[Senate Hearing 114-901]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 114-901

                      BODY CAMERAS: CAN TECHNOLOGY
                      INCREASE PROTECTION FOR LAW
                  ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS AND THE PUBLIC?

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND 
                                TERRORISM

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 19, 2015

                               __________

                           Serial No. J-114-18

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                  CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah                 PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Ranking 
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama                   Member
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JOHN CORNYN, Texas                   CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah                 RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TED CRUZ, Texas                      SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona                  AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana              AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia                CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina          RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut

            Kolan L. Davis, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      Kristine Lucius, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director

        .
                  SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND TERRORISM

              LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina, Chairman
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana              SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, 
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama                   Ranking Member
JOHN CORNYN, Texas                   CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona                  AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
                                     AL FRANKEN, Minnesota

                 David Glaccum, Majority Staff Director
                  Ayo Griffin, Minority Staff Director
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page

Graham, Hon. Lindsey O...........................................     1
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon.........................................     2
    Prepared statement...........................................    69
Grassley, Hon. Charles E.........................................     2
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J.
    Prepared statement...........................................    79
Cornyn, Hon. John................................................     3
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne...........................................    67
Durbin, Hon. Richard J...........................................    65
Franken, Hon. Al.................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Scott, Hon. Tim, U.S. Senator from South Carolina................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................    34

Bruder, Jarrod M.................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................    61

Henderson, Wade..................................................    11
    Prepared statement...........................................    51

Miller, Lindsay..................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    42

Weir, Peter......................................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    36

                                APPENDIX

Items submitted for the record...................................    33

 
                      BODY CAMERAS: CAN TECHNOLOGY
                      INCREASE PROTECTION FOR LAW
                  ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS AND THE PUBLIC?

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2015

                              United States Senate,
                       Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism,
                                Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., Room 226, 
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lindsey O. Graham, 
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senator Graham [presiding], Cornyn, Whitehouse, 
Klobuchar and Franken.
    Also present: Chairman Grassley, Senators Durbin, Coons and 
Blumenthal.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINDSEY O. GRAHAM,

        A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Chairman Graham. Thank you for coming here today. The 
Subcommittee will come to order. We will have a hearing today 
entitled ``Body Cameras: Can Technology Increase Protection for 
Law Enforcement Officers and the Public.''
    We will have two panels. The first panel will be Senator 
Scott, my colleague from South Carolina.
    I will make a very brief opening statement and turn it over 
to Senator Whitehouse. I know Chairman Grassley and Senator 
Cornyn may want to say something, but anybody can if they would 
like.
    We have this hearing today at the request of Senator Scott. 
As most of you know, there has been a lot of discussion in this 
country about how to protect the public and law enforcement 
officers when force is involved and the idea of body cameras 
for all of our police officers not only to protect them, but to 
protect the public, is a hot topic right now, and Senator Scott 
has been one of the leaders in this area.
    The incident in North Charleston, which I think most of us 
have seen videos of, is a good indication of how video is 
priceless in situations like this.
    There are a lot of proposals up here on Capitol Hill to 
have grants and pilot programs about outfitting our law 
enforcement community with body cameras and that is the purpose 
of this hearing today, to see which would be the best way 
forward.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Whitehouse.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE,

         A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
guess welcome and congratulations to your first Subcommittee 
hearing as Chairman of our Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee.
    Chairman Graham. Do not get used to it.
    Senator Whitehouse. I am delighted that we are doing this 
and I appreciate very much that our Chairman is providing this 
forum for his junior Senator--always a good tradition in the 
Senate--to begin to address the question of how well body 
cameras work.
    I would ask unanimous consent that my statement in that 
regard be entered into the record.
    I think this is a very important Subcommittee and I hope we 
have more hearings in the weeks and months ahead. I have been 
particularly grateful to work with the Chairman on the Graham-
Whitehouse bill improving the criminal enforcement in the cyber 
arena, and I hope we will be able to pin down a hearing date to 
begin to get that bill, through a hearing, ready in time so 
that when we address cyber on the floor, we have alleviated any 
criticism that our bill did not get a hearing.
    I also look forward to what I hope will be a lively hearing 
on what I consider to be a pretty egregious separation of 
powers violation by the Administration.
    We are looking to schedule at least those two other 
hearings. They are good topics and I hope that we can make this 
a very active Subcommittee. I think it may be the most 
important Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, saying that 
as Ranking Member.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you very much. We will do both 
hearings. Senator Grassley, would you like to make a comment?

