Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina • Hacker News Board

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#11

Post by sp332 » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 3:56 PM UTC

cdubzzz wrote: post #8

kbenson wrote: post #5

Half good, half bad: House Bill 972 does make such video accessible to people who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives ― but they must file a request to obtain the footage. If the request is denied, the petitioners must go before the state’s superior court. Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation. Curren…

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me) This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

Yes, you get access to evidence if it's going to be used against you. That's a whole separate thing.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#12

Post by kevin_b_er » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 3:56 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #5

Half good, half bad: House Bill 972 does make such video accessible to people who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives ― but they must file a request to obtain the footage. If the request is denied, the petitioners must go before the state’s superior court. Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation. Curren…

So if the police officer's reputation would be ruined by evidence of them committing a crime, then the footage can't be released?

Sounds like the exact point to me, block camera footage that shows crimes of officers.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#13

Post by wccrawford » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 3:56 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #5

Half good, half bad: House Bill 972 does make such video accessible to people who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives ― but they must file a request to obtain the footage. If the request is denied, the petitioners must go before the state’s superior court. Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation. Curren…

I think the point of the reputation bit is that there are probably other people in the video, too, and it might be their reputation that's at stake. Just because you're in the video doesn't mean that it's your reputation they're protecting.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#14

Post by koolba » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 3:58 PM UTC

On it's surface making the footage not immediately public isn't a bad idea. The classic example would be a swat team showing up at the wrong house, busting down the door, and having video footage of John Q Citizen in his birthday suit. As long as there is a process for getting access to the footage that's impartial, that's fine.

What's really needed though is a way to escrow the footage. This is a solved problem in the tech world. The stream should be stored off site, cryptographically signed (public sig), in the control of a third party (though still a government entity, not a private corporation). Otherwise you'd be asking the criminals[1] to hold onto the evidence.

[1]: Not that all or even most police are criminals, but in the case where a police officer does commit a crime they are de facto criminals.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#15

Post by wccrawford » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:00 PM UTC

The way I see it, this footage is there to safeguard both the public and police from lies about each other. It's not there for general perusal, and making it public will expose a lot of private situations that shouldn't be, especially for the civilians in the videos.

So long as the video is available for related court cases, now and in the future, that's fine. There does need to be a way to safe-guard it from destruction when someone wants to hide something, but I think that's a different matter than making the videos non-public.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#16

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #11

cdubzzz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me) This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

Yes, you get access to evidence if it's going to be used against you . That's a whole separate thing.

[deleted]

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#17

Post by jrs235 » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #11

cdubzzz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me) This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

Yes, you get access to evidence if it's going to be used against you . That's a whole separate thing.

What if it isn't going to be used against but could be exculpatory?

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#18

Post by kbenson » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:05 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #13

kbenson wrote: post #5

Half good, half bad: House Bill 972 does make such video accessible to people who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives ― but they must file a request to obtain the footage. If the request is denied, the petitioners must go before the state’s superior court. Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation. Curren…

I think the point of the reputation bit is that there are probably other people in the video, too, and it might be their reputation that's at stake. Just because you're in the video doesn't mean that it's your reputation they're protecting.

Good point. A standard process and policy of anonymizing third parties would resolve this, but that takes effort, which means money. I would be okay with a nominal fee per requested released video to deal with this, such as $50 (or an hour at the prevailing hourly wage of a technician), otherwise the legislature should allocate funds for such. There is a balancing act.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#19

Post by slapshot » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

cdubzzz wrote: post #8

kbenson wrote: post #5

Half good, half bad: House Bill 972 does make such video accessible to people who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives ― but they must file a request to obtain the footage. If the request is denied, the petitioners must go before the state’s superior court. Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation. Curren…

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me) This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

"Active investigation" means a the pre-arrest phase of investigation. E.g., they send a cop by a suspected trap house but don't want to tip off the residents that they are under suspicion. Otherwise, a criminal organization would just request all the body cam footage each week to make sure they aren't being investigated (or change their tactics in response to the police movements).

If there's an actual arrest and trial, the Supreme Court case of Brady v. Maryland (1963) requires that the state hand over any exculpatory evidence [1]. The state has to go out of its way to hand over evidence -- even if the defendant doesn't know it exists.

[1] "Exculpatory" = "might show that you are innocent." There's a long line of cases that define how broad that definition is.

* I am not your lawyer. Go get a criminal defense lawyer.

Re: Police Camera Footage Will No Longer Be Made Public in North Carolina

#20

Post by jrs235 » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:09 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #11

cdubzzz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me) This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

Yes, you get access to evidence if it's going to be used against you . That's a whole separate thing.

(Orignally this was a reply to a reply of this comment that apparently got deleted.)

What if while arriving on scene to a burglary there is body camera footage from an officer that appears to show someone running off and away from the scene carrying [whatever was stolen] and from that footage one could possibly conclude that the personal doesn't look like the person the police decided to accuse and prosecute. This could be exculpatory evidence and help clear you of the charges. (Obviously the prosecutor is suppose to let the defendent and court know of any known exculpatory evidence, but what if the police choose to withhold it from the prosecutor/court or don't think anything of the footage? )