The next time you're in Washington, D.C., you may want to rethink making any personal adjustments in public.  D.C. city officials unveiled a plan Tuesday to grant police access to 5,200 closed-circuit video cameras scattered across the capital that monitor traffic, schools and public housing. 

The plan places D.C.'s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency in charge of the Video Interoperability for Public Safety (VIPS) program, which allows city agencies to share video feeds and provide the city with a network that is actively monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 

Not surprisingly, the new plan has raised a debate between civil liberties groups advocating for greater privacy laws and city officials who feel the new program will improve public health and safety by enabling better crime and incident monitoring and response.   

Proponents of the plan, which include the city's mayor and police chief, argue that the cameras reduce crime and enable greater response to traffic and emergency needs as well.  

Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier testified before the D.C. Council last week that the 92 cameras already under surveillance by D.C. police reduced violent crime by 19 percent within 250 feet of the cameras and 4 percent within 1,000 feet.

Opponents of the plan feel the cameras are an invasion of privacy and do not prevent crime so much as they displace it into areas not covered by cameras.