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David Kravets writes that US Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) says police departments nationwide should require their officers to wear body cameras in order to qualify for the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding they receive each year. "Everywhere I go, people now have cameras," said McCaskill during a question-and-answer session with voters in her home state of Missouri. "And police officers are now at a disadvantage because someone can tape the last part of an encounter and not tape the first part of the encounter. And it gives the impression that the police officer has overreacted when they haven't."
Only a small number of US police departments have outfitted their officers with body cameras, including forces in Fresno, California; Oakland; Rialto, California; Pittsburgh; Salt Lake City; and Cincinnati. A recent study with the Rialto Police Department showed that use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints have been dramatically curtailed since the department began wearing body cams [PDF].
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 28 2014, @03:25PM
You cannot make recordings of officers inside peoples homes and vehicles public information. You cannot make recordings of women filing a report of rape public information. You cannot make recordings of people being shot to death public information (Not even in Ferguson. The courts should see it, everyone tuning into CNN should not).
Not only would you strip away the privacy loincloth we've managed to hold onto thus far, but making police recordings public information automatically would give a very tiny minority a dangerous platform to grandstand on. This would be the serial killers version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday August 29 2014, @02:42PM
Okay then, how do we make sure that a small minority (three letter agencies) don't siphon off this information and use it to monitor and blackmail normal citizens? Any ideas?
I don't think it can be done. I think it's better to put everything in the open, rather than let it be abused by a few. Either way, if you want to live in a large city the future probably won't provide you with very much privacy. My advice is to run from the cities.