Matthew Feeney on Best Practices for Police Body Cameras
2016-06-04 · Guest: Matthew Feeney (Cato Institute) · 52:24
Police body cameras accountability and privacy
Bob Zadek interviews Matthew Feeney of the Cato Institute about the implementation and implications of police body cameras. They discuss the balance between police accountability and citizen privacy, the role of federal grants in local policing, and specific policy differences in Bay Area cities regarding when officers can view footage.
Topics: Police Body Cameras, Privacy, Fourth Amendment, Ninth Amendment, Accountability, Federalism, Law Enforcement
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Matthew Feeney
Introduction: The Founders and the GoPro [00:00]
Bob Zadek: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend. The show of ideas, not attitude. Thanks so much for listening.
Today’s show, more than many others, perhaps slightly more, reminds me how much fun it is to do this show. The topics I think about in preparing for the show, the topics that I get a chance to discuss with very smart, well-informed guests, are so intriguing to me. This morning’s show is proof of that. Today’s show could be subtitled, “What would the Founders have done if they knew about GoPro?”
What’s that guy talking about? You’re asking yourself. Today’s show, we’re going to discuss police body cameras. Now, police body cameras are, as you will learn, small cameras that policemen wear. We’ll discuss why they are good, what the risks are, but the intriguing question that this got me to think about was there are many times that when we have conversations about the Constitution, those people challenging an originalist view will sometimes, with a discussion of abortion, will say, “Well, the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion because the Founders didn’t think about abortion very much,” or the telephone or some such things. Today’s conversation will show us the intersection between technology—specifically small cameras—and the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, and whether or not we have a constitutionally protected right to privacy, and if so, what is the extent of that right?
Guest Introduction: Matthew Feeney [01:32]
Bob Zadek: To help us understand these issues, I’m happy to welcome to the show Matthew Feeney. Matt is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, my favorite libertarian think tank, I should add. Before coming to Cato, Matt worked at Reason magazine, my favorite magazine. He was an assistant editor at Reason.com. He also worked at the American Conservative, the Liberal Democrats, and the Institute of Economic Affairs. Matt’s a Brit, received his BA and MA in philosophy from the University of Reading in England. Matt and I had some wonderful times together at the recent Cato Benefactor Summit. Matt, thanks so much for joining me this morning.
Matthew Feeney: Thank you for having me, especially for such a flattering introduction. Thank you.
Bob Zadek: Well-deserved, Matt. Now, this morning we’re going to discuss police body cameras. Now, there was a time, perhaps in that ancient period before 2015, when body cameras were not so widely in use. Tell us, if you will, what is a police body camera, and why were they introduced as part of the tools of policing? Why should society care one way or the other about police body cameras?
Matthew Feeney: Right. So, body cameras are, as the name suggests, small cameras. They’re usually about the size of a deck of cards, if not a little smaller, that are attached to a police officer’s uniform around the chest area or perhaps on the helmet. These cameras record video and audio data. They were introduced, perhaps recently, in the United States because there’s been widespread concern about police accountability and police misconduct. The technology allows for not only citizens to get a look at what police are seeing when they’re on the job, but it also allows officers an opportunity to more easily investigate crimes and also to investigate allegations of misconduct. But as I’m sure you know, and many of your listeners do, there are a range of concerns. Despite the fact that body cameras are overwhelmingly popular among racial demographics and political demographics, the fine-tuning of the policy is where you really get into some of the problems of implementing body cameras.
Privacy and the “Worst Day of a Citizen’s Life” [03:32]
Bob Zadek: Now, so body cameras are—there is a cost involved, obviously, the cost of the cameras, and the cost is not cheap. But the introduction of body cameras becomes an important issue for the general public because the police are able to record the activities of citizens. And as you have pointed out, often citizens behaving under stress because sometimes the camera is recording what you have explained to me to be the worst day of a citizen’s life. So, it puts a citizen into—or the activities of the citizen, both verbal and visual—into the public domain. Tell us about that.
