I'm very much in favor of these cameras, but there's one extrapolation that few have proposed: Why not encourage private citizens to record their public lives? Most of the arguments for recording police apply to everyone: Allegations are quickly discovered to be true or false. Everyone involved is less likely to be violent. People are more cordial. Determining guilt or innocence is much easier. Was a shooting self-defense or manslaughter? Did the eyewitness really recognize the defendant on the night of the crime? Etc.
There are other perks to life-logging. Conversations could be transcribed and searched, eliminating many disputes as to who said what. We already do this with IRC and some types of video chat. You could even save footage that becomes important only much later. For example, you could prove you sold pencils to Vincent van Gogh before he was famous. Or you could record the first time you met your now-spouse. Finally, there's the entertainment value of life-logging. Think Russian dash cams on steroids.
This technology has the potential to drastically reduce crime and improve quality of life. Yet I think most people would have an aversion to constantly recording their own lives, let alone being constantly recorded by others. I'm curious how people resolve this inconsistency.
There are two primary argument for police to have them IMHO.
1. Police have extraordinary power over others.
2. Juries believe them by default.
This gives them much higher requirements for accountability than most people.
I do really like the idea though. Human memories are incredibly inaccurate, but we believe our own memories and can't really do otherwise. If we had the option of a surrogate memory that could be really transformational. Imagine what that would do to your perception of time and your discount rate if you could have perfect recall of your whole life?
There are many contexts where juries will believe one party prejudicially over another, and/or one party has some form of extraordinary power in defiance of facts or objective reality. (What these are, and their directions vary over time.) Up until now, it seems that our only and very crude solution has been to introduce a "correcting bias" in the direction deemed most likely to increase the amount of justice enacted in society.
It seems to me that gathering more information in a more timely fashion and making objective and contextually relevant determinations is the rational and technically savvy direction to go. However, I'm not so sure that human beings are mature enough as a species to actually apply such informational power in a truly fair and rational manner. I rather think that we'd be prone to using such power to bolster the whims and prejudices of the status quo, at least in the short term.
If there are police officers in my home, 99 times out of 100 it would be preferable for me if they recorded everything and uploaded it directly to youtube on purpose, than if they recorded nothing.
There is obviously nothing in your home about which you fear your neighbours finding out. Not everyone is in that category.
Or, an even more likely occurrence: Police get dispatched to domestic disputes quite frequently, where there's lots of hateful argument going on. The content of these arguments is often something that you don't want your neighbours or colleagues finding out, for a host of reasons.
Downside: your Tom of Finland collection is exposed on YouTube.
Upside, most especially if you are black: the police do not smash your door down in full riot gear, shoot your dog, point rifles at your kids, put a gun to your head and threaten to arrest you on a trumped up assault charge. All because they got the wrong address.
Yeah. This decision (personal transparency) depends largely on how much an individual fears they have embarrassing personal lives vs how much they fear legal system (police, prosecutors, judges) incompetence and corruption.
There is no "right" decision.
I personally fear the legal system much more. Both because it is more likely and it's consequences are more severe. Being ostracized and fired from my job cause I'm a furry vs spending anytime in jail/prison (which would probably get me ostracized and fired anyways).
> If we had the option of a surrogate memory that could be really transformational.
I'm inclined to believe that I don't want surrogate memory. You might be interested in an episode of Black Mirror, "The Entire History of You", that is premised around this.
The Reversal Test is a good thing to think about when examining the possibility of Status Quo Bias: If you had the option to make your memory more unreliable, or to give up what videos, photographs, and other recordings of your life that you currently have; would you take it?
If not, what makes you think that the current spot on the continuum from "accurate/prosthetic memories" to "inaccurate/solely internal memories" is the best spot?
Maybe not surrogate, but the ability to back up memory and maybe index it would be almost equally transformational and wouldn't involve having perfect recall of every time you screwed up. I know that wouldn't solve the issues raised in "The Entire History of You", but I'm not entirely sold "forgetting it happened" is a better solution to that episode anyway.
There is no inconsistency here. A desire to record the police stems from the fact that there is a huge discrepancy in power in any interaction between a police officer and a normal citizen and that the police officer is on duty to uphold the laws established by society at large. That is a drastically different set of circumstances than wanting to record any average person all the time.
And personally, I don't want to have to live my life in a way where everything I say or do is on the record. I want the freedom to be able to make remarks and jokes that would be appropriate among friends but not to any random person. I don't want to have to phrase everything I say as PC as possible knowing that it will be stored forever.
