Body Cams Likely To Increase Transparency, But Raise Questions Too

By Rachel Martin | PA Independent

Police in Pittsburgh are ready to use body cameras while on patrol, but it’s still unclear whether those recordings will be made public under Pennsylvania’s open records law.

Without changes to state law, police in Allegheny County say it might not be possible to fully implement the body camera program. They’re engaged in a pilot program testing the viability of the new technology on bicycle and motorcycle cops.  All sides seem to agree body cameras can be useful, but there are concerns about how long the video should be kept by police and who should have access to those recordings.

Mayor Bill Peduto said he wants to have all Pittsburgh police officers outfitted with body cameras before the end of the year.

“We’ve allocated the funds in this year’s budget,” Peduto told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday during a hearing that examined the public access element of the body camera debate. “But we do need your help.”

But the devil is in the details. For example, should the right-to-law exempt all, or only some, of what the body cameras capture?

Andy Hoover, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said his organization recommends a policy that distinguishes between “video that has a public value — such as investigatory purposes or an encounter that could be considered a dispute between an officer and a citizen — and more benign video that has no public value.” (Read Hoover’s comments here.)

“The data that is not flagged as public value should be deleted within weeks of its recording,” Hoover said. “Without such a policy, body cameras could be utilized to create an Orwellian surveillance state in which a police officer’s every encounter with the public is recorded and stored.”

Until these and other specifics get worked out, it would be a mistake to rush into requiring body cameras, said Chief Coleman McDonough, of the Mount Lebanon Police Dept.

Law enforcement also is concerned about “frivolous requests” for every detail of body camera data, McDonough said. He recommended changing the state right-to-know law to exempt at least some aspects of the recordings.

“Responding to right-to-know law requests for video may require substantial staff resources, to make such determinations, and storage of video while such right-to-know law determinations are pending may significantly increase storage costs,” McDonough said.

He noted problems in Seattle, where “onerous requests have really hampered their ability to run the program.” He said Seattle police are considering taking the cameras away as a result.

McDonough said Seattle’s experience also illustrates “the inevitable conflict between government transparency and privacy concerns.”

“If there’s a request for right-to-know, be very specific — the day, the time of the event, not just a fishing expedition,” said Robert McNeilly, former chief of police in Pittsburgh and Elizabeth Township.

McDonough and McNeilly attended  on behalf of the Allegheny County Chiefs of Police Association. Audio of their testimony is below.

Paula Knudsen, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the recordings must be made available to the  public.

The cameras should not only benefit law enforcement, she told the committee.

“The strong presumption, then, must be that video recording of law-enforcement engaging in on-duty conduct are subject to public inspection,” she said. “To enact a contrary policy would defeat the purpose of collecting the body-camera footage in the first place, or even transparency and a better understanding of law enforcement-public interaction.”

She also noted that Police Executive Research Forum, in its best practices summary, said the findings “call for broad disclosure of footage to promote agency transparency and accountability.” The Police Executive Research Forum is a a police research and policy organization whose members are the heads of police departments across the county.

The intersection between the right-to-know law and the new body camera technology “is a big deal,” said state Sen. Jim Brewster, D-Allegheny.

“As a former mayor, I can’t begin to tell you the cost and expense and time. And frankly there are people who do that (file right-to-know requests) to disrupt the system. I hate to say that, but that’s reality of it. And it kind of takes away from those who have a real need for right-to-know information,” Brewster said.

Martin can be reached at rmartin@watchdog.org, and follow her @RMartinWatchdog for more.

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