Matthew Feeney: Yeah, so I think it’s not hard for your listeners to consider perhaps a thought experiment that will put this into perspective. So, it’s not hard to imagine that a police officer gets a call that tells him to go to a home where there’s an alleged domestic dispute. This is a very common type of call. And this officer is wearing a body camera, and he arrives at the scene and enters the home where an allegation of police misconduct takes place. Now, the question here is, well, who should have access to that footage? Because clearly, as citizens, we want to know, is it true that this police officer who we’ve given a gun and a badge has assaulted someone needlessly? But then we also want to think, well, if the officer was inside someone’s home, they could see that person’s living room, perhaps their bedroom, and those kind of environments are what we consider private. They can reveal information about our political views, our religious views, perhaps even our sexual orientation. So, this is the difficult balancing act that lawmakers have to do: balancing the accountability interest with the privacy interest.
Bob Zadek: And the point is, once the camera records the activity—the unmade bed, the unwashed dishes in the sink, beer cans on the floor, peanut shells on the floor—once it records all of that, that information becomes part of a public record. And like most other public records, they are available to the public. There is a strong body of law generally called Freedom of Information Acts, which allow the public to acquire information that is held by government unless it is exempted, which would mean that this footage now recorded on a police camera is now a public record. So, doesn’t that mean that anybody can look at—or does it mean that anybody can look at—this footage recorded by a policeman in somebody’s home? And of course, there’s no warrant; the police were called because of a disturbance, but this recording was never expressly consented to by the people whose home is being recorded. So, how does that all work between the footage now owned by government of someone’s home and the right of a nosy neighbor to see it?
Matthew Feeney: Well, it’s interesting that you raise the Freedom of Information here because it depends on the jurisdiction you’re in. So, there are 18,000 law enforcement agencies roughly in the United States, and of course, there are 50 states. States have in numerous ways tried to address these kind of concerns. And actually, if the hypothetical that I’ve posed took place in South Carolina, for instance, you would not be able to request the footage because legislation in South Carolina exempts body camera footage from FOIA requests. Now, I think that kind of legislation or proposal perhaps goes too far. I think that if we wanted to be serious about balancing accountability and privacy, what we could do is perhaps make special rules for recordings that show the inside of people’s homes. I’m sure that you probably agree that you have a different expectation of privacy inside your home as you would walking down Main Street. And I think body camera policy should probably keep that under consideration.
Bob Zadek: So, and Hillary Clinton famously many years ago talked about her “zone of privacy.” Now, how she used it in defending the privacy from the public knowing about Bill’s behavior, she used it, of course, in a somewhat political sense, but she did introduce the concept into the public discourse. And so, Matt, what you’re really suggesting is—and constitutional law more or less recognizes the principle—that people, everyday citizens, have, to use Hillary’s phrase, although she didn’t invent it, a zone of privacy. People reasonably expect certain parts of their life, of their behavior, to be private, which means not available or able to be protected from the public domain. And what you’re suggesting is that even though body cameras as a technology are valuable—and we’ll get into the value in a moment—but even if we stipulate they are valuable, the value of the footage has to be subordinated under certain conditions, and that would be when one could reasonably expect privacy.
Before we leave the topic of zone of privacy, we end up with the perhaps more tricky conversation, Matt, something—and I enjoy these sort of hypotheticals that push the envelope—is imagine a domestic disturbance where somebody running for high public office is accused of bad behavior in his home, perhaps spousal abuse. The police come, and there is this candidate for public office who is drunk or abusive or whatever else you want to imagine, recorded on police footage. Or maybe the house is just a shambles and contrary to the impression we would have about the public official. Now, would you think, Matt, that that individual candidate for high public office whose behavior is recorded and whose home is recorded on a body camera, same level of protection, or would you have a different rule for that?
Matthew Feeney: No, I think in the hypothetical that you’ve outlined, I would actually say that the public official has the same expectation of privacy in his or her home. Now, the public has more of an interest in that kind of incident as they would if you or I were involved in that kind of incident. But I do think the interior of the home, absent consent, is something that people do feel should be private. Members of the public and journalists would be able to, in that situation, request police reports and things like that. But I do think that the footage leading up to entry into the home should probably be publicly available. But once an officer walks into the home, I think different rules should have to kick in.
Bob Zadek: We can discuss that if there are, let’s say, neo-Nazi signs on the wall or things of that nature, but then we’re getting off into the zone, and I want to stay on message.
Tangible Benefits: The Rialto Study [10:08]
Bob Zadek: So, now we are talking about the technology of police body cameras. Now, you introduced the topic by indicating that they accomplish a public good. So, there is a cost to society, more specifically to local police departments, of buying this technology. Tell us about the benefits, the anticipated benefits that police departments had when they purchased the technology, and to what extent have those benefits been actually realized?
Matthew Feeney: Right. So, there’s been a couple of studies on body cameras, and perhaps the most cited and well-known is a study that took place in Rialto, California, where a new police chief distributed body cameras to officers and compared the use-of-force incidents and the number of complaints against police in the year where they wore body cameras, and they compared it to previous years. And what they saw was there was a dramatic decline in the number of use-of-force incidents and complaints against the police in the year where officers were wearing body cameras. And as I’m sure many of your listeners will tell you, correlation is not causation. This was a new police chief, and he implemented a number of reforms. But what we’ve seen is that in other studies on body cameras, we found similar effects. And this isn’t particularly surprising. Body cameras oftentimes provide incentives for citizens to improve their behavior, but it also provides an incentive for police officers to improve their behavior. And of course, the reduction in complaints, I think, can probably be partially attributed to the fact that body cameras capture evidence. And I’ve seen at least one incident where an officer was falsely accused of sexual harassment by someone who did not seem to realize that the officer was wearing a body camera. So, I think the body cameras not only help citizens by making the police department more accountable and transparent, but they can also help police because it helps them get rid of frivolous complaints, which is a problem that some police do have to deal with.
Bob Zadek: So, there is tangible real evidence, not just assumptions, that the mere presence of a police body camera itself alters behavior. It also, perhaps, Matt, eliminates false allegations both ways. So, while people, I guess—and you could expand upon this—while it tangibly makes life in society better for both the police and the citizens, it also eliminates the possibility of untruthful allegations both by the police and by the citizen.
Matthew Feeney: Yes. So, unlike a citizen’s memory or police officer’s memories, the camera doesn’t forget, and unless the footage is tampered with or anything, it’s going to provide pretty good evidence of the situation. Now, I don’t want to say that we should rely on body cameras for everything, because clearly, if the body camera is attached to an officer’s chest and he moves his head, the camera is not recording what the officer saw. I think we fall into a trap sometimes when we assume that when we’re watching body camera footage, “Oh, I’m seeing what the officer is seeing.” That’s not all the time.
Bob Zadek: You’re seeing what his chest is seeing, not what his eyes have seen.
Matthew Feeney: Exactly. And I know of at least one body camera manufacturer that deliberately does not make the lenses of the body camera wider than the human eye because we don’t want to have a situation where the body camera is showing the viewer more than what the officer could possibly have seen. But it’s still the case that while we shouldn’t rely on body cameras to give us the whole picture, they can capture evidence that is vital in police misconduct investigations, but also investigations against citizens.
Officer Discretion and “Buffering Mode” [14:18]
Bob Zadek: This is Bob Zadek. I’m speaking with Matthew Feeney of the Cato Institute. We are discussing the advantages and perhaps the disadvantages, the privacy implications of the growing use of police body cameras. Matt, there is an issue in policing about how much discretion the police have to turn the camera on and off. And that could lead to some form of “cooking the books.” Tell us about that.
Matthew Feeney: Yeah, I think this is one of the complaints I’ve heard quite often, is that this is a new technology that will take some getting used to, and officers might be falsely accused of trying to, as you say, cook the books by not turning the body camera on when they legitimately forget. Now, I think thankfully the technology addresses this in two different ways. One, these body cameras are quite easy to use. I’m fortunate enough to have been able to see at least one make of these machines; they’re not particularly difficult to use. Secondly, one of the more popular makes of body cameras, the Taser body camera, has something called “buffering mode,” which means that it records 30 seconds and then deletes, records 30 seconds and then deletes. And when you activate the camera, it actually saves the previous 30 seconds, which means that even if 10 seconds into an interaction with a citizen you forget to turn the camera on, and you do turn the camera on then, some of the footage is still going to be saved. So, that is one way to address it. But the other is, I think, training. These cameras can be successfully deployed with officers who are fully trained without too much time given in the classroom. And the technology, I think, will improve as time goes on, making it easier for officers to turn them on. There’s some discussion about whether there should be automated activation if an officer unholsters his weapon or something like that. But I think like other technology, like Tasers and dash cams, there might be some growing pains, but I think ultimately body cameras will come to be viewed as just a normal piece of police equipment.
Bob Zadek: It sounds like—now, how much—I of course get very suspicious. While I certainly think the use of body cameras has made, as I said, life a little more pleasant for interactions on both sides between police and citizens, but it also, Matt, I can’t help myself, I say, how smart it was of the inventor or the manufacturer of this technology to start to offer it for sale. And was there—am I just being far too cynical in thinking this is simply a case of some manufacturer creating a product and then building a market through legislation?
