Advocacy Groups Propose Rules For Police Body Cameras

The groups, which include the American Civil Liberties Union and chapters of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, say the so-called "civil rights principles" would help ensure that the cameras provide accountability and transparency to the public.

The groups suggest that police develop their camera policies in public with input from community members and to consult with the public on any further changes. They say footage should be released with appropriate privacy safeguards. And they note that police officers should be prohibited from viewing footage before filing their reports.

"Footage of an event presents a partial — and sometimes misleading — perspective of how events unfolded," they wrote. "Pre-report viewing could cause an officer to conform the report to what the video appears to show, rather than what the officer actually saw."

As police departments across the country adopt body cameras, their policies have frequently lagged behind and received less scrutiny than the technology itself.

Civil liberties groups have pushed back against the Los Angeles Police Department's recently-adopted body camera policy, which didn't include many of these principles.

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