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Comment by RyJones | Hacker News Reader

In the recent "I am a Seattle cop, AMA" over in /r/seattle, the officer said: "I'm torn on body cameras and confused about the public perception of them. People really didn't want us to have a drone that could fly for 10 minutes but they want us to bring cameras into their homes." [1]

I will admit that I am both pro-body cam and anti-drone, but I'd never thought of it that way.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1jp0hu/iama_spd_off...

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I don't want police officers in my home. However if police officers do come into my home then I absolutely want them to have a body camera so they can be held responsible for any actions they take.

I agree on the first claim, but to the second, it is a two-edged sword. If the police are in your home, they may or may not see anything interesting. If they have video to play back, they may get a second chance to look for something that they wouldn't have had.

I don't deny the benefit we seek, but there are risks, as well.

But shouldn't it be the case that if police is given a search warrant, we (as people, in general) want them to notice anything and everything there is to notice?

This is also something I would reply to your sibling comment as well, I think many would prefer a footage of their state instead of a description of it from a police officer who might be confused/distracted/filling-up-the-gaps. It is both more objective and more just. Jury should be allowed to see as it was and not just as it is displayed during the trial.

I admit I wasn't thinking of search warrants. I was thinking of the times where I've had police in my domicile, all of which were in response to calls for assistance.

I fear the police more when they are in my home than after the fact. Police brutality, planted evidence, and plain old dishonesty have more potential to harm me than the truth.

'RyJones made an argument in response to you that is at least something to think about; another that I have heard is that without cameras, if you get arrested, then your lawyer at least has the chance to clean you up and get you in a suit before the court and jury see you. No such chance if your arrest was recorded.

The difference is the balance of power. I'm anti-drone because I believe they'd be used for indiscriminate surveillance or to gather specific evidence the police want. I would find it implausible that they'd be used to vindicate a civilian or to "watch the watchers". The presumption is different with body cameras. If standard practice is to wear them and record at all times, they should be used as evidence of the truth either way - whether that condemns the police of justifies their actions. I'm okay with anything that would prove the truth neutrally and impartially, as long as it respected reasonable bounds of privacy. If body cameras could only be used when the police chose to, I would be against them as though they were drones.

I didn't think of it that way either, and I agree that it's a good point.

I think the difference is that the drone is more of a mass-surveillance device where the individual cameras aren't (quite as much).

A good analogue might be a police dash camera versus car-mounted license plate readers. They are similar but meant for very different uses.

I think it's interesting that none of the other replies to this have hit on what I think is the truly pertinent difference.

When implemented in an ideal fashion, body cameras would go straight to archival storage that could not be opened without a warrant. The idea is not to be watching it all the time, but to preserve a record that can be used to investigate complaints.

I don't know if that's likely. But even absent that, simple numbers dictate that most of the footage will go unwatched. You'd need a number of officers similar to those out in the field to see it all.

With drones, every moment is being watched and analyzed. There is little chance that drone footage will serve to help someone in a complaint against the police.

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