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In California, a Champion for Police Cameras

262 points by raldi 13y ago

Yver 13y ago
Interesting. I wonder how much of it comes from officers being more self-conscious and from people being less likely to file a claim they know would be easily disproved.
- HaloZero 13y ago
  I imagine most of the behavior changes are from that, if you know you're being recorded then you're going to act better overall because it's going to be hard to lie later when the film disproves you.
- BogdanMm 13y ago
  I would have to say it comes from the officers behaving more "by the book" since they know they are being videotaped.
  - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
    I am sure that is true, even if it is just their voice on the tape, with the camera pointed forward. Any potential prosecution will involve someone from the DA's office reviewing all evidence. How many officers want to be seen as an overt bully by even a (probably) friendly suit in the DA's office? Who wants the first thing the jury notices about the tape is how very rude the officer is? A long time ago, police whined and whined and whined about how the Miranda Rule got in the way of getting convictions. The real result is that police forces are more professional now, and it raises credibility in the eyes of juries. Yes, police officers have crafty workarounds to trick people in confessions while they are "not quite yet" suspects. But that is a big step forward. Officers are working from a standard set of procedures that have been reviewed by attorneys and the court system. Police raised their game. The same will happen here. Citizens will be more compliant. Officers will be more polite and more professional. Police will raise their game.
Karunamon 13y ago
Kind of interesting (if not surprising) that the "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" line peddled by the NSA's ilk actually seems to work really well when applied to those with authority.
- milesskorpen 13y ago
  I think the key is that filming on the job is different from accessing all non-professional information. I fully expect police departments to monitor officer emails if there is suspected mis-use. I don't see how these cameras are different.
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  The police are the executors of the state's monopoly on the use of force, and where a state exists by the consent of the governed, it is uniquely important that the police are, without exception, held responsible to the people. Any philosophy allowing unlimited or arbitrary state power over individuals turns the state, is one where the state, rather than the people, has full liberty, and is the master. That's the historical status quo (sans Greece, Rome) prior to liberalism, Locke.
xsace 13y ago
I wonder if this is the same reason why they tell you the conversation may be recorded when you have a phone call with a call center.
- danso 13y ago
  Yes, this is the way that customer call centers can monitor the performance of their own employees.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    I think xsace's point was that letting callers know they may be recorded makes them less likely to be abusive towards the call center worker and/or less likely to make false representations of what was said to them. Of course, state (and federal?) laws make the disclosure mandatory, so it's hard to know if there's any motivation beyond that.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      My experience has been that it makes no difference if a caller is being recorded wether or not they're abusive to call center staff. YMMV.
- kahirsch 13y ago
  In many states it is illegal to record a conversation unless all parties of the conversation have knowledge of the recording (and thus give implied consent).
Ziomislaw 13y ago
So, another crime against privacy is being smuggled under the cover of helpful change.
- JonSkeptic 13y ago
  Actually, rather than a violation of privacy, this may be a great victory for accountability. I say this because I do not believe that anyone expects privacy for an action that they perform within the sight of a cop: if a cop is there, you can assume he will see you, it's kind of silly to think otherwise. However, what it does do is provide accountability. It is no longer a matter of "the cop vs the criminal", now, in court, there will be video evidence for what actually happened. For law abiding citizens, there will be no difference, for the cops, it will mean that they will be forced to provide reasons for and accurate accounts of all their actions. This does not violate privacy, it protects the innocent from the wrong doings of thugs in cop uniforms. (not saying all cops are like this, most aren't, but there's always a few bad apples)
  - skaevola 13y ago
    Not to mention protecting cops from spurious lawsuits. It seems like a win-win for everybody.
  - syncerr 13y ago
    This is also quite different than mass public surveillance. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-surveillance http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watch...
  - tippytop 13y ago
    And what happens when these videos are leaked to the press, or some hair-brained politico wants to post them up on his mugshot website. Accountability is great, but so is innocent until proven guilty. Hopefully systems will be put in place to curb abuse, but I doubt it.
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    Not really. You're just going to enable micromanagement and reduce police effectiveness. It means that you'll have denial-of-service for high crime minority neighborhoods or other areas where there's a higher risk of liability. It also makes neighborhood policing less effective -- who is going to talk to the beat cop when every interaction with him is going to be recorded and stored somewhere? It also means that the policeman becomes a surveillance tool. Every time a cop steps into a building, everything is being filmed and recorded. The policeman's discretion to ignore petty things is going to be dramatically narrowed in scope. It also means that we're going to waste billions of dollars on recording millions of hours of nonsensical video. The NYPD has 10,000 cops working at any given time, which would generate millions of hours of video every week -- video that would need to the kept if were to be useful in dealing with complaints. (In NY, you have several months to file a suit or complaint)
