I always said when this whole body cam business started years ago that everyone is going to be real fucking upset when they get live facial recognition on these things. Be careful what you wish for.
Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
91–100 of 240 posts
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why are we negotiating with police for this anyway? Because if you don't, you get election ads with scary looking footage and a voice-over that says something like: "Mayor/Governor/whatever Smith's anti-police crusade is putting you and your family in danger. This November, send a message by voting out the pro-crime politicians." You could argue that politicians should make a principled stand against this and do th…
> give the police what they want Like the ability to actually do something when a looter horde raids a department store?
Let's put this in perspective.
Something like that might happen once or twice every few decades. In the country.
Meanwhile, the abuses the police are perpetrating, in many cities, are happening on a monthly basis (or more often).
Even if we stipulate that we need someone capable of dealing with the looter horde, we don't need that capability to be in the same hands as the people who are handing out traffic tickets every day.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Filming nude adults is fine and not a privacy issue for those involved? If anything, most societies accept nude children (especially around bodies of water) much more readily than adults. Not sure why you're calling out children specifically: they can't give consent but, if asked, I expect that adults would rarely give consent for being filmed by the police either, even when dressed as well as one can be!
I was trying to provide an example clear enough to be readily understood by readers, in no way, shape, or form, was I trying to imply my list was complete.
I wasn't asking if the list is complete. I was asking why this is even an example at all because I don't understand the reasoning
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, police should not be able to turn off the cameras, but the footage should NOT be public by default. Instead, the footage should be regularly audited by a vetted third party not connected to the police, police union, of families of police. The footage should of course be archived for some long period of time measured in years for use in proceedings, and audits the discover significant periods of no footage…
yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.
>yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc.
?? This already can happen by default for a LOT of people. I work as a subcontractor for a federal contractor in healthcare, and I can see all of them if I wanted to. We just don't.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, police should not be able to turn off the cameras, but the footage should NOT be public by default. Instead, the footage should be regularly audited by a vetted third party not connected to the police, police union, of families of police. The footage should of course be archived for some long period of time measured in years for use in proceedings, and audits the discover significant periods of no footage…
This is my take as well. Complement it with asking the officer to try to identify periods where the video might need to be deleted to save a whole bunch of time for those working to process the data.
It’s not at all obvious to me that any expensive or time-consuming processing of routine/boring bodycam video is needed.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#96A 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…
> A 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.
However, in 35 states, and this blows my mind, an officer can have "consensual" sex with a detainee. Even if they are in handcuffs at the time. 35 states have decided that this is not improper from an "authority" perspective (leaving aside for now the whole "having sex while on duty").
There was a recent case where a minor who was in custody and handcuffed had sex with two officers in their patrol vehicle. The officers claimed it was consensual and the courts agreed. I do not believe they even faced disciplinary action.
> Instead, police departments routinely refuse to release footage — even when officers kill.
Because police and police departments and police unions know that even post-BLM, they will face little, usually zero, consequences for doing so, or for wasting taxpayer dollars fighting to defend their refusal.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, police should not be able to turn off the cameras, but the footage should NOT be public by default. Instead, the footage should be regularly audited by a vetted third party not connected to the police, police union, of families of police. The footage should of course be archived for some long period of time measured in years for use in proceedings, and audits the discover significant periods of no footage…
yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.
The third party in this case is probably the oversight boards that were referenced in the article. They should not be going to the police requesting footage and being denied, they should be the ones who control all the footage, and the police should go to them to request it. That's the only way the oversight boards can actually do their jobs.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#98Watching police body camera footage has given me much more appreciation for the tough job police have. I can't imagine having people actively try to kill me in my day-to-day job as a software engineer.
Many officers take a step back when things heat up beyond "papers please". No one ever got fired for doing that. If an officer escalates, it's because their inner voice says "come at be bro".
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Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, police should not be able to turn off the cameras, but the footage should NOT be public by default. Instead, the footage should be regularly audited by a vetted third party not connected to the police, police union, of families of police. The footage should of course be archived for some long period of time measured in years for use in proceedings, and audits the discover significant periods of no footage…
yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.
You already have this to an extent - how many people touch your medical records? I can look up people's past addresses online, it isn't all that private - which is fine for most folks, but bad for folks getting stalked.
Heck, I worked at a landline phone company 25 years ago and they used the last 4 numbers of a social security number to verify everyone. Think about this every time you talk to a utility: That underpaid worker definitely sees your information. Plus addresses and names and so on.
But more realistically, there is no real reason that the person viewing the footage needs any of that information. It might be helpful to know that the person is having a mental health crisis, sure, and it might be helpful to know if the person is a minor. But they don't need to know the names of folks nor what the diagnosis is. Treat it like health information: Give nothing but the necessary information. And if society can trust an underpaid, stressed call center employee to have a bunch of this information, I'm pretty sure we can trust these underpaid, stressed folks too.
Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras
#100Body cams were always a band-aid solution on top of over-arming police and granting them almost total immunity from charges of misconduct. The resulting mentality of us-vs-them and mafioso, bullying behavior from police is all down to feeling a cut above “civilians” and being confident in their power to legally murder anyone who’s too resistant. This behavior also discourages any thoughtful people with integrity from…
> being confident in their power to legally murder anyone who’s too resistant.
* in a few select countries around the world. This is a rather narrow view of police(wo)men as a blanket statement.