ICE Agents to Wear Body Cameras but problems remain

ACLU - After years of delays, ICE has announced that it will equip all officers with body cameras. But, the agency’s policy says that it will retain broad control over what videos are released to the public — and that in particular it will only release footage of serious bodily injuries and deaths in custody if “it is in the best interests of the agency.” This is exactly the opposite of a policy that will make body cameras an effective oversight and accountability measure.

At the ACLU we’ve been saying from the beginning that body cameras won’t be an effective accountability measure unless they’re accompanied by good policies on exactly how they’re used — and that foremost among those policies must be ensuring appropriate public release of recordings. Without good policies, police body cameras are reduced to yet more government surveillance devices, with all that implies (such as over-policing and prosecution), and to propaganda systems that let agencies publicize videos showing officers in a positive light while burying those that don’t.