I didn't say we should require everyone to record themselves all the time. I said maybe it makes sense to encourage people to voluntarily record their public lives.
I think power discrepancies between private citizens can be just as great. I'm 5'6" and 120lbs. Even unarmed, many people pose a threat to me. Heck, I've been physically threatened by strangers several times in the past month.
Also, I think recording strangers in public would help curb antisocial behavior. There's a guy swearing loudly on his cell phone on the bus I'm riding. Maybe he'd tone it down a little if someone threatened to upload a video of him.
I travel on buses that have CCTV and a big monitor so everyone can see what the 8 or so cameras are recording. People swear loudly (no audio recording but I doubt that is a factor); people prepare cannabis cigarettes; etc etc.
Some people are just anti social[1] and do not care.
[1] preparing a joint isn't anti social! They're not smoking it on the bus. But it is illegal in the UK.
> Also, I think recording strangers in public would help curb antisocial behavior.
We have that ability already. In Australia last year there were several cases of racially motivated verbal abuse on public transport being caught on mobile phones. These made the evening news. I wonder if this, and other similar instances around the world, have made anyone think twice before being anti-social.
It really depends on the situation. In this case, my tactic worked. I calmly told the man that there were children on the bus, and that he should tone down his conversation. Then I pulled out my phone to take his picture, but he covered his face and got off at the next stop. I wonder if he was worried about an encounter with police. Next time I'll take a picture first.
Yet another instance where life logging would have been useful: I was walking home this evening and someone in a car blasted me with an air horn. It's been about an hour since the incident. Both my ears feel like they are plugged and I hear ringing in my right ear. I got the car's make and model, but I was in too much pain to think about looking for the plate. Life logging probably would have caught the perpetrator.
Sorry what! 'Then I pulled out my phone to take his picture' I can't be the only one who thinks this guy is in the wrong.
You propose that people log there every day lives? Why don't we just increase the CCTV cameras on every street, so some one can watch our every moves 24/7.
Are you saying I'm in the wrong? If so, I'm not sure how you could justify that. The man was offending, distracting, and annoying everyone on the bus. His behavior wasn't illegal, but it should certainly be discouraged. Besides, photographing someone in a public place when they're currently being recorded by CCTV is about as benign an action as one can take.
You're not the only one. I think that strategy is overzealous and has potential to have terribly unintended consequences. Adria Richards comes to mind.
I wouldn't have a problem recording my own life, or having others record theirs, if I knew for certain that the footage would stay on a secure hard drive owned by the individual shooting it, and the government (or anyone else) couldn't access it without a warrant.
Unfortunately, and technically reasonable solution to people recording their lives would likely include automatic uploading, cloud storage, and ultimately government (and corporate) access to the video. I am not OK with that, for the same reasons I'm not OK with government surveillance.
Unfortunately, those recordings would not be out of reach because while you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself, you can be compelled to testify against someone else if the prosecution has reason to believe you have testimony material to the charges. And that is why this sort of thing falls down.
I genuinely don't understand why it's okay for people but not okay for governments?
People who breach privacy do stuff with that information. Governments who breach privacy do very little with that information, and mostly not to me.
That's not to say it is acceptable for governments to do it - they must not. But if find it weird to read on HN peoe saying that it is terrible for a government to breach privacy but then admitting they do it to their users.
I'm very much in favor of these cameras, but there's one extrapolation that few have proposed: Why not encourage private citizens to record their public lives? Most of the arguments for recording police apply to everyone: Allegations are quickly discovered to be true or false.
Here's a hardware startup idea: A voice recorder that reliably records only your own voice. This could be combined with a soundless video record to legally and automatically record your public life in almost any jurisdiction in the US.
There are other perks to life-logging. Conversations could be transcribed and searched, eliminating many disputes as to who said what.
Basically the same perks and drawbacks to small town or village life.
Think Russian dash cams on steroids.
People lie. A lot! And even people trying to be accurate and truthful are subject to all sorts of malfunctions.
...If you catalog all of the pernicious things humans do to themselves then Homo sapiens comes out worse than any "forehead-alien/warlike species" from any sci-fi TV or movie property. The Klingons or the Kzinti have nothing on humans in terms of cold, sadistic, or violent tendencies. The Ferengi have nothing on us in terms of greed-driven amorality. Even Sith Lords are amateurs at cold-blooded Realpolitik compared to actual historic figures.
Humans are wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Maybe that's the solution to the Fermi Paradox. We're like the extremely interesting person you find so hot on okcupid, but you know way better than to even consider dating them, precisely because they're a little too interesting.
When all is said and done, voluntary free-market self-surveillance is still preferable to the closed-minded doublethink of traditional religious/social institutions and their methods of controlling us unruly humans.
Most people haven't had the need to life-log. They don't get into the kind of situation where that evidence is useful very often. So they don't have the knowledge to setup a life logging device until after they've needed it. (A bit like backup software!)
Storage and battery size and etc have all been a bit clunky until recently too. I guess a rolling buffer of a hour is fine; click a button to dump the peevious hour to long term storage?
The few times where I would have benefited from using such devices I know the other people would have really really hated me using it.
I'm interested in cheap / free (as in cost and rights) methods for life logging. I don't care about breaking surveillance laws.
>The few times where I would have benefited from using such devices I know the other people would have really really hated me using it. //
This is a potential problem. In the OP the officer waits until after the situation to upload. If it's not live streaming then you risk being attacked so that the video footage is prevented from being uploaded.
This issue came up here in the past in relation to apps for recording audio using a smartphone.
>I don't care about breaking surveillance laws. //
This is especially interesting to me as you're effectively gathering evidence that could show you broke the law. I'd assume in the UK such evidence, if found, could be used against you.
Would you need to wear a sign saying "video recording in operation"?
I should have been clearer though. For my purposes the video / audio would have very limited use. "Hey! They did this thing that they must not do! That's why I did what I did".
NHS (uk health service) complaints system is a bit broken and recording appointments would be useful for me.
> The few times where I would have benefited from using such devices I know the other people would have really really hated me using it [...] I don't care about breaking surveillance laws
It seems to me that those two statements are very much at odds with each other, unless the 'benefit' you're getting from life-logging is simply personal or emotional satisfaction. What 'benefit' are we talking about here?
Imagine a meeting with a psychologist who gives a blatantly illegal reason for keeping my spouse detained under secrion of the mental health act.
Without a recording my options are to write a nearest relative's letter of order to discharge, and face the wrarh of the psychologist who could then cause considerable trouble for me and my spouse.
With the recording all the backlash from the psych is damped down when I let people know what actually happened.
Recording that meeting has some ethical and moral problems and the other people in the meeting would be strongly against me recording it. And while there might be laws against it they tend not to be strictly enforced over here.
There are a bunch of other "he said she said" situations where a recording might be useful.
> Why not encourage private citizens to record their public lives? Most of the arguments for recording police apply to everyone: Allegations are quickly discovered to be true or false. Everyone involved is less likely to be violent. People are more cordial. Determining guilt or innocence is much easier. Was a shooting self-defense or manslaughter? Did the eyewitness really recognize the defendant on the night of the crime? Etc.
This has already taken root in a bunch of countries, to an extent. Dash cams are ubiquitous in Russia, though it's this restricted to "when I'm in my car" (depending on make, dash cams can record only the outside — front — or both inside and outside)
There is a great episode of Black Mirror (All episodes of Black Mirror are great, but this one is more relevant - Season 1 Episode 3) titled The Entire History of Us, it turns the figurative mirror on a world where people do exactly this...
People have been arrested and worse for taking video of police officers. This is not a threat I need in my daily life.
The legality of recording someone without their express consent also varies by state. I would love to record my daily public life. Laws and technology make that tricky.
They may simply have different ideas about what constitutes quality of life. Personally, I am not interested in any of the "perks" you mention, though of course the benefits when it comes to law and justice are pretty clear.
What concerns me with lifelogging is the ability for 1) a one off event to detriment your life ongoing, as most of us have done or said something stupid or out-of-character at some point. 2) We create this society of bland interactions as people are afraid something they do or say being 'wrong' and made public 3) Having blanket coverage at the personal level it would be easier for people to grab/create moments that take things out of context.
There is definitely some benefit there for the right environment, but always on blanket recording across the populations to me seems the downside would outweigh the positives.
Unfortunately the state that I live in (Illinois) is a two-party consent state. Even in cases where I know I'm going to be ripped off, such as cancelling a gym membership, I'm not able to record.
One problem that comes to mind is that people who would choose not record themselves would be looked on with suspicion, having the police do the recording would eliminate this problem.
Personally life logging is something I'm personally quite interested in, but mandating it, even socially rather than legally, is highly problematic in my eyes.
Same reason I don't keep a journal yet: I'm finding it difficult to have an easily-accessible, but definitely secured system.
For instance, OneNote sounds great, until I realised using it multi-device means everything gets stored on MS's servers in plaintext, available to anyone in position (technically or legally).
Most states have wiretapping laws and for anything to be admissible to court for instance I believe you need to notify them that you are recording. I'm actually surprised Google glass has not run afoul of those laws.
Just wait until Google Glass takes off, cloud storage becomes cheaper, wifi/mobile networks become faster... And those Russian dash cam/fail videos will hit a new high in no time.
I'm 23. People younger than me (generally) do not have faith in the police. My parents believe cops do no wrong. Neither belief leads to useful change.
This kind of program would moderate these thoughts into actionable ones while bringing accountability into these asymmetric encounters. This seems like a place where more surveilance is actually a good thing.
I don't think there's anything wrong with police recording the streets though. At least in the US, anyone has the right to record in public places. Why shouldn't the police be able to do the same?
Dump it out of a buffer? Or store it, and process it with number plate and face recognition software?
Living in UK (bafflingly high number of CCTV) cameras makes me gently wary of this kind of surveillance.
Having said that I'm in favour of anything that helps prevent abuse by police officers. I used to trust police but recent scandals in UK prove that corruption and blatantly illegal practices are common.
Police (ordinarily) cannot throw you in jail without probable cause. If you're taped committing a crime, members of the public can just forward the tape to the police, and you'll end up in jail anyway.
That's true, but it's not just about doing wrong things. There ought to be probable cause for recording by an authority of the state. It also has to be targeted and not done in a dragnet fashion. The police have significant discretionary powers on their side and the body of law is wide enough to "find something" against just about anyone.
If you are in favor of mass surveillance, you should at least argue for a drastic simplification and excision of laws from the books.
> At least in the US, anyone has the right to record in public places.
This is untrue in many, many places. Some states require consent (to record another). There are many restrictions around infrastructure and specific events.
There's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that always on recording of police does far more to address asymmetry of power than to reinforce it; it's why sousveillance is popular amongst activists. Police brutality flourishes in dark, non visible places. Surveillance generally is bad; this isn't really surveillance in the same way.
Is this in the US or do people in many other Western countries share that suspicion? I'm in Australia and whenever I've dealt with police, they've always been very professional and reasonable. Firm when necessary, but accommodating and flexible when someone was trying to explain their actions, for example.
Got pulled over and warned for (barely) speeding in Texas once. Based on US cop horror stories I'd read, I was so nervous I was almost shaking but the guy was perfectly polite and friendly.
It's not necessarily fear, it's more that in many areas the relationship between police and the public have become rather strained for various reasons.
There are many places in the US where you will have no issues whatsoever from police while in other areas an encounter may not turn out so well.
I'm sure there are similar issues throughout the world if one bothers to look for it.
I would say one difference in the US that's popped up lately is that the increased use of technology in our daily lives exposes the fact that there are many bad apples in the barrel, which makes the whole barrel suspect.
Plus, for many people, the fact that the police tend to style themselves after the military these days tends to worry and bother people.
Cops in Aus can be pretty alright. They can also be absolutely horrendous. I've experienced both, and i would prefer them to have cameras to fix the latter and allow the public to see the former more often. Win win, IMO.
Perhaps the difference of opinion between your peers and your parents is mostly due to general opinions of authority and the status quo that comes with aging.
I'm an engineer at Evidence.com (a subsidiary of Taser) which makes the cameras (and accompanying software) used in this study. If you have interest in working on technology that makes both the public and officers safer, get in touch (see my profile)! We're based in Seattle and hiring in lots of areas: mobile engineers, web engineers, UX designers, etc.
I see absolutely no reason why police shouldn't wear cameras. It keeps all parties honest. I just hope they don't "lose the recording" when it conveniences the police the most.
Hopefully some day the absence of these videos of police encounters will be evidence in favor of the defendant. Police will be assumed to be lying about any encounter without a recording.
Rather than "police will be assumed to be lying", I think the appropriate approach is "compare the stories told by both sides for plausibility, considering what you know about the world and what you can tell about the character of those involved".
So when the police officer says "And then he shoved me off the bridge into the stream. I don't have a recording because the camera shorted out." you find that plausible. When the citizen says "After I filed the complaint, officer Briggs just 'happened' to stop my car a block from my home... and that was the one day when there was an 'accident' with his recording device." that's fairly persuasive.
Presuming someone to be lying is a huge presumption. Innocent until proven guilty should be a rule used in all cases (in the case of a 'lying' police officer, the charge is perjury).
If they can prove neglect of the evidence or deliberate tampering, of course, that would be another story.
Eh it's not about perjury, it's about due process and assymetry of power. The police have the means to record everything at little cost and with no reasonable excuse to not do it. The absence of recordings is a reasonable indicator that the cops are hiding things.
We expect the state to follow processes strictly. The penalty for failure to do so isn't personal incarceration for the prosecutors or police, but rather failure of their case. This seems like a tradeoff that works in practice.
i remember being on a jury in a case that involved child abduction, the police did not record the interviews they conducted with the child after it had been rescued. i talked to the prosecutor afterwards about it and they said it's to easy over analyze every word said and twist it to appear as something else. to easy for a defence to say they were leading the witness and therefore the recording should be thrown out. remember there was video of the Rodney King beating. the defendants slowed it down and pointed out on each frame actions that King supposedly did that were threatening to the officers beating him.
recording everything is not a panacea. not having everything recorded a sign of nefarious actions.
This amounts to the "you can't handle the truth!" argument. It may be true that the average citizen, and thus the average jury member, is unaware of what ethically-conducted police work looks like. But that doesn't seem to constitute an argument that keeping everyone in the dark about what average police work looks like is an overall good thing.
I've never seen anyone propose that undercover officers or detectives wear cameras, just the officers that interact with the public on a daily basis as part of their job. Street cops and SWAT.
If street cops meet with informants, change the policy to have them meet with detectives.
Not only should the data be recorded, but it should also be 'live streamed' to the public. I placed live streamed in quotes as I could see the need for some sort of delay simply due to the sensitivity of the information - plus some level of post-processing would need to be done to ensure innocent parties faces are not being displayed.
Police behavior is such a broad ranging topic, simply having their actions recorded does nothing to solve the root of the problem. One of the topics I'd like to see addressed is their 12 hour work day. For what appears to be an enormously stressful job, it seems like some form of torture to ask law enforcement to always be on duty for such long stretches at a time. I really think that to get back to the 'To Serve and Protect' mantra we need to start treating policemen like humans first.
You can keep the data open to the public with some constraint. Such as, you can request a copy of video from a certain timeline if you are on the video or have the permission from someone on the video. If you can prove such information, then they have to hand it over.
I'm more interested in how to handle the news media on this type of thing. It would seem maybe the media cannot access the video unless they have similar permissions or if the video has been submitted as evidence in some way.
The biggest problem with police cameras is they "malfunction" or "forgot to turn it on" whenever the camera shows evidence that the policeman did something wrong.
That isn't necessarily a problem, it creates the opportunity to ask the police officer why he generates so many complaints about his behavior. After all, he can make sure to turn the camera on and protect himself from a lot of accusations.
Unfortunately, there isn't a person asking those questions. More often than not, officers watch out for each other (read: The Blue Code of Silence) and internal investigations are notoriously a joke. I'd love to see someone not affiliated with police officers ask one of them why they generate so many complaints, without also becoming a complaint.
It also gives police no leeway when it comes to enforcing unfair laws. Instead, even the most empathetic and genuinely helpful cop will have to enforce it to the letter.
In practice, what this means is that everyone will be treated the same. With leeway, policemen will treat groups of people they like better than they treat others. This is not because they're particularly evil but because policemen are human and rely on instinct (which is easily corrupted). Then you get preferential treatment.
Now, an unfair law is exposed as unfair because all will suffer.
Serious question, how well has the policy of treating everyone exactly the same to the letter of the law/rule worked for zero tolerance policies?
Seems to me that with zero tolerance policies where there is no individual interpretation of the intent of the rule, too many people are unjustly punished for honest mistakes (e.g., forgetting about having a knife in their vehicle at school) or attempts to do well by someone else (e.g., taking a knife away from someone that was trying to hurt themselves).
That's a fair point, but our opposition to Zero Tolerance stems from the fact that punishment does not account for extenuating circumstances.
Policemen are not judges, nor should they ever be. The problem with Zero Tolerance is that the judges are overly strict. We want policemen to enforce the letter. We want judges to consider the spirit of the law, and interpret it appropriately. Policemen lack the knowledge of the law and lack the time to make these decisions in a rational manner. They are forced to rely on poor heuristics. There is less immediacy to a judge's decision.