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY,

             A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

    Chairman Grassley. Thank you very much. I want to thank you 
for holding this hearing. I appreciate Senator Scott and his 
strong interest in this subject.
    As Chairman of the Full Committee, I fully support Senator 
Scott's request for our Committee to look into this matter.
    Recent interactions between police and the public have 
increased the consideration of body cameras to record an 
officer's work. It is a good idea to explore the experience of 
State and local governments that have employed body cameras.
    Certainly, the potential exists for body cameras to enhance 
public trust of police and they may provide evidence to show 
the public how well law enforcement handles very trying 
situations. They may also show whether police training is 
working well, and it is possible that their existence might 
cause police officers to change how they perform certain 
aspects of their job.
    Body cameras themselves are relatively inexpensive, but 
costs associated with their use seem to be considerable. Many 
practical questions regarding their use need to be thought 
through. These include determining when cameras would and would 
not be operating, how privacy of people's homes and of crime 
victims would be maintained, how footage is to be retained and 
chain of custody preserved, and public access to the tapes.
    The Justice Department has also funded some pilot programs 
and research to determine the best practices for operation of 
police body cameras.
    Before we decide what, if any, Federal legislative response 
is appropriate, we should obtain a good sense of the issues 
that have arisen in State and local use of body cameras. We 
should also know which of the competing approaches have been 
more effective and further shared values.
    The last thing that we would want to do is create an 
incentive or even mandate actions that would cost State and 
local governments large sums of money and not reflect the 
accumulated wisdom that derives from existing State and local 
practice.
    Mr. Chairman, I thank you once again for holding this 
hearing and I look forward to the testimony of witnesses, which 
I am going to have to read because I have another assignment I 
have to go to. I appreciate having the courtesy of what I have 
just said.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    John, would you like to say anything?

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN,

             A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 
express my gratitude to Senator Grassley, as Chairman of the 
Full Committee, but to you as Chairman of the Subcommittee for 
starting the conversation here on a topic that I know is very 
near and dear to Senator Scott's heart.
    We all recognize that body cameras are not a panacea and 
will not solve all the problems, but they may be a piece of the 
answer and one building block where we can begin to rebuild the 
public's confidence in law enforcement, which is absolutely 
critical to maintaining security and safety in our communities.
    It is also important--Mr. Chairman, I know you agree 
because you are a cosponsor of this bill that would create a 
commission to study our criminal justice system writ large. 
Once we get through doing the things that we can do to help 
improve our criminal justice system, things like passing the 
Corrections Act that Senator Whitehouse and I are the chief 
cosponsors of, to help act on the lessons of prison reform that 
have played out in our States, I hope we can continue this 
conversation in a way that lets us revisit what works and 
correct and eliminate what does not work, with a goal toward 
maintaining and rebuilding the public's trust in law 
enforcement, which is absolutely critical in our communities.
    I want to just commend Senator Scott for his leadership in 
this effort. Thank you for being here today.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Franken.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AL FRANKEN,

           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Senator Franken. Very quickly. I just have a classified 
briefing at 4 p.m. I am going to stay here until. Maybe I will 
get to my questions and maybe I will not.
    I discussed this very briefly with Senator Scott. There are 
so many questions here that I assume that we will get to it, 
and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing about 
what activities, what practices should be on camera and which 
ones should not, how we develop the best protocols, how we use 
the experience of communities and States and studies, to figure 
out when is the camera on and when is it off.
    I am looking forward to hearing from Senator Scott, and I 
thank you for calling this hearing.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator Franken.
    Senator Scott, thank you very much for coming, and I do 
appreciate your leadership on this. You have been very hands-on 
when it comes to trying to deal with this issue. Please, 
proceed.

                  STATEMENT OF HON. TIM SCOTT,

        A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Senator Scott. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and 
Ranking Member. Thank you all for participating in the hearing 
today.
    I want to also thank Senator Grassley for agreeing to hold 
this hearing today on a very important issue. A very timely 
response from you, Mr. Chairman, as well as Senator Grassley.
    I would say if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video 
is worth 1,000 pictures and untold lives. It is certainly time 
for a national conversation about body cameras and policies 
affecting communities in distress.
    Whether we are talking about Ferguson, Baltimore, Ohio, New 
York City, Oklahoma, or my hometown, North Charleston, South 
Carolina, one thing is certain--long-term solutions are very 
important. They are critical.
    In addition to body cameras, I will continue to work on 
things like my opportunity agenda that I believe will breath 
new hope and new opportunities into distressed communities.
    Things that have impacted my life, having grown up myself 
in a single-parent household in poverty in North Charleston, I 
will tell you that the foundation for changing some of the 
outcomes starts with education. Long-term education will 
provide a path, an avenue out.
    Think about work skills for those adult learners, 
apprenticeship programs where you can earn and learn at the 
same time, as well as entrepreneurship programs.
    I am here today because I believe strongly that another 
important piece of the puzzle in rebuilding trust between law 
enforcement and the community truly is body-worn cameras by 
officers.
    I say one piece because there is no silver bullet. There is 
no panacea, but rather many pieces to this puzzle. We are here 
today to listen and to learn from experts on how these cameras 
can be helpful and, at the same time, for us to understand the 
concerns, like data retention, disclosure issues, including 
FOIA, costs and training, when do you use the cameras.
    I look forward to the discussion, as well as the hard work 
ahead. The good news is that according to at least one study, 
public complaints against officers wearing cameras falls by 90 
percent. Use of force--use of force drops by as much as 60 
percent. That is moving in the right direction.
    Tasking the Federal Government to support body cameras 
through resources should not be confused with Federalizing 
local policing, which I would object to, nor is it an attempt 
to mandate the use of body cameras. Rather, it is an attempt to 
keep law enforcement officers and our communities safer.
    Let me close with the heartfelt desires of Ms. Judy Scott, 
whose son was killed in North Charleston, Walter Scott. She was 
not looking for revenge. As a matter of fact, on the first day, 
she said, ``I forgive the officer.''
    She did not speak about the need for justice in her initial 
comments. She allowed the system to work that out. What Ms. 
Judy Scott simply said to me was this: ``I want to make sure, I 
really want to make sure that mothers do not have to bury their 
sons.''
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Senator Scott appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chairman Graham. Thank you very much, Senator Scott. Thank 
you. If our second panel would come forward, please.
    Al, did you want to ask questions? He can take my turn if 
he needs to.
    Thank you all. Could you please stand and raise your right 
hand?
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chairman Graham. Our panel consists of Mr. Peter Weir, who 
is the district attorney for the First Judicial District, State 
of Colorado, from Golden, Colorado; Lindsay Miller, senior 
research associate, Police Executive Research Forum, 
Washington, DC; Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Human Rights, 
Washington, DC; and, Jarrod Bruder, executive director, South 
Carolina Sheriff's Association, from Columbia, South Carolina.
    Welcome to you all. We will start with Ms. Miller and just 
move across the panel.

              STATEMENT OF LINDSAY MILLER, SENIOR

              RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, POLICE EXECUTIVE

                 RESEARCH FORUM, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Miller. Good afternoon and thank you, Chairman Graham 
and Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to speak 
today about the important issue of body-worn cameras.
    My name is Lindsay Miller and I am a senior research 
associate with the Police Executive Research Forum, which is an 
independent, nonprofit research organization that focuses on 
critical issues in policing.
    Our work on body cameras began in 2013, when we partnered 
with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community-
Oriented Policing Services to research the use of body cameras 
in police agencies.
    Last September, PERF and the COPS Office released a 
publication that examines the benefits of body cameras and 
considerations for implementation. The report also provides a 
set of 33 comprehensive policy recommendations that reflect 
promising practices and lessons learned.
    Today I am just going to touch briefly on a few of our key 
findings and recommendations, and my submitted written 
testimony provides additional details on these topics.
    First and foremost, we caution that the decision to 
implement a body camera program should not be entered into 
lightly. Agencies must thoughtfully examine all of the issues 
that cameras raise and develop careful written policies to 
govern their use.
    We also found that when implementing a camera program and 
developing policies, it is critical that agencies engage with 
community organizations, line officers and unions, local 
policymakers and elected officials, prosecutors and other 
stakeholders. Making it a collaborative process can help 
strengthen the legitimacy of a program and make implementation 
run more smoothly.
    We also caution, again, that while body cameras can be a 
very useful tool, they are not a cure-all. We need to view them 
as just one tool and remember that they are not a substitute 
for good policies, good training, and good community policing 
programs.
    When it comes to the benefits of body cameras, we found 
that cameras have been useful for several things: strengthening 
police accountability and agency transparency; improving the 
behavior of people on both sides of the camera; as Senator 
Scott said, reducing and resolving officer use-of-force 
incidents and complaints against officers; identifying and 
correcting problems within the agency both at the individual 
level and throughout the entire agency; strengthening officer 
performance by using the footage for training and monitoring; 
and, improving evidence documentation for investigations and 
prosecutions.
    We also looked at some of the considerations that agencies 
must take into account when implementing cameras. These include 
privacy considerations, especially when it comes to filming 
victims and witnesses; the impact that cameras have on 
relationships between police and members of the community; how 
to address concerns that officers and unions may have about 
wearing cameras; managing the expectations that body cameras 
create especially among courts, oversight bodies and members of 
the public; and, finally, how to manage the significant ongoing 
financial costs of a body-worn camera program.
    Turning to our actual policy recommendations, I am just 
going to cover a couple of them. One of the most important 
questions that an agency will answer is when to require 
officers to turn their cameras on and off. Our report 
recommended that with limited exceptions, they should be 
required to activate their cameras when responding to all calls 
for service and during all law enforcement-related encounters 
and activities that occur while the officer is on duty.
    We also recommend that officers should be required to 
obtain consent prior to recording interviews with crime victims 
and they should have limited discretion to keep their cameras 
off during conversations with witnesses and members of the 
community who wish to provide information about a crime, but 
who do not want to speak on camera. This addresses some of the 
significant privacy concerns that come with videotaping crime 
victims and witnesses.
    One of the biggest issues that is emerging that is facing 
police agencies is when to release video footage to the public 
and the media. This is a very difficult issue and there really 
are no easy answers.
    Our report generally recommended a fairly broad disclosure 
policy to promote agency transparency and accountability. 
However, agencies must also balance this need for transparency 
with the very real privacy and evidentiary concerns that come 
with releasing footage to the public. We always want to make 
sure that videos of people in their most vulnerable do not end 
up on YouTube.
    Again, these are just a couple of our 33 recommendations, 
which also cover data storage and management, training and 
evaluation. We also provide useful strategies for how police 
leaders can engage officers, policymakers and the public.
    Again, when implemented correctly, body cameras can provide 
real benefits both for police and the community. However, it is 
critical that agencies slow down, think about all of these 
issues, and take an incremental approach to camera deployment. 
Above all, police agencies must always remember that the 
ultimate purpose of body cameras is to help officers protect 
and serve the people within their communities.
    I thank you again for the opportunity to speak today and I 
welcome any questions that you might have.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Miller appears as a 
submission for the record.]