raldi 13y ago
And once again, HN "corrects" a title to something worse. The original was something like, "Town gives police wearable cameras, sees decline in complaints and use of force."
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- danso 13y ago
  I think the "corrected" title works fine, actually. The point of the article is not just that complaints declined (though that may be the point you care about the most)...the point is that even though cameras are credited for this improvement, larger (more politically known) police departments are opposing it, for various reasons. I was really surprised to see that Bloomberg opposed it. Yes, the startup cost is high, but it seems like it'd be offset by the decline in fighting lawsuits. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/order-that-police-wear-cameras-stirs-unexpected-reactions.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/order-that-police... > But when Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled on Monday that the city’s stop-and-frisk program was unconstitutional and ordered that police officers in certain precincts strap tiny cameras to their uniforms to record their dealings with the public, Mr. Bloomberg’s response was immediate and emphatic. > > “It would be a nightmare,” he said. “We can’t have your cameraman follow you around and film things without people questioning whether they deliberately chose an angle, whether they got the whole picture in.” Um, just like you can't have cops carry guns because you'll have people questioning whether they were right to shoot and kill someone? Strange reasoning from the mayor.
  - eterm 13y ago
    The cost argument is a spurious one too. What's the cost compared to a monthly wage or the handguns they're carrying around?
    - jff 13y ago
      Police handguns aren't very expensive. The Glock 17, a very popular model, is about $600 and I wouldn't be surprised if police departments get discounts.
patrickaljord 13y ago
Here's a video about it: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-wearable-cameras-rialto-axon.cnnmoney/index.html http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-we...
donretag 13y ago
At the same time, the SF Fire Department banned helmet cameras due to privacy concerns (among others): http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-fire-chief-bans-helmet-cameras-in-wake-of-crash-4741338.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-fire-chief-bans-hel... Does the utility of police headcams trump privacy? EDIT: I am playing the devil's advocate.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  If by privacy concerns, you mean "We don't want our mistakes made public". In this case, the running over of a crash victim from Asiana flight 214 that crashed at SFO recently.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Use of force is a hot button issue, but both police and fire personnel have a lot of critical situations where not adhering to safety procedures can get someone hurt or killed. Once you get past use of force, there are more similarities than differences.
- betterunix 13y ago
  The police should be spending their time in public places, and their actions should be open to scrutiny by the public. If the police enter a private home with a warrant, privacy concerns have already been addressed by the warrant. As long as the system for cataloging and accessing the videos is open source and available for the public to scrutinize (and to check for ways it might be used beyond auditing the police themselves), where do you see a privacy problem?
javajosh 13y ago
Speaking as a staunch privacy advocate, this is a very positive article. Police should indeed wear these cameras, and any interaction that occurs off camera should be viewed by courts with suspicion. No longer will 'confessions' rely on the memory of the officer; no longer will complaints become a "criminal's word against the officer". This is a very very good thing. Note that it is not a violation of anyone's privacy. Police interactions with the public cannot be private, with the only exception being undercover police work or other times when the identity of the other person must be protected as in the case of a minor. These cameras can and will prevent petty (and egregious) abuses of power that American police have grown used to getting away with. Right now there are insufficient safeguards against police misconduct, and ubiquitious cameras would be a good step toward making those safeguards sufficient.
- ambler0 13y ago
  I agree, but I don't think this obviates the need for regular citizens' videotaping the police. If surveillance is going to be omnipresent, I think it's crucial that regular people are able to present their viewpoints as well. If we rely solely on the recordings that are produced by the powerful, it seems all too likely that things will be presented out of context, recordings will be 'lost', etc
  - avalaunch 13y ago
    I would assume (read: hope) that both defense and prosecution would have access to the entire taped incident. And if the taping were lost that the benefit of doubt would go to the civilian, not the officer.
    - sneak 13y ago
      Yeah because that's how it works now when a cop says one thing and an accused perp says another and there's no videotape. Please don't be naïve.
      - gamblor956 13y ago
dsr_ 13y ago
Another one of cstross' predictions from _Halting State_ comes true. All right, now we need much better cell data networks and lightweight high-quality HUD glasses -- say, the offspring of Rift and Glass.
OldSchool 13y ago
Recording the police has got be a good thing almost all the time. Unless they can "accidentally" not record an encounter or "accidentally" delete one, it will most certainly place moral pressure on the officers. We all know they have never had legal a duty to protect any civilian, but whenever it was that police subtly turned from a "protect and serve" ideology into "law enforcement" was a dark transition for America.