Matthew Feeney: Well, I think that the need has existed for quite some time. I’m sure, you know, if we’d talked to people 30, 40 years ago and explained this technology, they would have probably—most people like today—would have approved of the concept of body cameras. But the technology wasn’t there. And the technology, body cameras, isn’t just for police. People can, like you mentioned GoPro earlier, people have attached body cameras—I know bikers have used them. It’s not something just used for law enforcement. But we’re at a fortunate point now where there’s a technology that now meets the need. And of course, body camera manufacturers will compete among each other. But I don’t think there’s been anything—you know, I don’t think that local lawmakers are staving off the body camera to wait for the right manufacturer to come along.
Citizen Recording and the First Amendment [18:40]
Bob Zadek: Now, Matt, the intersection of what I’ll call photography, including smartphone camera use, video use, and policing has had somewhat of a checkered past, and there has been a lot of controversy and some wrongheaded legislation. This is slightly off but relevant to the topic of police body cameras, where citizens have been for quite some time now recording police actions on their cell phones. And it hasn’t made police very happy about that. And there has been lots of attempted legislation restricting and the intersection of the right of citizens to record this and the right of police not to be interfered with. So, is there an intersection of these two competing activities of citizens recording police activity on handheld phones and the police body cameras where the policeman is the photographer?
Matthew Feeney: Well, I think the first thing to say is that you can, provided that you’re a safe way away and you’re filming police officers doing their job, you can film the police. And I do think that it’s a worthwhile thing for people to do when they’re interacting with police. There’s numerous hours on YouTube of people filming the police. And I don’t think it’s a surprise that police can sometimes in these situations feel a little under pressure. But I do think that if officers are doing their job professionally, then they shouldn’t have too much to worry about, although if you are filming police, you know, make sure that you’re not physically intruding on the officer doing his duties. Now, police officers have in some cases responded with their own cameras, as we’ve seen with police body cameras. And I do like the fact that whenever you see footage of protests these days, you’ll see citizens and police filming each other. And I think that’s a good thing. I think the more vantage points the better, the more perspectives the better. And I think it provides incentives on both sides of the lens to make sure that they behave legally and appropriately.
Bob Zadek: And there were some—there were some attempts by localities to limit that activity through legislation, but I think for the most part that legislation has been, where it’s been challenged, it’s been struck down as being unconstitutional.
Matthew Feeney: Yeah, I know that there have been a few courts that have ruled that the filming of police officers is a First Amendment protected activity. And if you think about it, if you assume that photography is something that is covered by the First Amendment, which I think many of us would, then it’s not that hard a conclusion to reach.
Policy Debates: Reviewing Footage Before Reporting [21:28]
Bob Zadek: Now, when we talk about the legislation, the enabling legislation and the use of police body cameras, an issue has arisen where some localities—I know in your opinion, because you’ve written about it and you’ll explain it in a moment—some localities are enacting some somewhat wrongheaded legislation concerning the use of the footage, specifically where the footage is sought to be used to prove that there was police misconduct. And the issue arises: how much will an officer whose activity is being challenged be allowed to look at the footage before he makes his report, before he testifies, things of that nature? And make specific reference, because you’ve written about that, to San Francisco and its neighboring city Oakland.
Matthew Feeney: Yeah, so the San Francisco Police Commission recently approved a plan that makes sure that if an officer is involved in a shooting death or an in-custody death, that that officer, before viewing the body camera footage, provides a brief initial statement of facts and then is able to view the body camera footage. And in some sense, I understand why that might be appealing. So, I think on the one hand, you could come out with a policy that says officers should never be allowed to view body camera footage of a shooting that they’ve been involved in before they make a statement. On the other hand, the police will argue, and to some degree persuasively, that people’s memory is not perfect, especially in the wake of a stressful situation like a shooting. And if a police officer makes a statement before viewing the footage, and then the footage contradicts that report, then what could potentially have been just an honest lapse of memory could be construed as an attempt to be dishonest.
Bob Zadek: It becomes a “gotcha” moment rather than something that’s really relevant.
