Obama Offers Funding For 50,000 Police Body Cameras

An anonymous reader writes: Today President Obama announced $263 million worth of funding for law enforcement agencies around the country to outfit officers with body cameras and improve training. The money requires matching funds from state and local authorities, and the $75 million dedicated to body-cams should buy about 50,000 of them. This is in response to the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. "Obama also plans to overhaul how the federal government disperses military equipment to local police departments, the White House said Monday. ... The Ferguson police department deployed officers wearing gas masks, military fatigues, stun guns and rubber bullets during the initial protests. Studies show the procurement of military equipment by police departments has been on the rise as law enforcement has been allowed to cheaply purchase gear originally deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Comments

There are issues to resolve...

[Frosty Piss]

Up here in Washington State, several police agencies have embraced the idea of Body Cams. And while there has been no philosophical push-back about public access to Body Cam footage by the coppers, a recent Public Records Request illustrates a more fiscal problem...

A public records request was made for all Body Cam footage for the last year from several local departments that have been experimenting with the technology. Why should this be a probem, after all, just burn it all to a CD and send it to the guy?

The are three issues: Privacy - not every interaction a police officer has is in a public place or does not contain things than fall under privacy rules.

Second is commercial use - You know those Mug Shot Extortion sites? The ones that publish mug shots but for a small fee of several hundred dollars will take yours down? Same thing.

Third is the fiscal issue - The time to parse through a requst for "all your files for the year" for privacy issues and other things that simply should not end up on a commercial "shock" site or YouTube, this will cost a butt-load.

So it's become an issue. Here is a Seattle Times article on the subject: http://seattletimes.com/html/l...

Re:There are issues to resolve...

[Harlequin80]

QLD Police force use body cams. They are worn at the discretion of the officer but must be on during all times they are patrolling. All the video is time stamped and there needs to be a reason why it was turned off - ie went to the toilet. Turning them off during an incident would get you severely punished here.

The video is then handed over to a dedicated unit that curates all the data. It is not possible for an officer to access the raw data directly.

Generally speaking one office in a group wears one when on foot patrol in areas with high alcohol or other related type incidents. So the Valley of Brisbane CBD at night. These have been in place for years and I am not aware of any issues that have arisen from their use.

Re:not enthuisastic about this

[Charliemopps]

it just seems another step to pervasive surveillance.

Currently they videotape you whenever they want to. Every officer already has the means to tape you if they so choose. The current situation is that they only do record and keep the video when it suits their needs, and they delete it when it's bad for them. The only change here will be the requirement to always record and retain that data.

For example, were you aware they always record interrogations? (see the video in my sig) but only for their own review to be use against you in court. After they finish the interrogation they intentionally delete it so you can't use it in your defense. They've proven that a jury will more likely believe a police officer stating that you confessed than a video of you actually confessing! So they destroy the audio/video!

Any and all testimony you make against yourself should be required by law to be taped. There is absolutely no excuse for the current state of things where law enforcements word is trusted implicitly when current technology makes it completely unnecessary to do so. Every statement a person makes to law enforcement could be recorded, virtually for free, and there would then be no need for their testimony at all.

Re:Part of the Solution

[Kohath]

Police also need to respect citizens. Being on camera all the time will help that at lot. Everyone behaves better when they're on camera.

Example from the article:

In 2013, The New York Times reported that the city of Rialto, Calif., was able to cut down on complaints against officers by 88 percent over the previous year when it gave its officers body cameras. Use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent.