I see Tman's point and believe there are exceptions to being recorded all the time, but those are best delt with in other ways than not recording all conversations. While it is obvious most officers are good guys, too often the bad ones get away with stuff because there is either no evidence or the good guys to not stand up and demand anything be done. The Blue Wall effect comes into play and causes the public to lose trust in all officers in that department, and that can even carry over to all LEO's. Not good.

Only with full transparency can we know the true motives for traffic stops, for pursuits, for any number of things...

Also, the old chestnut that is used against the law-abiding applies 100% here; if you're (LEOs and criminals alike) not doing anything wrong, what do you have to be affraid of?

As for the "privacy" issues; there are people out there that are going to get their rocks off by listening to the dark side of human nature. There is nothing that can stop these people. They will always be part of out society.

There are also those that will not listen to the worst of the worst due to personal squeamishness.

The fainthearted (or the bleeding hearts) should not get in the way of police accountability.

"Isolated" incidents would become a thing of the past in a year or less after mandated transparency. To be able to say, "Here. Here's the video of the offense/misconduct. Here's the audio displaying personal bias against the victim of this misconduct."

For the record, I'm not accusing anyone here of being a "bad" cop; by no means am I attempting to do so, but it would seem to me the phrase "Methinks thou dost protest too much" applies... to both sides of the issue.

I'm actually all for full-time squad recording, etc...

The trick comes here, and Tman mentioned it:

How would you handle things like confidential informants? Information leaks can kill these people. Literally.

-mark

The "confidential informant" issue could be resolved in the same way as search warrants are handled.

An officer (or police chief) could meet a judge either ahead of time to gain authorization to go "off mic" for the duration of the interview and/or investigation, and keep those records "secret". Either that or allow the officer to flag such interactions as "sensitive" for a 48 to 36 hour review period, after which they fall into public domain or are locked until the end of the investigation.

Only (and "ONLY" cannot be emphasized enough) information that would jeparodize the safety of an informant acting in good faith would fall under this veil of secrecy.

Fair answer!

And there are indeed ways to allow encypted, secure recordings to be archived for as long as necessary.

-Mark

In the same vein, a condition could be met where the "critical" recordings have a mandated "expiration date" on the encryption, where without a non-agency (ie judge) approval, they fall back into the public domain with the rest of the files.

The judge or regualatory body granting approval for a file-lock should be required to be in a jurisdiction at least two jurisdictions or counties away as a means of preventing two bricks from the "blue wall" from being too close and colluding to defeat the purpose of the transparency mandate.

[Edited to add:] ...Or the regualatory body could be an elected panel, with mandatory 2-4 year term limits to prevent them from being co-opted.

Binky for mayor and mrokern for Sheriff!

Want to place a bet as to how fast the turnaround on carry permits would be if I was in charge?

-Mark