Comment Re:Please, no. (Score 5, Insightful) 161
Now it won't just be arrests, though, but any interaction with police.
We just see the way this goes. Some tiny little thing gets taken out of context and posted online and people go fucking rabid, for and against.
There was a story a few weeks ago from Australia (just as easily anywhere in the US, though) about a guy who was "creep shamed" as a pedo when he was really just taking a selfie with Darth Vader as a joke to send to his kids. tl;dr mom sees guy take pic near her kids, flips, takes pic of him, posts online, 20k + views, death threats, cops, psychological trauma, etc etc.
And then of course there was a backlash against her (I'm not sure if her identity was revealed) with all the anti-moral panickers having a moral panic about moral panics. As terrible a mistake as she made, she doesn't deserve death threats either. If you think she does, congratulations on being part of the problem.
I just wonder how good the redaction can be that you can't match somebody up. It's not to hard to imagine the same kind of scenario playing out. Guy's at the park with his kids, kids are out of sight, cop asks the guy what he's doing here "Oh I'm here for the kids." "Hmmm...all right then..." Internet Super Hero catches sight of this, snaps a pic, finds the footage on the police website later "EVERYBODY WATCH OUT FOR THIS PEDO HE 'GOES TO THE PARK FOR THE KIDS!!!!'" Face is blurred and speech is altered, but it's clearly the same guy. Time/place/clothing.
Then of course there's all the other interactions with police where they're not talking to a suspect. What about interviewing victims? If somebody calls the cops on an abusive spouse do they now have to worry that their dirty laundry is going to be on the internet for everybody to see? How hard will it be to match up victims based on...who knows...addresses, landscape features, google street view data.
Same with the mentally ill. Bipolar family member having a manic episode and slipping into psychosis and you need help to get them to the hospital? Gotta think twice about making that call now. And yes, yes, I know there have been a few instances of cops hurting or killing a mentally ill person when their family called for help, but it's very rare compared to the number of times they're the only way to get a suicidal or psychotic person to the hospital for treatment. But now you're adding definite privacy concerns to rare brutality concerns.
Even if they can't identify you, you know some asshole is going to turn this into a game. "Post the funniest/most fucked up police footage." When I was younger and stupider I played a game with people on a forum once where you went to the sexual predator watchdog website where you could put in an address and it would show you the registered sex offenders on a map and you'd find the creepiest looking mugshots/conviction list near you and try to outdo the other people playing the game. I feel pretty ashamed of that now. But, well, it's going to happen.
I'm all for body cams, but man, I just think there's got to be a better way to oversee the program to protect people who have interactions with police than publishing the videos for everybody to see. Some kind of civilian oversight board that approves requests. 99/100, a time you're interacting with police is not a good day in your life. You're either a victim or a suspect, and you don't deserve to have one of the worst days of you life broadcast, particularly in these hyper-sensitive days of internet mob moral justice.