                 STATEMENT OF JARROD M. BRUDER,

          EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH CAROLINA SHERIFF'S

             ASSOCIATION, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA

    Sheriff Bruder. Chairman Graham, distinguished Members of 
the Committee, my name is Jarrod Bruder and I am the executive 
director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association. It is 
truly an honor to appear before you today.
    I come to testify on behalf of the 46 sheriffs of South 
Carolina. I would like to begin by applauding the Subcommittee 
for taking the time to study the positive and negative effects 
of implementing body-worn cameras before enacting legislation.
    As you will hear throughout my testimony, embracing new 
technology for the purposes of increasing transparency, officer 
accountability and officer safety can produce tremendous 
benefits, but it can also generate serious unintended 
consequences.
    For more than 5 years now, law enforcement agencies 
throughout South Carolina have been experimenting with the use 
of body-worn cameras. To date, approximately 15 percent of our 
sheriffs' offices have implemented a body-worn camera program.
    These agencies have found this technology provides a 
significant benefit to their department and individual 
officers. Not only do these cameras provide valuable training 
opportunities, but they also help to resolve officer-involved 
conflicts.
    Additionally, these agencies have experienced significant 
reductions in complaints on officers. Simply put, everyone, 
including the officer and the person interacting with the 
officer, tends to behave better when they know they are being 
filmed.
    In the end, body-worn cameras have produced a more 
accountable and more professional police force for these 
agencies.
    In my experience, the primary issue preventing law 
enforcement agencies from fully embracing the use of body-worn 
cameras is the exorbitant cost. While I am sure that every 
sheriff and police chief would love to have an agency that is 
more accountable and more professional, they must weigh the 
cost of this technology against the potential benefits. 
Unfortunately, the cost is often too much for an agency to 
absorb.
    This technology is extremely unique in that the initial 
phase of the camera--of implementing the cameras is arguably 
the cheapest phase of implementation. The greatest cost can be 
found in the storage or retention of data.
    At a time when many law enforcement agencies in South 
Carolina are struggling to find sufficient funds to protect 
their officers and the public, a legislative mandate to 
implement body-worn cameras seems like a nightmare to many.
    Thankfully, pending legislation in South Carolina will 
create a statewide trust that will fund the initial and ongoing 
costs associated with body-worn cameras. This provision, along 
with several others, has resulted in our support of this 
legislation.
    Another issue preventing law enforcement agencies from 
fully embracing this technology is the protection of privacy. 
While transparency and openness are welcome concepts for some, 
those notions are not always conducive to producing successful 
police work. Oftentimes, our best tips come from criminal 
informants, witnesses or victims who wish to remain anonymous. 
There is a great fear in the law enforcement community that the 
proliferation of body-worn cameras will further divide our 
communities and have a chilling effect on the exchange of 
information between our officers and the communities they 
serve.
    In my humble opinion, these cameras are not intended to be 
the source of embarrassment or humiliation. Law enforcement 
officers often encounter citizens at their lowest moments in 
life. Data from these cameras should be used as evidence to 
enhance our pursuit of justice, not to humiliate or entertain 
our neighbors.
    When this data is viewed as evidence rather than as a 
public document, it ensures that a single moment of 
indiscretion does not provide a lifetime of embarrassment. It 
also ensures that one's guilt or innocence is determined in a 
court of law, not a court of public opinion.
    As the use of body-worn cameras increases, it is important 
for community leaders to manage the expectations of the public. 
It should be understood that every police action will not be 
caught on camera. Critical incidents can happen in the blink of 
an eye. There will be times when it is neither possible nor 
feasible to have body-worn camera footage. The absence of video 
should not automatically equate to an innocent suspect or a 
guilty officer. Rather, data from body-worn cameras should 
simply assist in the overall quest for justice.
    In conclusion, I would like to answer the question that has 
brought us here today. Yes. When used properly, technology and, 
more specifically, body-worn cameras can increase protection 
for law enforcement officers and the public. We should be 
careful, though, not to put too much trust in this technology. 
Body-worn cameras can aid in transparency, but they will not 
mend community relations alone. Neither will they address the 
root causes that have led to so many tragic incidents.
    Technology, no matter how far it advances, will never 
accomplish what can be gained when people take the time to sit 
down, talk, listen and attempt to understand a different 
perspective.
    It is often said that public safety is a core function of 
government. While I certainly believe that is true, there are 
far too many law enforcement agencies in this country that are 
barely making ends meet. Law enforcement agencies are in 
desperate need for cultural diversity training, use-of-force 
training, and de-escalation training.
    Advanced training, not just basic training, is absolutely 
critical in our efforts to provide public safety. If we truly 
want to increase protection for law enforcement officers and 
the public, then we need to provide our law enforcement 
agencies with the funds necessary to attract, recruit and 
retain the best and brightest officers. Those officers should 
be psychologically tested and equipped with the best training 
available to ensure they serve and protect our communities with 
equality, fairness and justice.
    With that, I again thank you for the opportunity to speak 
and will gladly take any questions.
    [The prepared statment of Sheriff Bruder appears as a 
submission for the record.]

