ArsTechnica – by David Kravets
There’s seemingly a YouTube channel for everything, so cat-channel enthusiasts step aside: introducing the police body cam channel.
In what appears to be the nation’s first, the Seattle Police Department is launching the SPD BodyWornVideo channel. At its core, the channel is confirmation that the surveillance society has gone mainstream—perhaps too mainstream.
The channel is already controversial because of its redaction tactics, and it comes as a presidential task force about the nation’s policing recommended that police wear body cameras, especially in the wake of this summer’s shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri. The cameras, which about a dozen Seattle officers began using late last year, can both vindicate and hold officers responsible.
The body cam channel features seemingly Soviet-era-like footage, and it’s already being criticized. That criticism comes from Tim Clemans, the Washington state computer programmer who is redacting or blurring the video and removing voices on behalf of the police department.
“I’m having to work with people who don’t want this released period. There’s a number of people trying to put up every obstacle possible,” Clemans said in a telephone interview with Ars.
Clemans is doing it for free. The redaction surgery usually takes about one minute per minute of footage, he said. He runs it through “five lines of open source code.”
The agency is redacting more from the footage than what’s required under the state’s public record laws, he said.
“The department does not want to post raw video on its YouTube channel. It fears a privacy controversy,” he said.
The department is burning as many as 7,000 DVDs monthly to meet public demand for information. The agency has more than 1.5 million videos taking up 364 terabytes. The footage includes dash cam video, 911 responses, and “interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects.”
Clemans understands that the agency can’t keep up with demands. He said that public disclosure through the YouTube channel is a “middle ground” of sorts.
“They probably will never dramatically improve efficiency of the public disclosure process. This is… some middle ground of some proactive release of the material,” he said.
Mike Wagers, Seattle police’s chief operating officer, said the channel was an “important component” of “enhancing public trust.”
“It also underscores our commitment to privacy,” Wagers said in a release. “And it demonstrates that we are committed to working with local tech talent to transform the Seattle Police Department into a national leader when it comes to its use of technology.”
Clemens hooked up with the Seattle Police Department after he rattled the agency last year by filing more than 30 public-information requests on every 911 emergency call in which officers responded. The demand included dash cam and body cam footage.