Police Body Cameras

Most of us carry video cameras in our pockets now. Filming police needs to become ubiquitous. There should be no police officer in the United States that doesn't know that at any time they could be being filmed and held accountable for their actions by the public they are paid to protect and serve. It is one case where I think constant citizen surveillance could be useful. After a few years of it and constant court rulings that it is protected, perhaps cops would stop yelling at people and

I'm all for it but the police force should not be the recording agency. Their cameras tend to malfunction when you need them most.

That quote seems to counter the 'nobody knows why' in the article subtitle.If it backfires when Police can choose to turn them off that seems to suggest that they act as if having a camera protects them from being questioned. Since they'll likely record video evidence in their favor and just turn it off if they want to use force.In the case with no camera things would be more balanced (though still skewed toward the police officer's testimony), but selective camera use

Yea the cameras aren’t really the problem. The problem is that the police are free to reach for any level of violence they want, no matter whether the situation calls for it, and are immune from repercussions. Even when the cameras are rolling, nothing stops them from beating and killing at will.

We just need to establish a legal precept that if the body cam footage isn't there to corroborate the cops' story, we assume the worst and they get held accountable for anything a plaintiff is able to plausibly allege. Under that scenario, most cops would become the biggest advocates for e.g., redundancies, backups and transparency.

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.

Wait until every cop in America has a video camera running at all times, and lack of video footage implies they have something to hide.

If you're trying to capture police misdeeds on camera, then asking for the approval of the police, or announcing loudly to them that they are being recorded seems to miss the point. If anything, the police should have less of an expectation of privacy (in their job) than a normal person. We've armed them and given them the discretion to kill if necessary, why shouldn't we be able to heavily audit them to make sure that they aren't abusing that power?

This is a problem with shitty police departments, not cameras.

So basically, you're screwed because the fox is guarding the henhouse.This is one place where ubiquitous surveillance can be a good thing - police cameras (body cams, dash cams, and police station cams) should be unalterable (with footage signed by a neutral 3rd party with civilian oversight) and non-disablable, if a police camera is turned off or is blocked, it should send out an "officer assistance" signal by radio, and courts should view police actions skeptically when they