- stcredzero 13y ago
  From a UI/UX standpoint, it might let the officers feel more in control, but manual activation makes the system much more prone to error. I think it would be best to have constant activation.
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    I don't think there should be constant activation. Only during confrontation. It'd take the fun out of the job. I wouldn't want all the stupid shit and banter I say between my friends and I on a daily basis to be recorded. When on breaks, just chilling in the car. I know this is a silly concern, but I'm a sworn protector of the chill.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      This can be handled through key management. Give officers an option to switch on a privacy mode through a "key fob" which basically just manages encryption keys. "Privacy mode" time spans are just encrypted with an additional key. If a court proceeding wants something from a "privacy mode" time, they can still request it. This would prevent officers using this feature to hide improper procedure while also preventing other officers from using the device to eavesdrop.
- dmix 13y ago
  This reminds me of the controversy that happened when the CIA videotaped "enhanced interrogation techniques" and 90 of the videos got mysteriously destroyed. Noone was ever held criminally responsible for that [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d... There's a definite need that the video should be streamed as backup to a department (or more neutral 3rd party) database or made incapable of being deleted.
avn2109 13y ago
From the article: "...half of the city’s patrol officers were randomly assigned to wear body cameras each week, and instructed to turn them on whenever they made contact with a civilian." This means that before Rodney King 2.0, the police involved need only "forget" to turn on their cameras. The only way body cameras bring an accountability benefit is if boots-on-the-ground officers lack the ability to disable them. Failing that, we've merely diminished civilian privacy.
- betterunix 13y ago
  There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when it justifies police actions -- it is pretty hard to raise doubts about the claim that a suspect charged at the police with a knife when the police have a video of it happening. When the police show up in court and claim to have forgotten to turn their cameras on, the defense gets a big boost -- "Convenient that you forgot to turn the camera on just before beating my client into a coma, yet you did not fail to turn it on in your previous 30 arrests."
  - sneak 13y ago
    This is over-idealistic. Most cases never go to trial, especially when faced with "perp's word against cop". GP post is correct - the absence of video is not sufficient alone. The cops will just turn the cameras off when breaking the law.
    - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
      I would hypothesize that it is a very rare police officer who walks around intending to break the law before they know the facts. They break the law because it turns out to be very convenient given how the situation unfolds (e.g. add a few extra baloney charges because the suspect pissed the officer off during minor misbehavior). The cameras are very convenient, too. It makes defendants cave when they see what the jury will see. If the convenience of the cameras is sufficient great (I bet honest officers will love it), the habit will be to always turn them on. Thus even the slightly wobbly officers will behave better, simply because it usually makes their job easier. What do you think will happen to police officers who both have an unusual number of gaps in their electronic record, and a lot of citizen complaints? Police chiefs want fewer headaches...
rgrieselhuber 13y ago
There may be some psychology at play here. By giving the police the cameras and having it focused at the people they interact with, it keeps them feeling like they are the ones in power (e.g. pointing the camera at people the same way you would point a gun). I suspect that they would be (and demonstrably are) much less amenable if they knew citizens were wearing cameras pointed at them to record all interactions.
drawkbox 13y ago
Police and individuals should be able to use these, I hope it isn't a one way street, citizens should also be able to record the other side. I'd assume if both people have a Google glass like always on cam people will be much nicer on both sides.
feadog 13y ago
I think there are cynical claims of police overreach and actual police overreach in Oakland, CA. I think cameras would help with both of these.
lignuist 13y ago
Let's see, if complaints about police brutality correlate with claims of technical failure in the future.
jff 13y ago
What's that? The NYPD doesn't want cameras? That sounds like the most ringing endorsement for the idea I've ever heard. Might also shame them into working on their shooting a bit... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shoo... (summary: 9 bystanders wounded, all by the police)
- hga 13y ago
  I doubt there's any chance of that, I outlined the reasons here, in response to someone who noted they budget 150 rounds per year for practice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187591
tlrobinson 13y ago
Ok great, now stop arresting people for filming the police themselves.
kinofcain 13y ago
$900 for a camera with, what, a $50 BOM? Sounds like a business opportunity for the HN crowd.
unz 13y ago
The cost issue is way overblown. $900 per officer is too much for the big cities - each officer in those big cities is paid at least $5000, and with pensions, vehicles, facilities costs, tco must be at least 20k. There's politics in those departments that's preventing camera introduction. A lot those cops in the big cities are the worst offenders in police brutality. There's a lot of opportunity for startups to get into this game. Smartphones and tablets could be outfitted as cheap cams for the public to videotape their own encounters, fitted in cars, houses, and the side of buildings. Real time transmittal of video to cloud services so corrupt cops can't confiscate the footage. There's also the huge opportunity in drone surveillance, sold to private individuals, police departments, and local neighborhood watchs.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  Some folks use dash cams for this purpose.