               STATEMENT OF PETER WEIR, DISTRICT

               ATTORNEY, FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT,

              STATE OF COLORADO, GOLDEN, COLORADO

    Mr. Weir. Good afternoon. Chairman Graham, Ranking Member 
Whitehouse and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Peter 
Weir. I am an elected district attorney from the First Judicial 
District in Colorado. That is located in Golden, Colorado, just 
to the west of Denver.
    I also am privileged today to be speaking on behalf of the 
National District Attorneys Association. We appreciate very 
much the opportunity to lend our voice to this important topic.
    I would like to suggest that any discussion of body-worn 
cameras is also a discussion of the foundation of our criminal 
justice system and that foundation is one of trust. It is trust 
in the fairness of the system, trust in the men and women who 
work in the system, and ultimately trust that justice will be 
done.
    When we talk of data that is generated by body-worn 
cameras, we need to keep in mind that that data is actually 
evidence. We are talking about the generation of evidence. 
There are many, many uses for the recordings generated by body-
worn cameras. As has already been alluded to and as it goes to 
the issue of trust, accountability and transparency are 
critical functions of that.
    However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there are 
many, many considerations to take into account when we start 
dealing with the collection, retention, distribution and 
processing of evidence, which is what is generated by the body-
worn cameras.
    Clearly, from a prosecutor's perspective, this evidence can 
be very, very important. When you present a case to a jury, 
certainly they would benefit from being able to see the place 
and the circumstances immediately after the commission of a 
crime. Jurors would benefit from being able to evaluate 
credibility and demeanor of the witnesses that are recorded 
contemporaneously with the crime.
    When we start talking about officer-involved shootings, 
body-worn cameras can certainly play a role in determining 
whether or not the officer acted within the scope of his 
authority or whether that officer may have violated his oath 
and acted outside justifiable legal grounds.
    Clearly the prosecution community supports the use of body-
worn cameras in appropriate circumstances with appropriate 
safeguards and appropriate procedures involved in the use of 
the body-worn cameras.
    As has been mentioned already, there are some areas of 
concern that are shared by prosecutors, and I need to stress 
that it is critically important as we go down this path that 
the prosecution community be part of the dialog in creating 
policies and procedures not just at the Federal level, but also 
at the State and local level, to be able to engage with their 
local law enforcement authorities to identify the issues that 
may be very unique to each jurisdiction, because in this 
discussion, one size does not fit all.
    We are talking about judicial districts, law enforcement 
agencies, sheriff's departments of various sizes and what may 
work in one locale may also not work in other locales.
    The question that is critical for prosecutors is exactly 
what is being recorded, what is the extent of the recording. 
Perhaps another way to put it, when should you not record? It 
would be easy to say just record everything; anytime that an 
officer is on the street, the camera is on. But is this really 
the process that we want?
    This certainly results in extraordinary costs associated 
with this, the costs of not necessarily the camera itself, but 
the costs of appropriate storage, archiving and cataloging so 
that that evidence can really be used in an appropriate manner.
    Prosecutors are also concerned with respect to the storage 
and retrieval of that evidence. We have obligations to present 
this evidence to defense attorneys. We must be able to know 
which portion of a recording pertains to a specific case and be 
able to distribute that to the defense bar.
    That leads us to the question of what is our broader 
responsibility to the public. Many States have open records 
laws or criminal justice records acts that mandate that much of 
this information must be disclosed. Where is the right line 
between collecting this important evidence and what, in fact, 
we will be distributing to the public at large?
    As has already been testified to, these cameras are not a 
panacea because they show different perspectives. We are very 
optimistic at the possibility of body-worn cameras and used 
appropriately, we feel it can be an important tool for both law 
enforcement and prosecutors.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Weir appears as a submission 
for the record.]

           STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND

       CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

           ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Henderson. Good afternoon, Chairman Graham, Ranking 
Member Whitehouse, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Wade 
Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on 
Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national 
organizations charged with the promotion and protection of the 
rights of all persons in the United States.
    I am also the Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. Professor of Public 
Interest Law at the David A. Clarke School of Law at the 
University of the District of Columbia. Thank you for bringing 
us together today.
    Over the last year, we have seen a growing movement to 
address policing practices that have a disproportionate impact 
on low income communities, communities of color, and African 
Americans in particular.
    These practices, like discriminatory profiling, excessive 
use of force, and both explicit and implicit racial bias in law 
enforcement, have framed the national debate around police 
reform and prompted a national conversation on the use of 
technology, specifically, body-worn cameras, as one possible 
means to enhance accountability and transparency in policing.
    Americans across the Nation have been transfixed by a 
serious of video clips recorded by concerned citizens that 
capture tragic encounters between police and the people they 
serve.
    Not since the brutal images of the bloody Sunday marchers 
being savagely beaten in Selma, Alabama were broadcast across 
the Nation 50 years ago, have we seen video make such a 
profound impact on our Nation's public discourse.
    Prior to these broadcasts, the Voting Rights Act did not 
exist, but those images inspired the Nation to write and pass 
the Voting Rights Act less than 5 months later.
    Today, citizen-recorded videos have inspired the Nation 
once again. When one hears Eric Garner's plea that he cannot 
breathe or sees Walter Scott being shot from behind, it is hard 
not to be moved.
    Chairman Graham, you spoke for millions and certainly for 
me when you described the video of Walter Scott's killing in 
North Charleston as, quote, ``horrific and difficult to 
watch.''
    There is a temptation to create a false prevalence between 
these citizen-recorded videos and body-worn cameras operated by 
law enforcement. I urge the Committee not to give in to this 
temptation because body-worn cameras won't be operated by 
concerned citizens and won't be recording officers. The will 
instead be directed at members of the community.
    That is why last Friday, the Leadership Conference joined 
with a broad coalition of civil rights, privacy and media 
rights organizations to release shared civil rights principles 
for the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement.
    These principles, which I would like to introduce into the 
record today, recognize that cameras are just a tool, not a 
substitute for broader reforms of policing practices.
    They point out that, quote, ``Without carefully crafted 
policy safeguards in place, there is a real risk that these new 
devices could become instruments of injustice rather than tools 
for accountability'', unquote.
    That is why it is so important thay when cameras are 
deployed it is with a set of clear and narrowly defined 
purposes and that policies governing their use are developed in 
concert with public stakeholders.
    These cameras should be tools of accountability for police 
encounters, not a face or body scanners for everyone who walks 
by on the street.
    Facial recognition and other biometric technologies must be 
carefully limited. If those technologies are used together with 
body cameras, it will actually intensify stark disparities in 
surveillance in more heavily policed communities of color.
    Early experiences in pilot programs suggest that without 
strong rules, officers will not necessarily record when they 
should. For that reason, it is vitally important that 
departments impose stringent discipline on officers who fail to 
record encounters that are supposed to be on camera.
    Finally, our principles call for a prohibition on officers 
viewing footage until after their reports are filed. Footage 
can be misleading or incomplete. That is why other sources of 
evidence, including the officer's own independent recollection 
of an incident, must be preserved.
    Allowing officers to preview footage provides an 
opportunity to conform reports to what the video appears to 
show rather than what the officer recollects. Moreover, there 
is a risk that the officer's report and the video may seem to 
confirm each other independently when they really are not 
independent at all.
    The Leadership Conference urges Federal, State and local 
governments, as well as individual police departments, to 
consider our principles as they develop and implement body-worn 
camera policies and programs.
    Without the appropriate safeguards, we are at risk of 
compounding the very problems in policing that we are seeking 
to fix.
    Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statment of Mr. Henderson appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Mr. Henderson. We will accept 
your principles, without objection, and make it part of the 
record.
    Senator Franken, would you like to go first?
    Senator Franken. Thank you. This is just--I feel like we 
are in the infancy of this technology and as now Ranking Member 
on Privacy, Technology and the Law Subcommittee, I can see--Mr. 
Henderson raised facial recognition and the use of that 
possibility. We know that technology is here and this raises so 
many issues.
    One of the issues I talked about with Senator Scott before 
this hearing, just a little while ago was, because we have 
heard testimony about the cost of this from Sheriff Bruder.
    In these studies, Ms. Miller, is there any indication of 
the benefits in terms of cost--money? In other words, I would 
imagine that reducing by 80 percent, 90 percent the negative 
sort of interactions, that there may be an actual financial 
benefit from that.
    Ms. Miller. That is what we heard from the police 
executives that we worked with. They said that this drop in 
complaints, the drop of lawsuits has really helped them on the 
back end save money. There have not been a lot of studies, 
cost-benefit analysis yet into the technology. My organization, 
PERF, is actually starting one now. We are going to be working 
