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

Fri, Nov 20th 2015 3:30pm — Tim Cushing

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.

[...]

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.

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.

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.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: body cameras, doj, federal agencies, police, transparency

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Spike (profile), 20 Nov 2015 @ 3:42pm

States should be allowed to vote to force federal agencies to do specific things, such as wearing body cameras on all federal police-type officers. There is absolutely no reason why they should be exempt, its more about what are they hiding.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2015 @ 4:02pm

Re:
After all, that's the logic used behind ever-expanding surveillance of the population...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jupiterkansas (profile), 20 Nov 2015 @ 4:04pm

We know what you do isn't pretty, but we want to make sure what you do is legal.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2015 @ 4:37pm

Re:
They might not be doing anything wrong. They just don't want to be questioned about anything they do.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 20 Nov 2015 @ 4:42pm

Cameras might capture methods that are being used and that could hurt the feelz of the officers with people calling out tactics that aren't exactly legal. If there was video evidence the spin machines would have a much harder time covering up what really happened and challenge the narrative officers put forth after they have days to sync up their story.

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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Andrew (profile), 20 Nov 2015 @ 5:31pm

The way they always go on about 'revealing' things, you get the impression they think these cameras are beaming the video feeds live, either to their control center to be hacked, or to some website they can then access.

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
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2015 @ 7:07pm

If you have nothing to hide....
Oh yeah I forgot. The fact that you do have things to hide is exactly why you don't want these. You know that your agents routinely violate rights and use excessive force. You don't want proof or accountability. You are supposed to be the department of justice, but you don't want justice and clarity. You want justification and obfuscation. Those who fear the truth via bodycams or any other method are already doing wrong and plan on continuing to do so for as long as possible.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
btr1701 (profile), 20 Nov 2015 @ 11:28pm

Cams
> If local agencies are sporting body cams, so can the feds. There's no reason
> 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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Peter (profile), 21 Nov 2015 @ 12:27am

What happened to the 'nothing to hide, nothing'-mantra that the DOJ keeps preaching to us when they want our data?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2015 @ 2:32am

This should be more of a red flag than anything that they refuse to work with police that will show their actions and force them to be held accountable.

That they do not want to be held accountable when they are supposedly doing nothing wrong. Big flag there.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2015 @ 2:33am

Re: If you have nothing to hide....
I just call the DoJ the Legion of Doom
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 21 Nov 2015 @ 2:52am

Counter-productive excuse
“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.

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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2015 @ 9:29am

Re: Cams
Good point. It's not like the feds have ever been successful with getting any FOIA'd materials redacted or withheld because of 'national security'.

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?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
teka, 21 Nov 2015 @ 3:32pm

Re: Cams
You are totally right. All solutions are entirely binary. Either you have no cameras at all or you have cameras everywhere, especially in the tiny minority of sensitive locations where a camera would be a direct problem.

Binary solution, yes or no, a vote for cameras is a vote for killing USSS protectees you monster.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
In All Fairness, 23 Nov 2015 @ 7:43am

Re:
The problem with that sentiment is that criminals who are not held to such high standards of behavior have that as an advantage over those who are trying to stop the crime not just react to it once its committed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jupiterkansas (profile), 23 Nov 2015 @ 9:40am

Re: Re:
Sure that's a problem, but it doesn't mean law enforcement should become criminals in order to catch criminals. Then we have an even bigger problem.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jeremy2020 (profile), 23 Nov 2015 @ 10:40am

Citizens, we need to spy on you. Don't worry about what we're doing. You can trust us.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
GEMont (profile), 24 Nov 2015 @ 4:36pm

We don't want no creeps wit camraz to come with - less they makin a snuff flik
I'll betcha the MAFIA feels exactly the same way.

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.

---
[ link to this | view in thread ]