briancaw2 13y ago
The only problem I can see is that like-it-or-not, some of cop's behavior involves not enforcing bad laws. Cameras might take away ability to let things slide. Maybe that results in the long overdue reform of our laws. Maybe it just means nobody gets off the hook for anything anymore.
- hfsktr 13y ago
  I assume that the video is only really reviewed in the event of complaint or when needed for evidence. Unless the goal starts to be to catch everyone all the time for everything.
  - briancaw2 13y ago
    You never know...it's not inconceivable that they would do random reviews of officer's entire shifts as part of a review process.
- bediger4000 13y ago
  Isn't that the issue with automatic red-light cameras, and automated radar cameras? That is, we (as a society) have set penalties for infractions that are really high based on the danger of those infractions. We didn't have enough patrol cars or cops to enforce every stop light or speed limit, so we made the penalties quite high because of the low probability of getting caught. We must revisit all penalties if universal enforcement gets into place.
stiles 13y ago
The Verge had a really good article covering Taser, the company producing these cameras as well as the police departments using them. http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-cop-camera-takes-aim-at-privacy http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-co... I just find it interesting that Police departments are now looking to record every interaction on video when in the past these exact Police departments (Oakland, LA + Rialto) have been very hostile to any citizen using a recording device.
Zikes 13y ago
> William A. Farrar, the Rialto police chief, believes the cameras may offer more benefits than merely reduced complaints against his force: the department is now trying to determine whether having video evidence in court has also led to more convictions. I dislike that this is a measure of "success". More or fewer convictions is not necessarily a good thing, because the existence of the camera does not magically make any particular criminal more or less guilty. What they should be measuring is the increased degree of certainty of the result of any trial, whether the accused is found guilty or not guilty.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  How do you measure that though?
- emiliobumachar 13y ago
  That's borderline impossible to measure. If there was a better way than courts to determine guilt or innocence (so that the result of the trial could be compared to the truth), it would be atrocious not to use that way instead of the courts.
mattchew 13y ago
David Brin is pleased.
nanomage 13y ago
I agree. Plato said, "To be just is to do no harm." I would argue up until now, we had best effort at full information at a transaction level between the police/the incident/the public. The flaw was the only accredable information was asymmetric from the point of view of the police officer. Some times this situation led to fibbing to close a case or cover up a mistake. Now there can be the solution to have symmetric, or full, information for the same situation. The only 'harm' now would be to those who forget the truth, embellish it, or are just bad at their job and lie.
tsycho 13y ago
This is a positive, as long as video recordings that show the police in a negative light, don't mysteriously get lost/corrupted. The net benefit is still probably positive though, since the police will self-police themselves as the article already mentions.
sologoub 13y ago
There is a cool TV show on Scyfy right now called Continuum that has "future" technology that records everything a police office sees and regularly backs it up to a remote storage for evidence. In addition, it provides a host of situational awareness aids. From an enforcement and tactical perspective, such technology is invaluable and will undoubtedly save lives. It also alleviates the he said/she said issues and makes improper behavior by officers plain as day in court. As long as it doesn't have sensors that can "see through walls", this tech isn't particularly invasive. If it can breach the boundary of your private home, that's another issue all together.
ktd 13y ago
This seems like a pretty logical step. I'm sure we've all seen cases where dash cameras on police cars help clear up ambiguity regard what really happened during a police stop. The same for normal officers could help solve a lot of problems, though obviously it would be inappropriate for undercover operations, some detective work, etc. That said, one potential issue with this system is that it might lead to people being less willing to talk to the police. The "stop snitching" culture is already a major problem in many cities and if this measure reinforces it, it could end up being detrimental to the public good.
cwkoss 13y ago
Idea for a device for Bad Cops who don't like people recording them: A harness with speakers for an iPad to be worn on the chest. It plays Disney movies at high volume. Whenever you want someone to stop filming you, simply flip the switch and let it blast. If they don't immediately stop filming, book em for unlawfully recording a motion picture.
mehmehshoe 13y ago
Great pilot program, now we can step it up a notch. Put cameras on all state level politicians and judges=) When the corruption numbers start to fall, then move up to the federal level=)
Apocryphon 13y ago
Sousveillance wins again.
nazgulnarsil 13y ago
I would be afraid of publicly supporting something the police don't like.
Fuxy 13y ago
Well this is a situation where I don't mind not having privacy. However is there a way to ensure the video hasn't been altered? Images are worth a thousand words but when the images are lying you as the accused are screwed.