Matthew Feeney: Exactly. So, perhaps a compromise could be, well, officers can fill out a report in full before they view the body camera footage, then they view the body camera footage and write another report, and then we can see what the differences are. And I think people like you, me, and the listeners, we’re not particularly concerned if the suspect’s hoodie was navy blue instead of black, or if he was wearing green shoes instead of orange or something like that. We’re concerned about the threat that was perceived and the action that was taken. Now, I think unfortunately the plan in San Francisco makes the first report too brief. If anyone is interested, they can read my recent blog post on this at Cato.org. The fact is that the initial report is just a brief statement of facts, and organizations such as the ACLU that were pushing for the two-report compromise were not happy about this. Now, across the bay in Oakland, the Oakland policy is that officers involved in a shooting, a lethal shooting, cannot view body camera footage before making a report. Like I said earlier, I mean, these are two very close localities in the same state. These body camera policies are very, very diverse, and they’re going to change across the country. And I think in the coming years we’ll see which policies yield the best results, not just in reductions in use of force and complaints, but also how members of the public perceive transparency and accountability.
Federalism and Body Camera Grants [25:55]
Bob Zadek: Now, you have also written—and it’s so interesting, Matt, how a little device the size of a deck of cards can invite a lengthy discussion involving core constitutional principles, some of which we haven’t even gotten to yet, such as privacy, but we will before the hour is out. But there is a, as you have pointed out, a federalism issue. And this is yet another example of policing, which is as traditional a local issue as one can imagine. The “police power,” which has nothing specifically to do with police, but broadly health, welfare, and safety of citizens, that has been since the founding of our country the domain of localities, cities, states, and counties, and not the domain of the federal government. We have no—we are not supposed to have a federal police force, and the federal government is not supposed to be concerned under the founding principles at all with local police activities. But yet, this is yet another example of the feds using money and legislation to interfere with what has always been a local decision. Explain how the issue of federalism comes into play in an issue such as body cameras.
Matthew Feeney: Well, you’re absolutely right that law enforcement has traditionally been something handled at the local government level. But what we’ve seen is that actually the federal government’s involvement in policing has increased, and not only in size. So, the largest law enforcement agency in the country is a federal agency, the Customs and Border Protection. But we’ve also seen, as you’ve probably spoken about on your show before, the proliferation of military gear from the feds.
Bob Zadek: Radley Balko was on the show when he wrote his book a couple of years ago. It was a great show. So, yes, we have covered that. Thank you.
Matthew Feeney: Okay. But there’s also a role that on body cameras specifically, the federal government has been issuing grants. Now, I think, you know, there’s an issue here obviously about federalism. Is it the role of the federal government to be involved in local policing? Now, if we set that debate aside for the moment and just think, well, if they are going to be involved, what should they be doing? And unfortunately, I think that what the federal government has been doing when it comes to body camera grants is far from ideal. So, the Department of Justice has issued body camera grants to law enforcement agencies all across the country, but they don’t seem to be concerned about consistent policies. They have issued body camera grants to departments with comparatively good policies in place and then some with comparatively bad. So, my line on this has been, if the federal government is going to be involved in law enforcement—and I don’t think that’s going to be changing anytime soon—then at the very least they should only be rewarding police departments that are committed to the principle of privacy with accountability. But unfortunately, that hasn’t always been the case.
Bob Zadek: So, the federal government has influenced local police activities, indeed their buying decision, by making grants available, which means it is, as they like to say, “free money.” Of course, it’s not free; it’s just paid for by a wider group of people. But by offering free money to localities, if they use the free money to buy body cameras, which means in effect encouraging local police departments to acquire body cameras with federal money—and the money, of course, was taken from the communities to begin with. So, you take the money through federal taxing activities and then give it back with conditions, that is you only can use it for police body cameras and you can’t use it for some other purpose. So, that is simply how federal government, through the use of these grants, regulates in effect how local governments use the money that originated from the locality. As a bit of a commercial for the city across the bay, Sausalito, I am told that in the small town of Sausalito, Sausalito had the courage to not allocate money in its budget to police body cameras; instead, they are using the money to beautify City Hall. So, Sausalito, which would not identify itself as being a libertarian bastion, has in this small regard resisted the influence of the federal government. We are going to have unaccountable police but a really nice City Hall. A little bit of a commercial for my hometown.
