[Prime Purpose of Bodycams is to Convict & Surveil You, Not Exonerate You] Body cams are evolving from operation which simply observes and records, to analyzing video feeds automatically using facial recognition software. In Georgia [eastern Europe] for instance, the NEC Corporation announced last wek that it has provided an advanced surveillance system for cities utilizing facial recognition to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, in cooperation with Capital Systems LLC, a leading system developer. The system began operation in June and works in combination with 400 CCTV surveillance cameras installed in Georgia's major cities, including the capital, Tbilisi. [MORE]

From [TheIntercept] BALTIMORE HAS BEEN wrestling with yet another police scandal. Last month, the city public defender’s office discovered body camera footage showing a local cop placing a bag of heroin in a pile of a trash in an alley. The cop, unaware he was being filmed, walked out of the alley, “turned on” his camera, and went back to “find” the drugs. The cop then arrested a man for the heroin, placed him in jail. The man, who couldn’t afford to post the $50,000 bail, languished there for seven months. He was finally released two weeks ago, after the public defender’s office sent the video to the state attorney.

Last year it was discovered that the Baltimore Police Department and a private company secretly used aerial surveillance to monitor the entire [mostly Black] city 24/7. [MORE]

The officer, Richard Pinheiro, has been suspended with pay, while two other cops in the video have been placed on administrative duty as the investigation pends. More than thirty other cases the three officers were to serve as witnesses for are now being dismissed. On Monday night, the Baltimore Sun reported that the public defender’s office found a second video that appeared to show different cops “manufacturing evidence.” (The second video has not been released.)

Now, as the credibility of the entire police-worn body camera program is called into question, the public anxiously waits to see if these two videos will actually lead to any sort of consequences. At a press conference on August 2, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis stressed that the body camera program — which he’s committed to — is still fairly new, and there have been some understandable growing pains as officers adjust to the new technology. “While [those gaps in video footage were] ugly, and while I’m disappointed that officers in these two incidents did not have their cameras on, I think it’s irresponsible to jump to a conclusion that the police officers were engaged in criminal misconduct,” he said, urging the public to withhold its judgment until the investigation is complete.

“This is a critical test, and so far the BPD is failing,” said David Rocah, the senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland. “The only way not to fail is for these officers to be held accountable, at least at the departmental level. And if that doesn’t happen, and they don’t suffer the most serious consequences, then I think the body camera program, and all the hopes for it, will have been set back almost irreparably.”