262 points by raldi 13y ago

Yver 13y ago

Interesting. I wonder how much of it comes from officers being more self-conscious and from people being less likely to file a claim they know would be easily disproved.

HaloZero 13y ago
I imagine most of the behavior changes are from that, if you know you're being recorded then you're going to act better overall because it's going to be hard to lie later when the film disproves you.
BogdanMm 13y ago
I would have to say it comes from the officers behaving more "by the book" since they know they are being videotaped.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  I am sure that is true, even if it is just their voice on the tape, with the camera pointed forward. Any potential prosecution will involve someone from the DA's office reviewing all evidence. How many officers want to be seen as an overt bully by even a (probably) friendly suit in the DA's office? Who wants the first thing the jury notices about the tape is how very rude the officer is? A long time ago, police whined and whined and whined about how the Miranda Rule got in the way of getting convictions. The real result is that police forces are more professional now, and it raises credibility in the eyes of juries. Yes, police officers have crafty workarounds to trick people in confessions while they are "not quite yet" suspects. But that is a big step forward. Officers are working from a standard set of procedures that have been reviewed by attorneys and the court system. Police raised their game. The same will happen here. Citizens will be more compliant. Officers will be more polite and more professional. Police will raise their game.

Karunamon 13y ago

Kind of interesting (if not surprising) that the "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" line peddled by the NSA's ilk actually seems to work really well when applied to those with authority.

milesskorpen 13y ago
I think the key is that filming on the job is different from accessing all non-professional information. I fully expect police departments to monitor officer emails if there is suspected mis-use. I don't see how these cameras are different.
jivatmanx 13y ago
The police are the executors of the state's monopoly on the use of force, and where a state exists by the consent of the governed, it is uniquely important that the police are, without exception, held responsible to the people. Any philosophy allowing unlimited or arbitrary state power over individuals turns the state, is one where the state, rather than the people, has full liberty, and is the master. That's the historical status quo (sans Greece, Rome) prior to liberalism, Locke.

xsace 13y ago

I wonder if this is the same reason why they tell you the conversation may be recorded when you have a phone call with a call center.

danso 13y ago
Yes, this is the way that customer call centers can monitor the performance of their own employees.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  I think xsace's point was that letting callers know they may be recorded makes them less likely to be abusive towards the call center worker and/or less likely to make false representations of what was said to them. Of course, state (and federal?) laws make the disclosure mandatory, so it's hard to know if there's any motivation beyond that.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    My experience has been that it makes no difference if a caller is being recorded wether or not they're abusive to call center staff. YMMV.
kahirsch 13y ago
In many states it is illegal to record a conversation unless all parties of the conversation have knowledge of the recording (and thus give implied consent).

Ziomislaw 13y ago

So, another crime against privacy is being smuggled under the cover of helpful change.

JonSkeptic 13y ago
Actually, rather than a violation of privacy, this may be a great victory for accountability. I say this because I do not believe that anyone expects privacy for an action that they perform within the sight of a cop: if a cop is there, you can assume he will see you, it's kind of silly to think otherwise. However, what it does do is provide accountability. It is no longer a matter of "the cop vs the criminal", now, in court, there will be video evidence for what actually happened. For law abiding citizens, there will be no difference, for the cops, it will mean that they will be forced to provide reasons for and accurate accounts of all their actions. This does not violate privacy, it protects the innocent from the wrong doings of thugs in cop uniforms. (not saying all cops are like this, most aren't, but there's always a few bad apples)
- skaevola 13y ago
  Not to mention protecting cops from spurious lawsuits. It seems like a win-win for everybody.
- syncerr 13y ago
  This is also quite different than mass public surveillance. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-surveillance http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watch...
- tippytop 13y ago
  And what happens when these videos are leaked to the press, or some hair-brained politico wants to post them up on his mugshot website. Accountability is great, but so is innocent until proven guilty. Hopefully systems will be put in place to curb abuse, but I doubt it.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  Not really. You're just going to enable micromanagement and reduce police effectiveness. It means that you'll have denial-of-service for high crime minority neighborhoods or other areas where there's a higher risk of liability. It also makes neighborhood policing less effective -- who is going to talk to the beat cop when every interaction with him is going to be recorded and stored somewhere? It also means that the policeman becomes a surveillance tool. Every time a cop steps into a building, everything is being filmed and recorded. The policeman's discretion to ignore petty things is going to be dramatically narrowed in scope. It also means that we're going to waste billions of dollars on recording millions of hours of nonsensical video. The NYPD has 10,000 cops working at any given time, which would generate millions of hours of video every week -- video that would need to the kept if were to be useful in dealing with complaints. (In NY, you have several months to file a suit or complaint)

raldi 13y ago

And once again, HN "corrects" a title to something worse. The original was something like, "Town gives police wearable cameras, sees decline in complaints and use of force."

