The body cams need to serialize their stream to a special satellite or cell provider, and a chain of auditable custody needs to be preserved at multiple data centers. Police cannot be the masters of their own footage. It needs to exist beyond bribery, lust and international intimidation. It needs to be out of their hands and into a web of trust, as soon as the photons hit the sensors.

Then it comes down to jamming, tampering, malfunction, sabotage, and any misbehavior that otherwise prevents useful recordings, since we’re talking about wearables that can be covered, discarded and left behind, even if thy can’t be turned off. But if it does get recorded, it needs to get locked up tighter than handcuffs.

That video needs to dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

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.

This seems to abolish the right to be "innocent until proven guilty". It's always possible to allege a crime that no one can prove didn't happen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot), so without a presumption of innocence, the system essentially puts the accused at the mercy of the accuser.

I was actually thinking of it as an extension of the presumption of innocence on behalf of the citizenry and keeping the burden of proof on the government as a check against it's powers. Cops are citizens too but there is some level of surrender of your individual rights e.g., when you join the military. It'd be similar to that.

Another thought is the panopticon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon . You don't necessarily need to stream and record every cop's cam, just randomize it without indicating to the cops who's getting recorded or when.

Given there aren't a lot of citizens randomly stopping officers to accuse them of crimes... I don't see a problem. The ISSUE right now is exactly what you've described - officers accusing citizens of crimes they didn't commit without proof beyond "their word".

As someone who has been falsely accused by an officer (fortunately a minor traffic violation that I was able to make go away by paying a small fine), I've lost any faith that officers are there to serve their constituents.

I've also been a victim of this. The police even held a mock-trial for me, with one acting as judge while his fellow officer and I both presented our sides of the story. I won't make assumptions about the likelihood of them ever actually telling another fellow officer they agree with a defendant, but it definitely did not happen in my case. Added insult to injury and a bit of a resentment towards the whole process for me and not much else.

Ive heard there are a lot of suspects accusing officers but body cams reduce the average amount of those accusations.

You are misapplying the right. That principle was devised explicitly to protect citizens from powerful entities.

That principle is not in contradiction with the principle that power must be held accountable.

Historically, that's why public figures are called "public" in opposition to "private".

Police need to be held to a higher standard than citizens. Currently, they're held to a ludicrously lower one. That has obvious, demonstrable consequences.

Not really, there isn't a presumption of guilt because first you must establish spoliation. Once it has been established that the video record is incomplete, it must be the duty of the police to provide evidence of the technical failing that allowed it to happen to clear them of wrongdoing. After all, the evidence was in their care. Even if it was simply negligence and not malice.

A much more feasible option would be to directly make it a law that camera footage must be producible on request, much like tax receipts, driver's insurance, transit passes and other such documents.

There would still be lots of details to get right, but at least it wouldn't violate the basic underlying principles of our legal system.

If the police are given any sort of beneficial presumption, either formally or informally, at least that presumption should be discarded in cases in which body cam footage turns up missing.

Take away their immunity if they can't produce the videos and try them as citizens. I can't recall the specific immunity but it's something like special immunity or classified immunity for police officers when on patrol.

Yeah, dropping "the assumption of regularity" is probably better.

But then this comes down to a jury, and most Americans still seem to trust their police officers. Just saying..

Then it sounds like there is a strong incentive to keep that camera on!

When cops' word weighs more than yours in a court of law, this requires an equivalent check against that power by only making it weigh that much when there is corroborating evidence (i.e., video proof).

While you are completely correct, it would force any rational being to make sure not only that they are wearing a camera, but that it is working too.

I know this won't be a popular comment but it never surprises me that this attitude that police should be guilty until proven innocent arrises. It seems to be the default setting. Just like the way everyone hates the police until they need them.

Everything is at some point the fault of the police. It seems like everyone wants the police to do only what they want them to and to be punished if the police do something different.

Now I don't come from the US so can't comment on the problems with the police there and I don't know how the police there are funded but I know from my country that some of the "solutions" stated to hold the police to account would bankrupt the police here, but then I suppose that's the fault of the police as well.

I'm all for bodycams though because at the end of the day when a fabricated complaint comes in (my experience is most of them are) then these can be easily dismissed and hopefully those people actually held to account.

I can't really believe there's a straight up choice between non-corrupt police and bankrupt police departments. It is true that US police seem to funded in ways that create incentives to corruption. An ideological commitment to low taxes means institutions like the police need to find other sources of revenue. This leads to a proliferation of regulations and drug and driving laws that can be used to impose fines, systems like civil forfeiture, and reliance on private "donations".

