DOJ Says Body Camera-Wearing Cops Aren't Allowed To Partner Up With Federal Agencies
from the cameras-are-cool-and-all,-but-not-really-our-thing,-thx dept
As we've covered before, the DOJ supports the idea of body cameras for local law enforcement agencies. It has set aside over $20 million a year in funding to help these agencies out. But it has no love for body cameras within its own agencies. There are no body cam requirements in place for FBI, DEA, ATF or the US Marshals Service.
In fact, if you're a member of a law enforcement agency which does have mandated body cams, you're no longer welcome to play in the big boys. (Subscription required. For everyone else, here's a way to get around the Wall Street Journal's pay sieve.)
[T]he department is telling some of its agents they cannot work with officers using such cameras as part of joint task forces, according to people familiar with the discussions.Do as we say, not as we do? The DOJ has an excuse for that. Currently, it has no guidelines in place for the use of body cameras. It wants other law enforcement agencies to get right on that, but seems to be in no particular hurry to equip its own personnel, much less even move towards getting the process underway.
[...]
At a meeting of Marshals supervisors several weeks ago in Colorado, Assistant Director Derrick Driscoll announced that the agency wouldn’t allow any local law-enforcement officers wearing body cameras to serve on Marshals task forces, according to several people who attended the meeting.
A Justice Department spokesman said the agency “is looking into this issue and has been consulting with the law enforcement components” within the department.I would imagine its "components" would rather not have additional accountability pinned to their chests, but it's not as though the DOJ hasn't had several months to carry out its "consulting." It can't stay abreast of small law enforcement agencies in terms of body cameras despite its access to far more money and power.
The only conceivable reason for this stasis is a lack of desire to move in the direction of additional accountability. More evidence of this reluctance can be found in nonsensical statements made to the Wall Street Journal.
Jon Adler, president of the nonprofit Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said there are good reasons to keep parts of the Marshals’ work out of the public eye. Witnesses and informants could be inadvertently exposed, he said, and fugitives could learn the Marshals’ tactics and how to evade them.Ah, the old "expose police methods" excuse. Wonderful. This has been used to keep everything from Stingray surveillance to police department budgets secret. The manhunters would become the hunted… or at least the easily-evaded if body cameras were activated during the apprehension of a suspect. Secret methods like physical force, lots of shouting and handcuffs would be exposed by body camera footage. Adler's a bit more on point when discussing witnesses and informants, but even so, video can still be "redacted." That technology has been with up since the debut of COPS over 25 years ago.
Adler's next contention is even worse.
“The Marshals hunt down and apprehend the most despicable and violent people. When you engage in that type of mission, it wasn’t intended to be pretty and it won’t be pretty,” Mr. Adler said. “We don’t want the great work the Marshals Service does to devolve into bad reality TV or a sequence of bad YouTube videos.Blame the media/internet indirectly. Because incidents are far more nuanced (supposedly) than the average YouTube viewer could possibly comprehend, let's just keep the Marshals camera-free. This sounds suspiciously like FBI Director James Comey's "Ferguson Effect" copsplaining. The fact that cameras exist makes it harder for police officers to do their job, what with the dangers posed by outside observation.
If local agencies are sporting body cams, so can the feds. There's no reason they should be excepted from this tool of accountability. If anything, the DOJ should be leading by example, rather than saying they're only a good idea for everyone else.
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Filed Under: body cameras, doj, federal agencies, police, transparency
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Video might lend credibility to a "bad guy" who might be a really horrible person, but was treated just as horribly by those charged with upholding the law and threw those rules out the window because the ends justify the means. Imagine if there was total surveillance on the powers that be rather than just the little people, they might have to live up to the standards they pay lip service to but never meet.
The simple fact they refuse to allow there to be any record outside of the rehearsed narrative, should worry everyone. If they learn they can get away with little things, they will try bigger and bigger things and still be protected because the image of the service trumps keeping their own people within the law.
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They don't get that any 'names' or 'addresses' are going to be recorded anyway, on reports and forms.
It's as if they're looking for any excuse and leaning heavily on their reputation for being absolutely clueless on technology, so protect themselves from rouge actions
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If you have nothing to hide....
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Re: If you have nothing to hide....
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Cams
> they should be excepted from this tool of accountability.
You really think it's a great idea for Secret Service agents to be wearing FOIA-able body cameras while working protective details? Leaving aside the personal privacy of those they are protecting-- in some cases minors-- it would publicize in great detail the protective procedures and countermeasures used to keep USSS protectees safe.
I know you pooh-pooh that as irrelevant, but it's anything but.
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Re: Cams
Honestly, nobody's gonna FOIA that crap unless it's really important, worth spending a lot of money on, and the requester can stand several long court battles. Besides, what could we want to know about the SS? Whether they prefer scotch or gin with breakfast?
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Re: Cams
Binary solution, yes or no, a vote for cameras is a vote for killing USSS protectees you monster.
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That they do not want to be held accountable when they are supposedly doing nothing wrong. Big flag there.
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Counter-productive excuse
If the 'not pretty' stuff is what the suspect is doing/has done, then they should be all for it. More evidence, video this time, making it far easier to secure a conviction and put the 'despicable and violent' people behind bars.
Objecting to more evidence seems rather counter-productive, unless the 'not pretty' stuff is what the marshals are doing, in which case the videos are needed even more, to stop them from committing such actions. Just because the suspect may be 'despicable and violent', doesn't mean they get to return the favor.
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We don't want no creeps wit camraz to come with - less they makin a snuff flik
In fact "When you engage in that type of mission, it wasn’t intended to be pretty and it won’t be pretty." describes the job that mob enforcers have to do also.
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