I want elected officials to wear body cameras too
"Transparency" in Congress has lead to grandstanding and posturing to cameras, at the expense of the necessary compromises and deals that could otherwise happen.
Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
11–20 of 240 posts
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#12Adverse inference should be be applied. Seriously.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#13Until it is a felony for a cop to turn off a camera,
Until it is a felony to not upload all video within 1 hour of the end of the cops shift and make it publicly available on the web with geotagging left in place,
I live under a tyranny.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#14A police officer in performance of his duties should have zero expectation of privacy, and has a legal obligation to fill out an accurate duty log, which is such that it may be used as evidence in court. Body camera footage should be viewed as an extension of that, and when missing or unavailable, that absence should be viewed in the same light as a failure to properly document something in a duty log --- it is a der…
This is another example of "an untested backup doesn't exist", as well. Regardless of whether some of the time, a police department is full of bad apples and concealing or destroying body-cam footage, if you treat your body cams as a backup -- and only look at it when something goes wrong -- you're going to discover that your body cams weren't working all along and no one noticed. And then you're going to look hella…
This can be completely automated though. Noone has to watch any footage unless the system feels like something is wrong with it.
And that could be in conjunction with the involved party.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#15Without adversarial third party oversight police will continue to abuse the public.
This. So much this.
The problem is that due to the underlying need for police cooperation in unrelated cases, no sane DA or judge would dare challenge a cop (or the police union) who can claim "oh it was a malfunction" or "oh uh the battery ran out" when it comes time for video footage to be reviewed and made public in the case of a police officer breaking the law.
My proposal: make it someone's (or an anonymous board of lawyers') job to review any and all police video footage. The police union is not allowed in any circumstances to know who is doing that job, nor are they allowed to protest. Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions.
If you are going to work (and retire) on the public's dime, using equipment the public paid for, you must without question bow to public demands of complete transparency and full accountability. I don't give a damn what the union thinks, they are on our dime.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is another example of "an untested backup doesn't exist", as well. Regardless of whether some of the time, a police department is full of bad apples and concealing or destroying body-cam footage, if you treat your body cams as a backup -- and only look at it when something goes wrong -- you're going to discover that your body cams weren't working all along and no one noticed. And then you're going to look hella…
This can be completely automated though. Noone has to watch any footage unless the system feels like something is wrong with it. And that could be in conjunction with the involved party.
Seems like good policy to randomly pull bodycam footage on a continuous basis for performance evaluation purposes.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#17Seems like this is the thesis: > As policymakers rushed to equip the police with cameras, they often failed to grapple with a fundamental question: Who would control the footage? Instead, they defaulted to leaving police departments, including New York’s, with the power to decide what is recorded, who can see it and when. In turn, departments across the country have routinely delayed releasing footage, released only…
You're right, of course - nobody ever lies on the internet.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#18I want elected officials to wear body cameras too
"Transparency" in Congress has lead to grandstanding and posturing to cameras, at the expense of the necessary compromises and deals that could otherwise happen.
Sounds like something a Corporation would say. You can have compromise and transparency, it doesn't have to be one or the other.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#19I want elected officials to wear body cameras too
How many hours of C-Span have you watched in your life? Detailed minutes of Congress proceedings from like 1800 are available for you to peruse if you'd like. Transparency isn't the problem – everything is happening fully out in the open.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#20I want elected officials to wear body cameras too
"Transparency" in Congress has lead to grandstanding and posturing to cameras, at the expense of the necessary compromises and deals that could otherwise happen.
Transparency would be transcripts of every communication the politician has. At the golf courses, at the bar, on vacation, etc. See Clarence Thomas for example.
Internet/bandwidth creating cost free video channels for politicians to advertise themselves is not transparency.