ICE announced every field officer gets a body camera by August. Great. They also clarified they can withhold or indefinitely delay footage after serious injuries or deaths in custody. So it's less "accountability measure" and more "expensive paperweight with a record button."
The policy lets them decide when you get to see what happened. That's like your neighbor installing a Ring doorbell that only uploads footage when nobody's stealing packages. Defeats the purpose. But at least someone got a contract.
They defended this arrangement. Defended it. As if the entire point of body cameras isn't to prevent exactly the kind of selective disclosure they're now codifying into policy. The cameras will be there. The footage will exist. You just won't see it when it matters most.
August deadline means rushed procurement. Rushed training. Rushed implementation of a system designed with a built-in off switch for the stuff people actually care about. Someone in procurement is having a fantastic quarter. The rest of us get transparency theater.
This is what accountability looks like when the people being held accountable write the accountability rules. You get the cameras. They get the footage. Everyone agrees this is progress. Except the footage stays locked up whenever something goes wrong, which is the only time anyone wanted to see it in the first place.
By September, every ICE field officer will have a body camera that works exactly as intended: recording everything, showing nothing, and clearing the agency of any obligation to explain what happened when someone ends up dead or injured in their custody.
Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash
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