You beat me to it!
Sometimes we need to get some perspective.
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They might not prosecute. Just manipulate instead like Russia does. Secondly, China and Russia is interested in individuals. Just not all. There are a large number of people that are in positions where they interact/have influence over government and/or national infrastructure. You don't know how useful you could be. There are plenty of examples but members of this board are generally a smart bunch and can probably work out plenty of scenarios where individuals could be targeted in this way.
TBH in my experience, CCTV has been a complete and utter waste of time, effort and money due to general incompetence and resourcing. Footage always seems to either have been wiped due to age at the point an investigation began or not working.
The threat from organised crime is far, far greater than any from the state, however with the state having such unrestricted access into everyones privacy and politics being so fickle, there is always a future threat that something you do that harms no one is the subject of some kind of moral panic or other and becomes illegal retrospectively for example. Sound paranoid? Just look at what's going on with tax right now. Schemes that were legal in the past have been ruled tax avoidance schemes and tax has been retrospectively applied. Whether you agree with tax dodgers being punished or not, the point is that people are being punished for doing something that was legal at the time.
Crime prevention and national security is important. I agree with you. However, full blown intrusion of privacy and distrust we have right now isn't a way forward. Not to mention there is a clear link between poverty and crime rates as well as invading someone's country to seize its natural resources and then dealing with disgruntled people of that country coming in and blowing things up - "lock'em up" Trump's mantra isn't going to take us far.
Congestion charge these days is nothing more than another income stream for the government just like "sugar tax". If CC was withdrawn today I would still not drive to central london because there is too much traffic. I actually doubt it makes any measurable difference in terms of reducing the traffic since roads are / will be jammed packed anyway. We need to "quit" fossil fuels and substantially improve public transport. Black cabs running on diesel, 4x4, and busses - just unacceptable. While oil pigs laugh all the way to the bank. Half hearted promotion of EVs - these are baby steps. We're not going to "save our planet" by only doing weekly recycling "bit" - we need stong and decisive actions where it really matters. Air quality in London is really bad and deteriorating. I live in London so am familiar with the issue e.g. every single day there is a long queue of black cabs iddling outside the King's cross station while cabbies read earlier mentioned gutter press. The council displayed a drawing done by children saying something along the lines of "stop iddling...it's bad for our lungs" - sweet but clearly ignored.