In the long term, this leads to a fundamentally adversarial and extractive relationship between the police and the populace, and the situation right now where police are widely hated, or at least distrusted, by significant sections of the population.

The solution to all of this is to break this extractive relationship: To prevent the police from profiting from the enforcement of some laws over others, or from seizing property only to sell it for their own gain. And, yes, to accept a rate of general taxation and redistribution that can be used to fund the institutions of a modern state. So long as the US continues to pursue the current tax model, the same shortfalls and perverse incentives to find alternative sources of revenue with exist, leading to the same poor outcomes in so many areas of government.

The US is not a monolithic entity, and various states handle civil asset forfeiture differently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

Many places in the US don't have these problems, so there is nothing to solve.

Ok so hunger isn't a problem because people in Europe are generally well-fed? This follows the same line of reasoning as the one you are using now.

My point was that localities differ greatly across the US (and Europe for that matter), and should be taken care of at a local level rather than from the centralized location of DC. I don't want to live in a police state, so I choose to live in a small town that doesn't have the issues that our big cities have.

Like I say I can't comment on the US system regards it's policing practices, from the outside looking in it all seems open to abuse. Where I come from the government funds the police, they don't make any profit from the likes of tickets etc.

Currently the police are savagely being under funded as are all public sectors and crime is on the rise but the difference between the police and other public services is that people seem to understand why the other public services are not performing as good as they were, but it's the fault to the police they aren't performing as good.

Like I said I would love to see bodycams on all police but as with every public body ICT project it will be mismanaged and cost way more than it needs to. Currently the police where I am can't afford it.

Crime is not on the rise and the police are not underfunded(0). Where did you get this information?

(0) Their pension plans are underfunded, but those plans are rediculous compared to private sector plans.

The person you are responding to stated that they are not in the US.

We dont hate the police, but have no method to keep them accountable and awful behavior has been proven endemic in police forces around the country.

Why is it hateful to the police to actually ask for their interactions? As the modern authoritarian state asks its citizens, what do you have to hide?

Well like I said I'm not from the US and have no answers to a system that seems completely and obviously open to abuse. I'm always puzzled why it's the way it is in the US, the whole justice system seems like a farce especially the way the courts work.

I'm all from transparency, not only does it keep the cops right but it also means cops are safe from fabricated complaints they are subject to. I just find some of the ideas here about how to do this ridiculous from a reality perspective. And to suggest that the police should be presumed guilty it actually worse than ridiculous.

Which country?

The problem is that we are raising expectations for police behavior and are unwilling to recruit and pay for that kind of staffing.

It seems people want police to be johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to cracking down on crime immediately while simultaneously exercising extreme discretion and self-control when it comes to respecting legal rights and responsibilities.

I'm not sure who could even fulfill those kinds of expectations but it would be someone like a grizzled experienced prosecutor who has defense lawyer experience who is in good physical condition and is physically well trained.

I doubt the pool of people who meet those criteria are willing to work for police salaries.

> serialize their stream special satellite cell provider chain auditable custody preserved multiple data centers bribery lust international intimidation web of trust photons sensors jamming tampering malfunction sabotage misbehavior recordings wearables turned off recorded

You're trying to solve a legal problem with technology. That's dangerous, because it's hard upper limit is the technology's long-term security. Even worse, it's real upper limit is the min(technology, law)

I think it would be enough if they encrypted the video contents and stored in blocks out of order, ideally I would also have it streamed but let's be realistic about bandwidth and availability requirements for that. In the end there will always be significant on device storage.

Make sure that the people who are responsible for the decryption and delivery of the content have incitement that the result is useful.

> Fixing this will have to be the next step.

Depends really. Moving to a different country would be my next step personally.

Yep. Stories like these have made made me decide some time ago that I will never bring my family to the US, no matter the offer.

If 'Breivik' happened regularly, even just every three years, then I would see your point. A society that produces a Breivik (i.e. some crazy fascist who thinks killing the most children he can is what he should do with his time) every three years must indeed be sick. For these reasons I'm currently also concerned about most European countries.

Desth rate statistics don't do justice to the looming threat of a group/tribe/clan/haggle of people who are out to just kill out-group people no matter what. I'm not concerned much about the risk itself, but I am about what it does to civic life.

Norway's massacre rate is on par with the US when you consider that Norway has 1.62% of the US population.