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danso 13y ago
I think the "corrected" title works fine, actually. The point of the article is not just that complaints declined (though that may be the point you care about the most)...the point is that even though cameras are credited for this improvement, larger (more politically known) police departments are opposing it, for various reasons. I was really surprised to see that Bloomberg opposed it. Yes, the startup cost is high, but it seems like it'd be offset by the decline in fighting lawsuits. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/order-that-police-wear-cameras-stirs-unexpected-reactions.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/order-that-police... > But when Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled on Monday that the city’s stop-and-frisk program was unconstitutional and ordered that police officers in certain precincts strap tiny cameras to their uniforms to record their dealings with the public, Mr. Bloomberg’s response was immediate and emphatic. > > “It would be a nightmare,” he said. “We can’t have your cameraman follow you around and film things without people questioning whether they deliberately chose an angle, whether they got the whole picture in.” Um, just like you can't have cops carry guns because you'll have people questioning whether they were right to shoot and kill someone? Strange reasoning from the mayor.
- eterm 13y ago
  The cost argument is a spurious one too. What's the cost compared to a monthly wage or the handguns they're carrying around?
  - jff 13y ago
    Police handguns aren't very expensive. The Glock 17, a very popular model, is about $600 and I wouldn't be surprised if police departments get discounts.

patrickaljord 13y ago

Here's a video about it: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-wearable-cameras-rialto-axon.cnnmoney/index.html http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-we...

donretag 13y ago

At the same time, the SF Fire Department banned helmet cameras due to privacy concerns (among others): http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-fire-chief-bans-helmet-cameras-in-wake-of-crash-4741338.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-fire-chief-bans-hel... Does the utility of police headcams trump privacy? EDIT: I am playing the devil's advocate.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
If by privacy concerns, you mean "We don't want our mistakes made public". In this case, the running over of a crash victim from Asiana flight 214 that crashed at SFO recently.
Zigurd 13y ago
Use of force is a hot button issue, but both police and fire personnel have a lot of critical situations where not adhering to safety procedures can get someone hurt or killed. Once you get past use of force, there are more similarities than differences.
betterunix 13y ago
The police should be spending their time in public places, and their actions should be open to scrutiny by the public. If the police enter a private home with a warrant, privacy concerns have already been addressed by the warrant. As long as the system for cataloging and accessing the videos is open source and available for the public to scrutinize (and to check for ways it might be used beyond auditing the police themselves), where do you see a privacy problem?

javajosh 13y ago

Speaking as a staunch privacy advocate, this is a very positive article. Police should indeed wear these cameras, and any interaction that occurs off camera should be viewed by courts with suspicion. No longer will 'confessions' rely on the memory of the officer; no longer will complaints become a "criminal's word against the officer". This is a very very good thing. Note that it is not a violation of anyone's privacy. Police interactions with the public cannot be private, with the only exception being undercover police work or other times when the identity of the other person must be protected as in the case of a minor. These cameras can and will prevent petty (and egregious) abuses of power that American police have grown used to getting away with. Right now there are insufficient safeguards against police misconduct, and ubiquitious cameras would be a good step toward making those safeguards sufficient.

ambler0 13y ago
I agree, but I don't think this obviates the need for regular citizens' videotaping the police. If surveillance is going to be omnipresent, I think it's crucial that regular people are able to present their viewpoints as well. If we rely solely on the recordings that are produced by the powerful, it seems all too likely that things will be presented out of context, recordings will be 'lost', etc
- avalaunch 13y ago
  I would assume (read: hope) that both defense and prosecution would have access to the entire taped incident. And if the taping were lost that the benefit of doubt would go to the civilian, not the officer.
  - sneak 13y ago
    Yeah because that's how it works now when a cop says one thing and an accused perp says another and there's no videotape. Please don't be naïve.
    - gamblor956 13y ago

dsr_ 13y ago

Another one of cstross' predictions from _Halting State_ comes true. All right, now we need much better cell data networks and lightweight high-quality HUD glasses -- say, the offspring of Rift and Glass.

