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Police Department Charging TV News Network $36,000 For Body Cam Footage (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news that the NYPD charged a local television station $36k to view police body camera footage. Ars reports: "As body cams continue to flourish in police departments across the nation, an ongoing debate has ensued about how much, if any, of that footage should be made public under state open-access laws. An overlooked twist to that debate, however, has now become front and center: How much should the public have to pay for the footage if the police agree to release it? News network NY1, a Time Warner Cable News operation, was billed $36,000 by the NYPD for roughly 190 hours of footage it requested under the state's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Now the network is suing (PDF) the police department in New York state court, complaining that the price tag is too steep. The network said the bill runs 'counter to both the public policy of openness underlying FOIL, as well as the purported transparency supposedly fostered by the BWC (body worn camera) program itself.'"
Isn't that Cam footage from tax payer bought cameras worn by city employees who receive their salary from tax funds? How the hell do they justify charging that kind of money?
How many workers does it take to do this?
As many as it takes to discourage requests from the citizens.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Thus, access to the videos, at rate not restrictive enough to prevent its distribution, is a requirement fair play cannot do without.
If a viewing tax restricts the footage from being released, then cameras are worthless except to protect the innocent law enforcement officers.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Letting the TV folk view it so they can report on it should be free or minor administrative fee. Letting them have the footage to broadcast on TV? That takes a group of two officers and two department lawyers reviewing all requested footage.
And this here is part of the question around costs. I doubt we are talking about raw dumps of data here. Instead I suspect that someone has to go through every second of video, make sure that there is nothing seen by the camera that shouldn't be seen, ie police data on a computer screen. Then do they go through and blur the faces of uninvolved people, number plates etc? They probably don't need to if the recording was made on a street and there could be no reasonable expectation of privacy, but what about when the footage is in a private premises, particularly a multi-dwelling building such as an apartment.
Ugh, now that I think about it there are huge amounts of issues around releasing any video that shows anything interesting at all. To the point that I wonder if sealing them with out a court order isn't a better place to start.
Go ahead and charge them. The media preys upon the misery of others and wants a direct free live feed with 24/7 coverage of cops hassling the public. I can't count the amount of times some traffic cop has pulled me over, given me a full field sobriety test plus breathalyzer despite not having had a drop to drink, and continued to harass me before letting me go. Now imagine I was a public official or celebrity (even worse imagine if I was a republican in a liberal-leaning city) and the TV station had full access to the cop's body cam footage. Despite my innocence it would be plastered ALL OVER TABLOIDS and other sleazy outlets as only the media could to slant and paint it in a bad light.
No thanks. You charge them out the wazoo NYCPD. Good on you for making journalists actually have to hunt down stories and do their jobs.
How do you identify people who can be trusted not to reveal confidential information that, if revealed, may cost someone their lives?
Just being 'TV folk' does not mean that someone can be trusted.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
How do you identify people who can be trusted not to reveal confidential information that, if revealed, may cost someone their lives?
I don't have an opinion at the moment, but would like to be more informed of the situation.
Just exactly how can first-person video of what a cop sees cost someone their life if revealed?
Also, can you comment on how *likely* that scenario would be?
Being able to monitor police actions is a very real benefit to society with huge value. We can determine whether the policeman is lying, whether the plaintiff is lying, whether the department's investigation is honest, and whether - as a whole - we should modify existing procedures based on irrefutable evidence.
We need to balance the value to society with the privacy of the individual.
Just exactly how can first-person video of what a cop sees cost someone their life if revealed?
If the cop talks to a person who is then considered an informant or snitch by the wrong people.
If when talking to another cop an informant or snitch is referred to.
If anything said to a cop can wind up on TV what do you suppose will be the impact with respect to people coming forward with information? Even reporting a crime?
If disclosure of raw unreacted video identifies a person coming forward with information and that person is killed in retaliation don't you expect that victim's family to file suit against the police?
The public has a right to know if a cop is being honest, truthful, etc. But that is something quite different than seeing every minute of the cop's day, hearing every conversation.
Being able to monitor police actions is a very real benefit to society with huge value.
Absolutely, but that monitoring is not necessarily best done by TV personalities. It may be best done by review boards, judges, etc.
> the people doing the editing/redacting are already getting paid by the taxpayers. The only additional cost is the physical media
The charge does seem a bit high, but there absolutely is some additional cost to NYPD. We can estimate that finding, ccopying, and redacting all the pieces of video might require about 400 hours. At 40 hours per week, that's 10 employee/weeks. 10 weeks of actual work is about what you'll get for three months of salary, with vacations, holidays, and sick time. So one video tech (and a lawyer?) can do this job in three months.
NYPD didn't already hire a video tech to sit there and do nothing for three months. To get this job done, they'll need to hire someone, perhaps the new won't be the person doing the work, but the new hire might do a job that would otherwise be done by the person pulled away to do this.
