. They interviewed us and urged a trip to transit authority headquarters to look at mugshots. We did. Desperate to nail the two attackers, I gazed over page after page of faces.

If this happened today, subway and street cameras would have identified the criminals almost immediately. Even if they were masked, cameras would have captured their dress, gait, body type, mode of attack — and tracked their escape route.

Two years ago, a knife-wielding 25-year-old man raped a 13-year-old girl in a Queens park and forced her male schoolmate to watch. Days after the NYPD released images of the attacker, locals found him, and he was soon behind bars.

Stories like these are why I can't join the widespread paranoia fueling protests against the Flock and other surveillance cameras now in public areas. The standard Flock plate-reader is a black box on a tall pole. It can record passing cars' license plates, color, dents and bumper stickers. Police departments use them to capture suspected criminals. Republicans and Democrats alike condemn Flock cameras as invasions of privacy. Many liken them to the surveillance state in George Orwell's dystopian novel, "1984."

But if those critics had read "1984," they'd know that the shocking feature of Big Brother's cameras was their invasion of private spaces. They were inside apartments. Flock cameras can't see through walls. Pointed at uncovered windows, especially if they're lit, the cameras can peer inside. But so can neighbors across the street.

That's the whole point. Cameras, when properly used, see the same thing a human standing outside on a public sidewalk can observe without controversy: cars and trucks, people biking, pedestrians. Billionaires hire 24-hour security people to sit outside their mansion walls and check all who pass. Nobody complains.

That's not to say that such cameras don't raise concerns. Some homeowners complain that cameras pointed at a neighbor's driveway can look onto part of their own property. There were reports of a police officer using his department's Flock camera system to stalk his ex-girlfriend. These misuses should be addressed case by case.

The argument that stalkers can use Flock cameras to harass their exes or other perceived enemies ignores the reverse. A woman being harassed can report it and ask police to check whether the same car keeps turning up on her street. Stalkers spend a lot of time spying on their victims' homes, and that pattern is exactly what Flock cameras record.

While use of cameras by law enforcement can help find perpetrators of crimes, they can also exonerate those unjustly accused. When I was going through the transit authority's mugshots, I probably saw interspersed pictures of innocents or nonviolent criminals, a means to test we victims' recollections. As noted, we wanted to get the bastards.

I fixed on one who sort of looked like the guy. The detective told me that he was someone who had stolen washing machines. I then said, "Maybe not." Looking back, I may have been fingering the wrong individual, and that would have added an injustice on top of another injustice.

Say "we don't want to live like this," and I'll agree. Much of the recent outrage may be tied to panic over AI and other technology. But as long as these cameras cover only public spaces, let's learn to live with them.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Eagan Hsu at Unsplash