OldSchool 13y ago

Recording the police has got be a good thing almost all the time. Unless they can "accidentally" not record an encounter or "accidentally" delete one, it will most certainly place moral pressure on the officers. We all know they have never had legal a duty to protect any civilian, but whenever it was that police subtly turned from a "protect and serve" ideology into "law enforcement" was a dark transition for America.

stcredzero 13y ago
From a UI/UX standpoint, it might let the officers feel more in control, but manual activation makes the system much more prone to error. I think it would be best to have constant activation.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  I don't think there should be constant activation. Only during confrontation. It'd take the fun out of the job. I wouldn't want all the stupid shit and banter I say between my friends and I on a daily basis to be recorded. When on breaks, just chilling in the car. I know this is a silly concern, but I'm a sworn protector of the chill.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    This can be handled through key management. Give officers an option to switch on a privacy mode through a "key fob" which basically just manages encryption keys. "Privacy mode" time spans are just encrypted with an additional key. If a court proceeding wants something from a "privacy mode" time, they can still request it. This would prevent officers using this feature to hide improper procedure while also preventing other officers from using the device to eavesdrop.
dmix 13y ago
This reminds me of the controversy that happened when the CIA videotaped "enhanced interrogation techniques" and 90 of the videos got mysteriously destroyed. Noone was ever held criminally responsible for that [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d... There's a definite need that the video should be streamed as backup to a department (or more neutral 3rd party) database or made incapable of being deleted.

avn2109 13y ago

From the article: "...half of the city’s patrol officers were randomly assigned to wear body cameras each week, and instructed to turn them on whenever they made contact with a civilian." This means that before Rodney King 2.0, the police involved need only "forget" to turn on their cameras. The only way body cameras bring an accountability benefit is if boots-on-the-ground officers lack the ability to disable them. Failing that, we've merely diminished civilian privacy.

betterunix 13y ago
There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when it justifies police actions -- it is pretty hard to raise doubts about the claim that a suspect charged at the police with a knife when the police have a video of it happening. When the police show up in court and claim to have forgotten to turn their cameras on, the defense gets a big boost -- "Convenient that you forgot to turn the camera on just before beating my client into a coma, yet you did not fail to turn it on in your previous 30 arrests."
- sneak 13y ago
  This is over-idealistic. Most cases never go to trial, especially when faced with "perp's word against cop". GP post is correct - the absence of video is not sufficient alone. The cops will just turn the cameras off when breaking the law.
  - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
    I would hypothesize that it is a very rare police officer who walks around intending to break the law before they know the facts. They break the law because it turns out to be very convenient given how the situation unfolds (e.g. add a few extra baloney charges because the suspect pissed the officer off during minor misbehavior). The cameras are very convenient, too. It makes defendants cave when they see what the jury will see. If the convenience of the cameras is sufficient great (I bet honest officers will love it), the habit will be to always turn them on. Thus even the slightly wobbly officers will behave better, simply because it usually makes their job easier. What do you think will happen to police officers who both have an unusual number of gaps in their electronic record, and a lot of citizen complaints? Police chiefs want fewer headaches...

rgrieselhuber 13y ago

There may be some psychology at play here. By giving the police the cameras and having it focused at the people they interact with, it keeps them feeling like they are the ones in power (e.g. pointing the camera at people the same way you would point a gun). I suspect that they would be (and demonstrably are) much less amenable if they knew citizens were wearing cameras pointed at them to record all interactions.

drawkbox 13y ago

Police and individuals should be able to use these, I hope it isn't a one way street, citizens should also be able to record the other side. I'd assume if both people have a Google glass like always on cam people will be much nicer on both sides.

feadog 13y ago

I think there are cynical claims of police overreach and actual police overreach in Oakland, CA. I think cameras would help with both of these.

lignuist 13y ago

Let's see, if complaints about police brutality correlate with claims of technical failure in the future.

jff 13y ago

What's that? The NYPD doesn't want cameras? That sounds like the most ringing endorsement for the idea I've ever heard. Might also shame them into working on their shooting a bit... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shoo... (summary: 9 bystanders wounded, all by the police)

hga 13y ago
I doubt there's any chance of that, I outlined the reasons here, in response to someone who noted they budget 150 rounds per year for practice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187591

tlrobinson 13y ago

Ok great, now stop arresting people for filming the police themselves.

kinofcain 13y ago

$900 for a camera with, what, a $50 BOM? Sounds like a business opportunity for the HN crowd.

unz 13y ago

The cost issue is way overblown. $900 per officer is too much for the big cities - each officer in those big cities is paid at least $5000, and with pensions, vehicles, facilities costs, tco must be at least 20k. There's politics in those departments that's preventing camera introduction. A lot those cops in the big cities are the worst offenders in police brutality. There's a lot of opportunity for startups to get into this game. Smartphones and tablets could be outfitted as cheap cams for the public to videotape their own encounters, fitted in cars, houses, and the side of buildings. Real time transmittal of video to cloud services so corrupt cops can't confiscate the footage. There's also the huge opportunity in drone surveillance, sold to private individuals, police departments, and local neighborhood watchs.

