Officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be equipped with much-delayed body cameras by the end of next month, it was reported on Friday. But experts have questioned the transparency of a policy that allows the ICE director to restrict the public release of footage unless “it is in the best interests of the agency”...Christopher Schneider, a sociology professor at Canada’s Brandon University, and co-author of Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform, said the ICE director would have discretion to release recordings that reflect well on the agency’s image while working to keep others secret.“In some ways, ICE is saying the quiet part out loud,” he said. “Body-worn cameras are being used as contemporary image-work tools to present the police to the public in the most favorable way possible.”The policy says ICE will promptly release video of shootings and other encounters in which its agents cause death or serious injury only after determining “it is in the best interests of the agency” to do so.
Perhaps the recorded images would still be available to judges and courtroom use? More information at The Guardian.
Reckon there is a huge market for an affordable body camera for the average, slightly brown skinned, human American.
ReplyDeleteMaybe one that live uploads to the cloud, or one's own email.
It could easily become the latest fashion accessory.
Heck, I am White, with English my first language, and I look like an American who ICE wouldn't think didn't belong, and I would wear one of these new body cameras for non Gestapo people.
I have had thoughts along that line when I've been hiking alone. If I were to be approached by someone who looked threatening, I could hold my phone and talk to it and if asked I could claim that I am live blogging with video and the content is going to a remote/cloud server. I wonder if that might prevent an assault.
DeleteI have a friend who got a restraining order against her (now ex) husband based on a video that was live uploaded in the cloud. She thought she had no evidence because the phone in which she filmed ended up breaking the in the argument. Luckily local police see enough of this to ask if perhaps she had everything go to the cloud automatically. And she did. Logged into the cloud and bang: restraining order.
DeleteMany years later this friend is happily remarried.
These days the person approaching you with a camera is likely about to assault you. You'll be lucky they don't shoot you in self-defence first.
DeleteAs to the article. ICE only releasing footage if it suits them and remember the push there was to make it illegal to record law enforcement, until the courts knocked most of those local laws down.
I would say, who is paying for these cameras? Oh, wait, is it not the taxpayer? So shouldn't the video belong to the taxpayer first and if ICE needs it for their case, they can ask us for access? This always puzzled me about police body cams when they withhold footage.
ReplyDeleteBody cams are one thing, but more importantly is the policy around who gets to see the footage.
ReplyDeleteIf you leave it to police agencies, they're only release stuff that makes them look good. Which calls for more openness. But on camera may or may not want that footage to be public. For all kinds of reasons, privacy being one of them. You may not want everybody to know you got a speeding ticket. You certainly don't want everybody to see how you were removed from a wreck while heavily injured.
But sadly, America does not have decent privacy laws.
I'm not sure there are settled best practices that are fair to everyone involved.
If another reader does know about good best practices, please share.
Yeah, but what if they're wearing a pair of Groucho glasses or/and CV dazzle makeup, or alternately, appeared to be some good looking/handsome devil like Peg or Ted Bundy?
ReplyDelete