DENVER -- Inside the Denver Police Department, the HALO Command Control Center records video 24-7 from almost 70 cameras across the city.

The program is called High Activity Location Observation, or HALO, and it has been in place for more than three years.

But last year, for the Democratic National Convention, police received $1 million in federal funds to buy an additional 50 cameras, mostly stationed in downtown Denver.

But police said the locations will change in the coming months as part of a new phase in the HALO program.

“We’re actually going to roll out and have our actual goal of putting these cameras in other high-crime areas and areas of concern,” said Lt. Ernest Martinez, the coordinator of the HALO program.

The idea of expanding the camera program concerns some civil rights advocates.

“It might not be legally an invasion of privacy, but I think we all know it is terribly invasive,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado. “And I think the legal term for that is creepy.”

Silverstein questions whether the supposed benefits of public space surveillance outweigh the costs.

Critics have said the cameras simply move crime to another location.

Denver police said there haven’t been any studies to show whether the HALO program has reduced crime, but that in the last year, video from the cameras has been used in about 20 criminal cases.

“It isn’t Big Brother. It’s a tool we use to enhance our crime-fighting efforts and first response,” said Martinez.

It’s a toll that many neighborhoods want.

“They just sell drugs right out here, right in plain sight. They don’t care,” said Geneva Goldsby, a longtime Park Hill resident.

Her neighborhood association has applied for a HALO camera.

“We really need the cameras. The things going on around here are unreal, and it’s getting worse,” said Goldsby.

Police said the department has had more requests for neighborhood cameras than they have cameras.

They are hoping to expand the HALO program with more cameras and more personnel to monitor them when funding becomes available.