redblacktree 13y ago
Some folks use dash cams for this purpose.

briancaw2 13y ago

The only problem I can see is that like-it-or-not, some of cop's behavior involves not enforcing bad laws. Cameras might take away ability to let things slide. Maybe that results in the long overdue reform of our laws. Maybe it just means nobody gets off the hook for anything anymore.

hfsktr 13y ago
I assume that the video is only really reviewed in the event of complaint or when needed for evidence. Unless the goal starts to be to catch everyone all the time for everything.
- briancaw2 13y ago
  You never know...it's not inconceivable that they would do random reviews of officer's entire shifts as part of a review process.
bediger4000 13y ago
Isn't that the issue with automatic red-light cameras, and automated radar cameras? That is, we (as a society) have set penalties for infractions that are really high based on the danger of those infractions. We didn't have enough patrol cars or cops to enforce every stop light or speed limit, so we made the penalties quite high because of the low probability of getting caught. We must revisit all penalties if universal enforcement gets into place.

stiles 13y ago

The Verge had a really good article covering Taser, the company producing these cameras as well as the police departments using them. http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-cop-camera-takes-aim-at-privacy http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-co... I just find it interesting that Police departments are now looking to record every interaction on video when in the past these exact Police departments (Oakland, LA + Rialto) have been very hostile to any citizen using a recording device.

Zikes 13y ago

> William A. Farrar, the Rialto police chief, believes the cameras may offer more benefits than merely reduced complaints against his force: the department is now trying to determine whether having video evidence in court has also led to more convictions. I dislike that this is a measure of "success". More or fewer convictions is not necessarily a good thing, because the existence of the camera does not magically make any particular criminal more or less guilty. What they should be measuring is the increased degree of certainty of the result of any trial, whether the accused is found guilty or not guilty.

redblacktree 13y ago
How do you measure that though?
emiliobumachar 13y ago
That's borderline impossible to measure. If there was a better way than courts to determine guilt or innocence (so that the result of the trial could be compared to the truth), it would be atrocious not to use that way instead of the courts.

mattchew 13y ago

David Brin is pleased.

nanomage 13y ago

I agree. Plato said, "To be just is to do no harm." I would argue up until now, we had best effort at full information at a transaction level between the police/the incident/the public. The flaw was the only accredable information was asymmetric from the point of view of the police officer. Some times this situation led to fibbing to close a case or cover up a mistake. Now there can be the solution to have symmetric, or full, information for the same situation. The only 'harm' now would be to those who forget the truth, embellish it, or are just bad at their job and lie.

tsycho 13y ago

This is a positive, as long as video recordings that show the police in a negative light, don't mysteriously get lost/corrupted. The net benefit is still probably positive though, since the police will self-police themselves as the article already mentions.

sologoub 13y ago

There is a cool TV show on Scyfy right now called Continuum that has "future" technology that records everything a police office sees and regularly backs it up to a remote storage for evidence. In addition, it provides a host of situational awareness aids. From an enforcement and tactical perspective, such technology is invaluable and will undoubtedly save lives. It also alleviates the he said/she said issues and makes improper behavior by officers plain as day in court. As long as it doesn't have sensors that can "see through walls", this tech isn't particularly invasive. If it can breach the boundary of your private home, that's another issue all together.

ktd 13y ago

This seems like a pretty logical step. I'm sure we've all seen cases where dash cameras on police cars help clear up ambiguity regard what really happened during a police stop. The same for normal officers could help solve a lot of problems, though obviously it would be inappropriate for undercover operations, some detective work, etc. That said, one potential issue with this system is that it might lead to people being less willing to talk to the police. The "stop snitching" culture is already a major problem in many cities and if this measure reinforces it, it could end up being detrimental to the public good.

cwkoss 13y ago

Idea for a device for Bad Cops who don't like people recording them: A harness with speakers for an iPad to be worn on the chest. It plays Disney movies at high volume. Whenever you want someone to stop filming you, simply flip the switch and let it blast. If they don't immediately stop filming, book em for unlawfully recording a motion picture.

mehmehshoe 13y ago

Great pilot program, now we can step it up a notch. Put cameras on all state level politicians and judges=) When the corruption numbers start to fall, then move up to the federal level=)

Apocryphon 13y ago

Sousveillance wins again.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago

I would be afraid of publicly supporting something the police don't like.

Fuxy 13y ago

Well this is a situation where I don't mind not having privacy. However is there a way to ensure the video hasn't been altered? Images are worth a thousand words but when the images are lying you as the accused are screwed.