The Constitutional Right to Privacy [31:29]
Bob Zadek: Okay. Now, Matt, the other or another constitutional principle that has to be discussed when we discuss the use of police body cameras is the constitutional issue of the right to privacy. The right to privacy, while most Americans would say of course they have a right to privacy and of course it is constitutionally protected, the issue of the right to privacy—there is no such thing in the Constitution as the right to privacy. And by Americans adopting the belief that they have a right to privacy, which they do, they are adopting in many ways an originalist or libertarian view of the Constitution. That is, the Constitution, while it does not specifically provide for a right to privacy, it does state that the specific rights listed in the Bill of Rights are only representative and are not there to denigrate other what is called unenumerated rights. So, the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution reminds us that just because freedom of speech is mentioned but right to privacy is not, that is not to denigrate the right to privacy. So, the libertarian, the originalist view of the Constitution is that there is a right to privacy. So, all of those Americans who firmly believe they have a right to privacy are adopting an originalist and libertarian view of the Constitution. So, welcome to the club. But tell us about the interaction between the unenumerated yet clear right to privacy one has in the Constitution and how body cameras might threaten, if misused, that right to privacy.
Matthew Feeney: Right. So, I think you’ve outlined quite a few interesting issues about constitutional interpretation. I think you’re quite right to say that while there isn’t an explicit right to privacy in the Constitution, but I think what we call the right to privacy can be protected in the shelter of some of the amendments. And I think the most often cited in privacy cases is the Fourth Amendment. Right, exactly. Which, if you look at it actually, just protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. But so this is a property-rights-protecting amendment. It’s protecting your possessions. And that’s the amendment that’s been used in many, many what we would describe as privacy cases over the years. And although there have been some Supreme Court justices that have taken this view, have tried to expand upon what the Fourth Amendment perhaps explicitly states. So, Justice Brandeis in his Olmstead dissent, he wrote that the makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, and his feelings and his intellect. So, talking about things that are not property but that we nonetheless feel ought to be private.
And body cameras are an interesting device because they raise these issues about not only the relationship that we have to the state, but particularly what the state sees and what the state is not only just going to see, but also what it’s going to publish and reveal. And this is where I think it’s worth remembering that body cameras by themselves are basically morally neutral. They’re made good or bad by rules, by laws and legislation. And I think any legislation that ignores the privacy concern or doesn’t give it the consideration it deserves will run into problems. Thankfully, I think that we can provide increased transparency and accountability while using body cameras and protecting privacy. But it depends strongly on taking into account how people tend to live their lives. Do people expect that everyone who walks into their home wearing a badge is going to upload footage onto YouTube? Is that something that people reasonably expect? And as I’ve written before, I think that if we do make the distinction between private residences and the public, we can be well on our way to protecting privacy while improving law enforcement.
Bob Zadek: So, I think what you’re saying is something which I have thought about from time to time, which is we don’t object—and I may be in somewhat of a minority—I don’t object to the government having information. The fact that there is information, personal information about me buried somewhere in some digitized form somewhere in some governmental database, that fact doesn’t trouble me. But what I am attentive to is the use that that data is put. And if it is used in a way—the government having the data doesn’t violate my right to privacy, just having the data exist; it’s rather the use to it that I am concerned about and appropriate controls. And I think you’re saying somewhat the same thing, that you’re not offended by the fact that very intimate information about one’s life might be recorded, digitized on a police body camera, which means it is now under the control of the government. That fact alone doesn’t trouble you so long as there are safeguards about its use.
Matthew Feeney: Yeah, I think that’s right. There are a number of things that you could do to body camera footage that is quite frightening. So, for instance, if we never deleted body camera footage, it wouldn’t be hard for a nefarious local government to try and track citizens through body camera footage if you decided to implement facial recognition software. You can see how body cameras could quickly become just a device of a police state. And that, I think, can be prevented through proper rules and regulation. But it is, I think, a concern that we should all have. Whenever I’m thinking about law enforcement and new technology, I think, well, what would a totalitarian think of this technology? And I think whether it’s body cameras or drones or militarized equipment, these are all attractive pieces of equipment to people who don’t care about individual liberty. But thankfully, they can be made into tools for the promotion of individual liberty and transparency and accountability with the right rules in place.
Bob Zadek: And what you have just said, Matt, what you have just said is so important and so significant. I just want to expand upon it a tiny bit. What you really have said is with technology, but not limited to technology, but technology gives government, big-G government, so much power that we are to some degree dependent upon government not misusing the power. A totalitarian state and a free state having would have the same technology; it’s the use of the technology that matters, and that should be borne in mind when casting a vote. In addition to other aspects of the vote, we are empowering whoever we elect to be at the on-and-off switch of all of this technology. And all that separates totalitarianism from a free society is how that technology is used, but both will have it. Matt, I think you said a really important statement just then.
