> I know in theory we all can continuously download and datamine these video feeds but can everyone really?

To which my response is "this is like OSS." What I mean by that is that, in theory, people audit and review code submitted to OSS software, in reality most people trust that there are other people who do it.

> Public feeds would enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time. The fact that I could do the same or go back and look later is no defense.

This is a different argument to me and one that I'm still torn about. I think that if the feeds exist and the government and private entities have access to them, the trade-offs may be better if everyone has access to them. In my mind this results in a few things:

1. Diffusion of power - You said public feeds would "enable someone to document and sell people's whereabouts in real time." Well, private feeds allow this too. I'd rather have everyone know about some misdeed than Flock or the local PD blackmail someone with it.

2. Second guessing deployment - I think if the people making the decisions know that the data will be publicly available, they're more likely to second guess deploying it in the first place.

3. Awareness - if you can just open an app on your phone and look at the feed from a camera then you become aware of the amount of surveillance you are subject to. I think being aware of it is better than not.

There's trade-offs to this. The cameras become less effective if everyone knows where they are. It doesn't help with the location selection bias - if they're only installed in areas of town where decision makers don't live and don't go, the power is asymmetric again. Plenty of other reasons it is bad. None of them worse than the original sin of installing them in the first place.