This is a tough one. In Seattle police are directed to not use their body cams unless they are doing crime investigation stuff. The policy is designed to protect the privacy of people not under investigation or otherwise not involved in crime.
In pre-body cam days Seattle PD got caught video taping protests or demonstrations. The current policy prevents that.
Thus, Seattle cops generally have their cams turned off while dealing with demonstrations or protests.
The policy is designed to protect the privacy of people not under investigation or otherwise not involved in crime.
And conveniently, you don't know if you'll be under investigation or accused of a crime until it's too late to turn the camera on.
Sorry, that excuse doesn't fly. This concern should be addressed by controlling the custody of the footage, not by preventing it from being captured in the first place. In reality, body cameras protect good cops.
Policies like this have been adopted with support from the ACLU. Your flippantly dismissive attitude towards this view makes me think you aren't all that aware of why cities might have this policy:
(Shrug) When weighing theoretical abstract harms against everyday atrocities, I find it fairly straightforward to pick a side.
The ACLU says, "There is a long history of law enforcement compiling dossiers on peaceful activists exercising their First Amendment rights in public marches and protests, and using cameras to send an intimidating message to such protesters: “we are WATCHING YOU and will REMEMBER your presence at this event.”"
I don't remember anything like that happening, at least not recently. Do you? The FBI behaved that way towards MLK, certainly, but it didn't have anything to do with body cameras.
In any case, I haven't argued, and won't argue, that police officers, or even the department itself, should have access to the footage except when necessary to defend themselves. Ideally it would be encrypted with a key held by an oversight board with substantial civilian representation.
You could use a device with a four-hour rotating buffer of video, that burns a physical fuse when you keep a record. Failure to press the button within two hours of a serious incident could be grounds for dismissal of the supervising officer.
Very good point. I’m sure some hardware that uploads encrypted footage that’s only accessible with a warrant is technically possible - which would alleviate this concern. But that’s in a perfect world.
Lol, as if there are no public cameras, cars don't have dash cams, ATMs and stores don't have cameras, or that citizens have no expectation of privacy from one another
In pre-body cam days Seattle PD got caught video taping protests or demonstrations. The current policy prevents that.
Thus, Seattle cops generally have their cams turned off while dealing with demonstrations or protests.