(short ad - sorry)
link to Rachel Maddow: http://www.nbcnews.com/...
Here is a link to the White House/We the People petition:
Mike Brown Law. Requires all state, county, and local police to wear a camera.
Create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state,county, and local police, to wear a camera. Due to the latest accounts of deadly encounters with police, We the People, petition for the Mike Brown Law. Create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state,county, and local police, to wear a camera.The law shall be made in an effort to not only detour police misconduct(i.e. brutality, profiling, abuse of power), but to ensure that all police are following procedure, and to remove all question, from normally questionable police encounters. As well, as help to hold all parties within a police investigation, accountable for their actions.
Created: Aug 13, 2014
While body cameras won't be a cure-all for the many problems
(like stop & frisk and as the title of the petition/law is named for - much worse police corruption and militarization) within certain police departments/units..
Cop cams could change police behavior, but technology can only do so much as covered by MB here..
..the evidence we do have, from here and abroad, indicates that cop cams can make a positive difference. The question that arises is why a pallet or two of the tons of money spent on inundating police departments with military hardware couldn't be spent instead on outfitting every officer in America with a body camera. A lot more benefit to the citizenry doing that than handing out more machine-guns, grenades and mine-resistant armored vehicles.
But, whether cop cams become ubiquitous or not, it will take a good deal more than technology to change police forces in the systemic way that is so badly needed.
..requiring the use of this this technology could bring much needed transparency, and help to bring people closer and hopefully more engaged (and empowered) into the workings of the public servants that are charged with 'protecting and serving' in their communities
And from the conservative Wall Street Journal:
What Happens When Police Officers Wear Body Cameras
Sometimes, like the moments leading up to when a police officer decides to shoot someone, transparency is an unalloyed good. And especially lately, technology has progressed to a point that it makes this kind of transparency not just possible, but routine.
So it is in Rialto, Calif., where an entire police force is wearing so-called body-mounted cameras, no bigger than pagers, that record everything that transpires between officers and citizens. In the first year after the cameras' introduction, the use of force by officers declined 60%, and citizen complaints against police fell 88%.
- emphasis added
There will be things that have to be worked out, but this seems like a good move to me.
So this is just a quick post to check out the petition if you think it is a good move too :)
- Let's do it already
Got to finsh some welding work, be back in a bit