> That said, if we assume that all people in authority are lying to us, we have a really poor system of governance that relies on putting people into authority positions who we assume are all lying.Sure. But that's basically the heart of every non-autocratic (and even some autocratic!) system of government in the history of the world, though. Having the people with the levers of power lie to the populace goes back to Greece.
> Strict liability if a piece of electronics fails in a way that the officer can't prove was a technical malfunction?
This is the one thing that gives me pause about that approach, to be fair. And I'd be willing to flex on the details, but any unrecorded police interaction with the populace that must trust them must be strictly proscribed. There must be eyes on the police at all times, and they must be impartial. How we get there, we can discuss, but that's the goal.
> Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to be police officer in the USA. If you'd want to send me out there unarmed, you'd need to triple my salary.
That's a fair way to feel. I wouldn't want to be a police officer under any circumstances, because I understand that I could be tempted by that power. To that end, I feel that we need to remove the attraction of policing from the bullies and power-trippers of the world. Policing should not be a glamorous job (and I don't really feel it should be well-respected, except insofar as any profession should be), but in turn it should be well-compensated.