Like hundreds of thousands of Pittsburghers, I use a Giant Eagle "Advantage Card" even though it tracks and records every purchase. Lust for the discounts and the "Fuel Perks" beats out any concern about being data-mined at the checkout lane.

Likewise, the gadget that prevents me from making a wrong turn in an unfamiliar part of town is a godsend. But the downside of convenience is that my car is now in constant communication with a satellite. Even the GPS technologies in our cell phones snitch on us, whether we care to be tracked or not.

And don't think you've eluded the long arm of Big Brother just because you use cash and avoid personal technology like the plague. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. It is a rare building lobby, supermarket or mall parking lot that doesn't monitor the comings and goings of its "guests."

In the end, we're all blips and silhouettes on converging networks of grids and monitors. Being on "Candid Camera" from the moment we enter public space doesn't faze us. From wherever we sit -- or stand -- it would be remarkable if we weren't contributing to the data stream in some way. The expectation of privacy while in public sounds downright unpatriotic after the terror of a mugging or the horror of 9/11.

Given how comfortable we've become being watched in public, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper didn't even feel the need to make an argument for the efficacy of surveillance cameras when they announced a multimillion-dollar deal with a Maryland-based company to install cameras in targeted neighborhoods last week.

"With the technology these cameras will have, it will greatly assist us with stopping homicides on the street as well as stopping other crimes," Chief Harper said. Never mind that there is no evidence in any city anywhere supporting this contention. Still, to think otherwise feels weird and counterintuitive. It is almost axiomatic that the more cameras we install, the less crime, terrorism and general anti-social behavior there will be in society -- at least in public.

Thanks to $2.59 million from the Department of Homeland Security, $625,000 in state funds and $862,000 in local money, the Avrio Group will soon begin installing cameras on bridges and in neighborhood hotspots in Pittsburgh. Privately owned cameras Downtown will be linked to the network Avrio is putting together so that Pittsburgh finally has a bulwark against terrorism. Alas, the suburbs will have to make do with the cameras in the malls. Meanwhile, idle hands in high-crime neighborhoods will finally have starring roles in videos that never end.

Pittsburgh is like much of America: Arguments against the erosion of privacy don't hold much water here. People are generally comfortable with social control, no matter how stifling, as long as it comes with a reasonable promise of security.

But here's a thought. Instead of making what is expected to be a $4.1 million investment that fattens the bottom line of an out-of-state surveillance company, why not invest that money into the hiring and training of cops who are willing and able to work with the people in troubled neighborhoods to make those communities better?

Instead of expanding the surveillance network that is only as good as its technological support, why not increase the human intelligence on the ground? Compassionate cops beat digital feeds every time. And there is plenty of data that backs this approach. It has been accumulating in well-patrolled cities and suburbs for decades.

I understand that Avrio is the king of camera surveillance in America. As the PG reported, it installed the surveillance systems for both the 2008 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. The city of Buffalo hired the company to help bring its crime under control last year. Three years ago, Phoenix hired Avrio when a notorious rapist and two serial killers were on the loose. But old-fashioned police work eventually nabbed those suspects -- not surveillance cameras.

Still, local politicians want to believe -- despite the lack of quantifiable evidence -- that surveillance cameras capable of reading business cards from three blocks away are better than beat cops having actual conversations with people on their front stoops about what's happening in the neighborhood.

Chicago is arguably one of the most heavily monitored cities in America, but it continues to have one of the nation's highest murder rates. London is the most heavily monitored city in the Western world. Its sophisticated network of cameras captured the images of several homegrown terrorists who blew up Underground trains and a bus in July 2005. But it didn't prevent them from carrying out the acts, which killed 52 people.

While eroding privacy, the presence of surveillance cameras mostly creates a false sense of security. Give us a bunch of cops who care. We don't need your stinking surveillance cameras.