This whole thread started with me saying that police overstepping their boundaries is one reason I wouldn't move my family to the US. Obviously that doesn't just apply there though. The massacre thing was brought up as a weird counterargument - which I'd file as a typical case of whataboutism. I agree that massacres aren't a good reason against the US, and for that matter one would rather avoid many western European countries atm if at all.

> The first step was getting the body cams

Nonsense. Cameras will be always used to benefit only the police as long as they control them: it's easy to cherry-pick what to record and, later on, what to release. It's easy to take off a camera altogether.

You need 3rd parties (e.g. bystanders) to be able to record what's happening and stream it it safe storage in real time.

Nonsense. Cameras will be always used to benefit only the police as long as they control them: it's easy to cherry-pick what to record and, later on, what to release. It's easy to take off a camera altogether. You need 3rd parties (e.g. bystanders) to be able to record what's happening and stream it it safe storage in real time.

It's sad that you're being downvoted for saying this, because it's true. As long as police are the only ones legally or practically empowered to film these encounters, they will be the ones empowered to control the narrative.

The right of citizens to film police encounters without harassment or threats is imperative.

I would be shocked if the unredacted video still exists.

In many (most?) US jurisdictions, bodycam video is cloud-hosted by Taser.[0]

I don't have direct experience, but I'd bet Taser doesn't let podunk police departments really "erase" video. And given the volume, you'd think it's got to be built on AWS or another big cloud provider, with pretty good forensic tools.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/business/taser-internatio...

>I don't have direct experience, but I'd bet Taser doesn't let podunk police departments really "erase" video.

The NYTimes article you posted hints at an uncomfortably cozy relationship between Taser, law enforcement and local governments...

    Yet as Taser works to sell cameras and software to more departments, 
    it is coming under fire for questionable business practices. In some
    instances, it has paid police chiefs to travel to Taser conferences. 

    In other cases, chiefs who have bought Taser products have joined 
    the company as consultants shortly after leaving public service. 
    And several cities have awarded contracts to Taser without 
    competitive bidding.

I wouldn't trust Taser to act as faithful or impartial stewards of this data, when it's in their best business interest to maintain a positive relationship with the very entities whose corruption it exists to expose.

Taser also operates a legal-defense-aid operation for police officers who use Tasers to break the law.

I'm gonna need a source for that.

Oh, don't think I'm suggesting they're impartial stewards. But they should have some incentive not to be the co-defendant in every police assault case where the video goes missing.

It is probably easy for a records clerk to export redacted video, but should be hard for them to really delete video, or tamper without leaving a trail.

Some customers might justify the risk, I suppose. But if they were to regularly winkwink at cops deleting video evidence, they'd get walloped.

> I don't have direct experience, but I'd bet Taser doesn't let podunk police departments really "erase" video.

They will if they want to keep getting contracts.

Maybe once. But if that's a repeating problem that the legal system can't solve, it'd be a symptom of something so fundamentally broken it really makes police behaviour the least of our problems.

It would be illegal otherwise, wouldn't it? Redaction of evidence

You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such.

In the absence of laws requiring full transparency and access to body cam footage, the body cams are just likely to be abused.

In contrast, full transparency of body cam footage could and would compromise ongoing investigations and identities of people in witness protection and so on. So full transparency in private/closed court or redacted versions showing only 'relevant' information in public/open court. Maybe full transparency after the information in the video becomes irrelevant, but micromanaging a hude amount of body cam footage would prove to be quite difficult.

>You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such.

Missing audio and a big "redacted" sticker is a pretty damning evidence that "Something" was removed. IF there was nothing to hide, why did they remove it?

That’s logic, not Law.

Please don't post like this here.

That doesn’t sound right. My neighbor is accused of a crime, and upon hearing that, I destroy all the evidence that would exonerate them. That doesn’t count as obstruction of justice / destruction of evidence?

Your neighbour is suspected of brutally murdering their parents in his backyard. One Sunday afternoon, you maw their lawn along with yours because they're really old and it really isn't that much work once you're at it anyway.

In the process, you destroy the evidence exonerating them, i. e. footprints of shoes much smaller than theirs.

Obstruction of justice? Nope.

Now imagine the same thing happened. Except that this time, you include their lawn not just because you always do, but to get them thrown in jail. You're really tired of doing all these chores for them, and it's time for new neighbours.

Obstruction of justice? Yep.

Intend matters.

It doesn't have to be evidence of a crime. It can be evidence of policy violations.