The United States is an on-camera nation, as the efforts to identify suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings showed. In the battle of security versus privacy, many European countries have made a different calculation.
U.S. authorities reviewed thousands of videos before releasing the images of the two brothers suspected of planting the bombs in Boston, and there were hints that they could tap into far larger police databases to speed their search. In Europe, expectations for privacy are significantly more robust, making it harder for authorities to push boundaries in their snooping on citizens but also restraining their ability to respond to terrorism.
European legal attitudes toward privacy differ from country to country. Some nations, such as Britain, have so many surveillance cameras that even George Orwell's former home is surrounded by them. But many countries frown on both public and private surveillance. Boston's massive data dragnet probably would have been legally treacherous in many European nations, officials said.