So, yes, I think it fair that someone who forgets he has a knife in his car is removed from class pending an evaluation of the situation (with this taking place in a reasonable amount of time). Then I believe it only fair if the evaluation determines that if it was truly accidental, then he return.
Zero tolerance is reasonable if the law or rule itself is reasonable. The reason "zero tolerance" has a bad reputation is that it's usually applied to unreasonable rules. I'm fine with zero tolerance of elementary school children bringing actual firearms to school, but zero tolerance of children pretending a tree branch is a gun is just dumb.
Depends on the culture of the tech. If they only review videos after complaints or issues, they will still be able to enforce their own interpretation. If they are regularly reviewed for strict compliance then you are right. I find the latter to be unlikely. Mainly because it would be prohibitively costly and would go against current police culture which affords officers leeway.
They should be reviewed for strict compliance to equal protection. "Why did you arrest this (black) person when you did not arrest this (white) person?" should be a question that police officers hear much more often.
If it could be managed, that may turn out to be a good thing.
If laws produce significant social distress to a large number of people, then the law is more likely to be changed.
Whereas if it's only ever enforced against black people, or people the policeman has decided to screw for whatever reason, then it could go on forever.
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If you think of police action as being analogous to pain, then it's not clear that less pain is always the best thing for society in the long run.
While the outcome of the incident was negative (the man died of his wounds), the fact that the footage exists and makes those officers accountable for their actions is a good thing.
I've noticed some police officers in Brisbane, Australia wearing what appears to be similar cameras. I don't feel much safer, but it's good to know in the event of an incident occurring that there's a much higher chance that an objective, irrefutable chain of events will exist.
I'm a big fan of public surveillance, especially if accessible to the public with cause. I know privacy advocates hate this, but it seems like a net win to me. In your private residence you have privacy but in public E should have video record.
> I know privacy advocates hate this, but it seems like a net win to me
As far as I know, many privacy advocacy groups are in favor of police body cameras (I know the ACLU is, if they're accompanied with a suitable framework and process).
As long as the resulting record is truly public, I agree.
If only some people have meaningful access, they get tremendous power over everyone else. Which is the real problem with surveillance as it has usually been done.
I think having cameras all over every public safety servant/location (e.g. police station) would usher in a golden age of relations between the public and public servants. Doing so would steamroll the potential for abuse (lack of oversight, realization that you're unlikely to get caught, old boys club protecting you) inherent in any position of power without oversight by neutral/opposing (depending on your perspective on police) parties.
If the ideal police officer is a mechanistic follower of written law, these cameras are perfect. No right minded officer would stray from instruction while their actions are recorded in plain sight.
But I'm not entirely convinced of their worth. While onboard cameras provide concrete evidence in court, and undoubtedly solve problems in our society, we might as well replace our officers with robots (this might not be a bad idea).
I disagree with your robot sentiment - well, at least I don't think that's the solution yet. If a robot is going to be lethal you've got a whole host of problems that you didn't have before (ie. Someone steals it and hacks it to terrorize) Also there are so many social queues in our day to day lives that are hard or potentially impossible for a robot to understand (at least with today's tech) - like someone jokingly saying "I'm gonna kill you!" to their friend. Once we get those problems figured out then sure, that's yet another job that we can automate.
I like this idea, but I propose a slight modification:
Do a rolling record system, so that when the officer hits record, the camera not only saves footage from that point but also the 15 minutes prior to that. Lets see how much their opinions of cameras change then..
Funny, it does seem familiar but I don't recall reading this article four months ago. But since you seem to know that I did, I guess I won't bother now.
I have one humble proposal, to make a FEDERAL law about this. Requiring law enforcement officers to record and store video of their activities on duty would improve the experience for both cops and the people they are dealing with. One study showed a staggering decrease of 88% in complaints against officers. We need federal laws to enable timely and straightforward access to this video in court cases all around the country where people are facing assault charges and years in prison. There is currently a White House Petition to that effect.
There are other perks to life-logging. Conversations could be transcribed and searched, eliminating many disputes as to who said what. We already do this with IRC and some types of video chat. You could even save footage that becomes important only much later. For example, you could prove you sold pencils to Vincent van Gogh before he was famous. Or you could record the first time you met your now-spouse. Finally, there's the entertainment value of life-logging. Think Russian dash cams on steroids.
This technology has the potential to drastically reduce crime and improve quality of life. Yet I think most people would have an aversion to constantly recording their own lives, let alone being constantly recorded by others. I'm curious how people resolve this inconsistency.