The salary of the new hire is about 65%-75% of the total cost of having them- there's also extra insurance and benefit costs, the employer's payroll taxes, unemployment taxes, worker's comp, etc. So the total cost to NYPD should be roughly equal to four months of pay for the person doing the work.
190 hours, at 36,000 dollars. ~200 dollars an hour to produce. How many workers does it take to do this?
Its not just some IT guy making copies of files. Its probably cops and lawyers reviewing the video to make sure victim privacy rights are not infringed and that classified information is not disclosed (identity of people disclosing information privately, references to ongoing investigations, etc). Some things a cop sees or hears should not be on TV; only review boards, judges and juries should see or hear it.
Its not unreasonable to expect the for profit media corporation that wants a copy of the video to pay for the lawyers time to review it. Its part of the "processing" in the processing and handling fee.
No it is unreasonable. In the past police departments used to charge $10 per page for xeroxing. The courts overruled it. The public needs to pay for the cop salary anyway and they also need to pay for the person who reviews the footage. the networks should only have to pay for the videotape sent over. Its part of the public right to know. So the public (in this case PD) needs to foot the bill since the PD gets paid via taxes anyway.
Not to point out the obvious, but you are saying that:
1) The police review board can *say* that the officers were talking about an informant, and suppress releasing the video of a police shooting.
2) The police can begin talking about informants *on purpose* as they drive up to a crime scene, so that a video of them shooting someone can be suppressed.
That's what you're saying - right?
We have a federal policy with classified information that's just about what you said; ie - the government can classify anything without a detailed reason.
How has that worked out for us?
How many workers does it take to do this?
As many as it takes to discourage requests from the citizens.
Well, what if that 190 hours is actually ~800 specific 15-minute segments? Suddenly it's less than $50 each. Still seems a bit high, but I can imagine requests like "the footage of X event," where they have to go figure out whose camera, exactly what time, etc. for each segment.
Just "all the footage for this day from these 8 officers"... yeah $36k is crazy.
"What if something got out that shouldn’t have"
That's why it costs $200/hr for video, not because of the commercial value of the film. We presume that someone has to reasearch the location of the files, pull the, edit the files to the length requested, and package them. That may take 5 hours or 50 hours - it depends on how many clips there are.
Except that that's only the very first step. Next, someone has to review them for privacy laws (accused and bystanders) and limitations on any ongoing investigations. That means, probably ~285 hours of snoop time (1.5x the duration of the clips) to mark any places with concerns. Then each of those areas has to be either approved for release, redacted/blurred, or removed entirely - that decision gets made by a lawyer in the department. We'll call that 40-50 hours for the lawyer and the same time for the editor/workstation jockey - assuming that only about 5-10% of the video actually has any actionable items. It could be 1000 hours of time if every hour of video needs work.
Now the video is re-encoded, labeled, and checked a second time for anything that might have been missed. There's a 7-8 figure lawsuit if you missed something. Call it 120 hours to watch at 2x speed and a little time to double check any missed spots. Now it gets transferred to the storage medium, packaged for delivery, and sent via courier or certified mail service.
That's a shitload of work. I'm not surprised at all that it's $36k.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Let's ask Time Warner Cable News for 190 hours of specified short segments of their raw video material with perpetual, unfettered rights to republish, for profit, and with no ongoing royalty. If you could get them to to agree the conditions (unlikely) then I bet they would charge way more than $36k for the privilege. Somehow though they expect the State to do just that without even cost recovery.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Not to point out the obvious, but you are saying that: 1) The police review board can *say* that the officers were talking about an informant, and suppress releasing the video of a police shooting.
Review boards often involve civilians. The conversation with/about an informant can be deleted, its unlikely to affect the portrayal of events in a shooting. Note that the TV station is requesting about 200 hours, not the minute or two leading to a shooting.
2) The police can begin talking about informants *on purpose* as they drive up to a crime scene, so that a video of them shooting someone can be suppressed.
Why do you think the entire video needs to be suppressed rather than simply remove the conversation?
What if it doesn't. What if 150 of those 190 hours are cops sitting in the car eating donuts? Does a lawyer have to watch all those 150 hours? If they claim they do, then what the fuck was the point of those body cams?
This is SOLELY a way to stop body cams being used against the police. The only ones that come out are the edited highlights of those incidents that support the police.
What he's saying is that they can't be trusted to not use that as an excuse to censor the film, even if it never happened. (If you can't look, you don't know it didn't happen.)
If we look as past analogous circumstances, this is a valid concern. This doesn't mean that it can't be dealt with, but it means that if you don't deal with it, you are likely to be unhappy with the results. And while I think $200/hour is unreasonable, I also think that a reasonable fee might be $50-$100/hour. (OTOH, I also think that the police should NOT be the custodians of the films. They have too much incentive to alter or destroy or lose any incriminating evidence. And there need to be multiple safeguards in place to prevent that from the time the uniform is put on until the the records are deemed irrelevant by an independent assessor.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.