Hacker News Reader

Comment by tlrobinson | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea of mandatory body cams, but obviously they need to be able to turn it off or remove it for things like restroom breaks.

Instead, there should be extremely strong disincentives (such as being fired, barred from working in law enforcement, jail time, etc) for an officer to turn off their body cam when interacting with the public.

Citizens should also be able to know whether the camera is on (blinking red light etc) and be able to report instances where it was not.

View on HN

I've had a thought for a while, that if a cop can produce their body cam footage, then they were acting as a cop. If they cannot, then they were acting as a private citizen (and their actions must be judged as though any other private citizen had done them). It seems sufficient to me, but I'd love to hear peoples' ideas on how it would be abused. I'm guessing it falls apart somewhere around how evidence is judged to be admissible (cops actually have tighter rules than private citizens?), but I really don't know.

That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how it would work in practice. How much police abuse goes unpunished due to legal protections afforded to police, vs. police departments and prosecutors protecting each other?

I believe there should be a special prosecutor specifically for police. This would remove the conflict of interest between prosecutors and the officers they rely on to work with them to do their jobs.

First, police that break the law actually need to see real punishment. What is the point of body camera footage if they can get away with murdering people on camera anyway?

Why first? It seems like more transparency is a step towards being held accountable.

More transparency isn't a guarantee of justice. Look at the cases of Eric Garner and Danny Shaver. Their murders were recorded on camera and both responsible officers walk free today.

I didn't say it was a guarantee, I said it's a step.

I think the other posters are implying it's not a step. The public is currently aware to how police abuse their power and walk free. The situation is like a fox guarding the hen house. The farmer being "justice" doesn't seem to care when the fox takes a hen whenever it happens.

I'd rather the camera always record and make the "off" button a "private" button that encrypts the footage (but not metadata) when pressed. If the "private" footage is relevant to something police can get a warrant for a specific time range.

Don't need to turn it off for restroom breaks or for anything while they're on-duty because that off-switch will be abused.

And realistically the footage that's of interest isn't going to be those personal moments (or overhearing a call with the officer's family, say) it's the ones where the officer is engaging with a member of the public. And maybe limit viewing access to in-person, by court order, or to credentialed journalists or something.

Sorry, no. I'm 100% for more accountability from the police, but cops are people too and they deserve privacy in those situations.

"footage that's of interest isn't going to be those personal moments" is basically the "nothing to hide" argument against privacy, which I reject.

I mean, you could just cover the camera right? There's always a low tech solution for these things.

If anything, that's an argument for legal rather than technical enforcement. If you can cover the camera or take it off, why not just allow disabling it temporarily? Maybe put a time limit on how long it can be disabled.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com