Matthew Feeney: Well, thank you. It is a—it is something worth keeping in mind, especially because I think it’s not uncommon for people to be distracted by the sexiness of new technology and to think that, you know, this sort of stuff is very cool. And undoubtedly it does have some—it is very neat. And if you have been as lucky as I have been able to see some of this technology, it is very impressive what can be done. But I’m only impressed with it because of laws. In a different context, I would find it terrifying.
Cleveland GOP Convention and Riot Gear [40:24]
Bob Zadek: Exactly, that’s exactly my point. Now, you have written about, as an interesting aside but in the part of our show I will call current events, you have written about the decision in Cleveland where there will be an event known as the GOP Convention. Convention is sort of silly; it’s just a big infomercial for the Republican Party; it’s not a convention in any political sense. But it’s going to be a lot of people and a lot of activity and probably a lot of fistfights. And you have commented that Cleveland has made a decision not to wear body cameras during that event. And that was significant enough for you to have written about it. So, tell us about that decision and your own views.
Matthew Feeney: Well, to be specific, the decision affects only police who will be wearing riot gear.
Bob Zadek: That’s 90% of the police force, but go ahead.
Matthew Feeney: Sure. But I think that it is significant because unfortunately, I think that the convention next month is going to spark a lot of high emotions. And I think it is not outside the realm of possibility that people might lose their temper. And the interaction between riot police and citizens are among the kind of incidents and events that people are most interested in when discussing police misconduct. These are police dressed in very, very—in armor, basically. And they’re dealing with very angry people who sometimes are armed with stones and other homemade weapons. And Cleveland’s made the decision not to equip riot police with body cameras because they say that it’s not possible to attach body cameras to the gear. And I’ve treated the claim with some skepticism, only because I think there are so many accessories available to police that allow them to attach body cameras to pockets and to helmets and to other parts of their uniform. Now, it might be the case that perhaps Cleveland doesn’t have the funds to buy all this stuff, but I do think that if a police department is going to be using body cameras, then having them on riot police in particular is, I think, important. I think that these are the kind of interactions we are among the most interested in. These are police in high-stress situations dealing with protesters who may very—who will be bringing their own cameras, I’m sure. And I think people like you and me just want to know what’s going on on the ground. And I think if there’s allegations of misconduct on behalf of police and citizens, I want to make sure that investigators have as much video data as possible so that we can figure out what went wrong.
Bob Zadek: I find paying attention to and trying to analyze retail politics, it just makes my head explode. But I’m going to violate that belief and ask you, why would they make such a, in my opinion and I think in yours, wrongheaded decision? Why wouldn’t they want purely to defend their behavior of their police? After all, cities are always on trial in these high-visibility events. I would think they would want that for their own defense, unless they simply do not trust their own police.
Matthew Feeney: Well, Cleveland is, as I’m sure you remember, recently underwent a bit of controversy with the Tamir Rice shooting. This is a department that is and is under a federal consent decree because of its history, of its recent history of excessive use of force. Now, I am not a mind reader; I’m not sure what was going through the minds of the people that made this decision. But what I do think is important to point out is that the head of the police union in Cleveland, who initially opposed body cameras, is upset about this decision, saying just as we’ve got used to them, now you’re saying that we can’t use them. And I think his concern, which I think is—has validity to it, is that body cameras, as we discussed earlier, protect police as well. These police in Cleveland may very well be dealing with hundreds, if not thousands, of very angry protesters who will perhaps use violence. And in that situation, I can understand why the head of a police union would want police officers to wear body cameras.
Bob Zadek: Matt, we have a minute to go. My favorite part of the show, tell our audience how they can follow your writings and what you’re working on most recently.
Matthew Feeney: Well, most recently I’m doing work on police drones and the privacy concerns associated with those. So, I’d love to have a chat with you some other time about that in particular. But anyone who’s interested in catching up on the writing that I do or that my colleagues do at the Cato Institute can find my writings at Cato.org, C-A-T-O dot org, or they can follow me on Twitter at M underscore Feeney.
Bob Zadek: Thanks a lot, Matt. Thanks for giving us an hour of your time. Thanks to all my friends out there for listening. I’ll be back again next Sunday. Enjoy your Sunday.