Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes

Police "head cams" record everything the officer sees.

Hell yes. Bring down the prices on these things, and get them on every cop in the Union. Cameras narrowly targeted at recording police action (as opposed to fixed CCTV cams that surveil everyone in a public place) are fantastic policy. They protect good cops from bad citizens, and good citizens from bad cops.

4 comments:

  1. The recording medium must be locked up and not just "tamper-proof" but "It'll blow up if you even think about tampering with it." You pick one up at roll call at start of shift, turn it in at end of shift. Different one every day.

    If it uses any sort of wireless connection--i.e., the recording is not stored in the device, but in a separate black box on belt, in cruiser, etc--it must use NSA-quality encryption, so as to avoid unauthorized access or tampering. (To avoid the Michael Crichton hacked-recording-plotline...)

    No "losing the tape" for the city, no refusing to allow the admission of the tape for either side. (Feel free to call your experts to testify as to what we're really seeing, though. (Cue Jerry Bruckheimer...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whut he sed.

    Seriously, the existence of the recording device doesn't imply anything about the retention of records. Without guaranteed off-site storage and protection from deletion, it's just a feel-good expensive gadget, for the protection of cops to whom something bad happens

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete