Very recently in Baltimore, MD, USA, a woman's abduction from an empty street was caught on video. A couple days later, her bank card was used in another city to withdraw money. The video from the bank, along with the video from a nearby gas station helped identify the captor and save the woman.
> A woman snatched off the streets was rescued with the help of a GPS tracking device that had been installed on the suspect's car by the dealer in case it needed to be repossessed, authorities said Thursday.
> It was just the latest arrest made possible by the surveillance technology that is seemingly everywhere nowadays. And it involved not just GPS but surveillance video, traffic-camera imagery and a left-behind cellphone.
Edit: Also from the above article regarding traffic-cam:
> Her rescue came after authorities spotted the used-car dealer's name on a traffic camera photo of Barnes' vehicle and recognized the dealership as one that routinely puts GPS devices on its cars, said sheriff's Capt. Jayson Crawley, of Charles City County, Virginia.
> "We called the dealership, and within five minutes they had the location," he said.
An interesting story but I'm not sure of your exact point. Do you mean surveillance has some benefits? Of course. There is good and bad to everything, including asbestos, lead, authoritarian government, plastic shopping bags, and even COBOL.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/t...
Edit: Earlier story with original street video:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/la-na-nn-reward-abducted-philade...