
In California, a Champion for Police Cameras - raldi
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/in-california-a-champion-for-police-cameras.html
======
javajosh
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.

~~~
smokeyj
I anticipate allowing undercover cops to go unrecorded will prompt police
departments to make all cops undercover. To better serve the public of course.

I think any authority that accepts money from the public should be obligated
to surveil themselves. Not just cops, but federal, state, and local regulators
as well. What you do on the public's dime should be publicly available, with
an API to your speech and location.

~~~
evacuationdrill
In Texas, at least, police can't pull you over in a car that doesn't say
"Police". I suppose they could have plainclothes officers drive the "stealth"
cars with their decals in reflective light gray, so long as they still would
be "undercover" under the wording of the policy/laws.

~~~
nsp
Houston is way ahead of you. I don't live there anymore, but circa 06-08 they
introduced dodge charger cop cars with 'ghost' paint, which is basically only
visible if you're parallel with the car. they're primarily used for traffic
enforcement, always assumed that it was just to increase revenue at the cost
of reducing speeding deterrence, but from your comment it looks like they're
threading that loophole nicely.

Pic:
[http://www.stcofhouston.org/PoliceCarPhotos/Houston_Police_G...](http://www.stcofhouston.org/PoliceCarPhotos/Houston_Police_GhostCharger.jpg)

Article: [http://m.policemag.com/blogpost/1474/houston-pd-s-traffic-
en...](http://m.policemag.com/blogpost/1474/houston-pd-s-traffic-enforcement-
unit)

Unrelated: I had no idea police had a magazine.

------
raldi
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."

~~~
danso
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...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/order-that-police-wear-
cameras-stirs-unexpected-reactions.html)

> _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
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
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.

~~~
jlgreco
So the cameras, apparently at $900/officer, are hardly an obscene expense.
That is what, a week's worth of pay? I should hope NYC could scrap together
that sort of cash.

~~~
gknoy
The camera hardware is $900/officer. How much is the information management
and storage? The IT infrastructure costs?

------
OldSchool
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.

~~~
notatoad
If officer recording becomes the norm though, an "accidentally" deleted
recording is going to be viewed with a lot of suspicion by the courts and is
going to put a lot more weight onto any testimony against you.

~~~
comrade_ogilvy
And a correlation between citizen complaints and a particular officer having
mysteriously incomplete records is going to look bad in front of a jury.

What will happen is that police chiefs will simply tell problem officers that
if they are going to "forget" to turn on cameras when interacting with
citizens, they best "forget" to show up to work that day.

------
jff
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_shoo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Empire_State_Building_shooting)
(summary: 9 bystanders wounded, all by the police)

~~~
hga
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)

------
Karunamon
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.

~~~
jivatmanx
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.

------
briancaw2
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
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
You never know...it's not inconceivable that they would do random reviews of
officer's entire shifts as part of a review process.

------
avn2109
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
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
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
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
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.

------
Yver
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.

~~~
BogdanMm
I would have to say it comes from the officers behaving more "by the book"
since they know they are being videotaped.

~~~
comrade_ogilvy
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.

------
Zikes
> 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.

~~~
emiliobumachar
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.

------
dsr_
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.

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

------
xsace
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
Yes, this is the way that customer call centers can monitor the performance of
their own employees.

~~~
twoodfin
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
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.

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

------
sologoub
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
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.

------
nanomage
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.

------
stiles
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-
co...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-cop-camera-
takes-aim-at-privacy)

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.

------
cwkoss
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.

------
tsycho
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.

------
drawkbox
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.

------
patrickaljord
Here's a video about it:

[http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-
we...](http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/08/21/t-police-wearable-
cameras-rialto-axon.cnnmoney/index.html)

------
Fuxy
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.

------
mehmehshoe
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=)

------
feadog
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.

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

------
mattchew
David Brin is pleased.

------
Apocryphon
Sousveillance wins again.

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

------
unz
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
Some folks use dash cams for this purpose.

------
donretag
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-hel...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-fire-chief-bans-helmet-
cameras-in-wake-of-crash-4741338.php)

Does the utility of police headcams trump privacy?

EDIT: I am playing the devil's advocate.

~~~
toomuchtodo
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.

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

~~~
JonSkeptic
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)

~~~
rprospero
"...I do not believe that anyone expects privacy for an action that they
perform within the sight of a cop"

Perhaps my age is showing here, but I remember when the first rule of the
internet is that there are no secrets on the internet. The assumption was
that, if you didn't want it broadcast on the nightly news, you didn't say it
on the internet. It didn't have anything to do with the NSA. The assumption
was just that the sysadmin would read your e-mails and monitor your chats if
she was bored. It came down to the whole "my hard drive is my property and I
have the right to read any e-mails stored on my property". However, it's clear
that societal mores have changed, so I'm not sure that it's any more
unreasonable to expect privacy in front of a cop.

For instance, maybe I don't want the government to have video of me at a
urinal. Of course, cops are human, so they're going to have to use the
bathroom. When the cop enters the bathroom and stands waits in line for a
toilet, did the government get a right to record my urination? Heck, can I
record other people at the urinal, or are those surveillance rights reserved
for just the government? Can stores setup bathroom cameras? Okay, I'm getting
unreasonably sarcastic here, but I had thought the obvious solution would be
to have the cops turn off their camera when they go to the bathroom. However,
the public opinion seems clear that we don't want the cops to have an off
switch, so I'm a little confused no about who gets to record me in the
bathroom.

~~~
lmm
Anything the camera can record is something the cop could already see - in the
open part of a bathroom you're already being watched by strangers. If you
don't like other people watching you urinate surely you use a cubicle. If the
cop busts down the door you've probably got bigger problems.