on that over the next year to kind of look at that, to see what 
are the cost savings in terms of lawsuits and investigations 
and do those help outweigh some of these significant costs.
    Anecdotally, we hear absolutely, they are worth it 100 
percent, even though the costs are very steep.
    Senator Franken. There are benefits, but there are also 
costs. I mean, there are dollar benefits versus other benefits.
    Ms. Miller. Sure. Yes.
    Senator Franken. The dollar benefits may not equal the 
costs, the dollar costs. This is--some of the issues that are 
being raised are, obviously, when does the officer turn it on, 
when does he turn it off. I think all of us can sort of, in our 
minds, see ``60 Minutes'' stories of a miscarriage of justice 
because of editing of footage. That is not very hard to do.
    Then the question is what kind of protocols are put in 
place to guarantee that that does not happen. I imagine that 
that has been thought through.
    Does anybody have any response to that in terms of how do 
we avoid the ``60 Minutes'' story or the ``20/20'' story or the 
``Dateline'' story that we all have in our head 3 years from 
now or 20 years from now, someone who has been in prison for 20 
years for something they did not do because of a misuse of 
this?
    Mr. Henderson. Senator Franken, it is a terrific question. 
Let me first thank the Chairman, the Ranking Member and the 
entire Subcommittee for convening this hearing, because you 
have, by doing so, put the issue squarely on the public table 
and we appreciate that.
    To avoid the problem you have identified, let us begin with 
the need to develop these policies in public, that there should 
be transparency and there should be involvement of various 
sectors of the public, obviously, the law enforcement 
professionals, certainly those who are professional advocates 
in this area, but clearly the public at large, scientists and 
others, and guidelines have to be developed with an eye toward 
the subsequent use of this information in various cases.
    Second, these cameras are really--they offer protection 
both to good officers and to the public they serve. Officers 
who are, in fact, inclined to do what they should be doing--
and, by the way, that is the vast majority of officers who are 
currently on the beat. We lift them and salute that they are 
committed to do.
    Unfortunately, not every officer follows appropriate 
protocols. The existence of these cameras we hope will have a 
prophylactic impact and influence on officers who would be 
inclined not to follow existing protocols or present protocols.
    Third, it will require law enforcement to, in fact, revisit 
the protocols they currently have so that they can ensure that 
their officers receive appropriate training on the use and 
appropriate involvement of these cameras.
    All of these steps we feel can contribute to a wise 
investment. This should not be undertaken lightly. The expense 
is obviously considerable. When you balance the impact on the 
public they serve, the money that will be saved in litigation 
costs that result from unfortunate incidents of bad policing, 
the balance of the costs will probably work out in favor of the 
purchase of cameras.
    Senator Franken. Thank you. I know that all of you have the 
same kind of questions that I wanted to be asking. Mr. Weir 
talked about storage, archiving, retrieving and disclosure, 
essentially, as all policies and before storage, I guess, is 
what do you shoot and when. Those are all--Mr. Henderson, you 
talked about a carefully crafted policy. I think those are all 
things that we need to keep in mind as we go through this 
technology and this new world.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you for your thoughtful testimony and 
that is perhaps one of the most refreshing things I have heard, 
how unsimple this is. This is a little bit more complicated 
than I think meets the eye, because some of the suggestion is 
all you need to do is put cameras on officers and you are good 
to go and that clearly does not appear to be the case.
    I have a particular question about victims. There is 
something called the Federal Crime Victims' Rights Act. One of 
the rights guaranteed is the right to be reasonably protected 
from the accused and one of the others is a right to be treated 
with fairness and respect for victims' dignity and privacy.
    I would be interested, Ms. Miller--maybe we can go down the 
line here and I would just like to get your comment on how do 
we might be able to make sure that we protect the victims of 
crime.
    Ms. Miller. Thank you for the question. Our report, we 
recommend that officers be required to obtain consent prior to 
filming conversations with crime victims. That puts the--it 
gives the crime victim the dignity and the privacy to be able 
to determine whether he or she wants to be filmed. Then on the 
back end, of course, there is the issue of public disclosure, 
which is another privacy issue when it comes to victims, and we 
recommend that agencies really consider the privacy--as I said 
in my testimony, you do not want to see people that are most 
vulnerable show up on YouTube.
    Careful reviewing, making sure that the footage is not 
disclosed if it is evidentiary, if it contains interviews with 
victims, and then careful redactions if it does have to be 
disclosed.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Bruder.
    Sheriff Bruder. In South Carolina, we are currently working 
through State legislation to implement body-worn cameras. One 
of the moves that we have done there is to basically make body-
worn camera footage exempt or actually not even subject to the 
Freedom of Information Act. It is not considered a public 
document. In doing that, we make sure that the individual 
victims of those crimes, they are not--their identity is not 
shared, their incident is not shared. Those types of things can 
only be achieved through the discovery process in court and 
that is one of the biggest concerns we had there, as well as 
making sure that people were not victimized for long-term 
periods based on that.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Weir.
    Mr. Weir. Senator, thank you. Thank you for the attention 
on victims. I think this is something that is very important in 
this discussion.
    Victims certainly have the right to be protected and they 
have the privacy rights associated with that. Any policies that 
have to be crafted have got to be done thoughtfully and in some 
detail.
    There may be circumstances, frankly, when recording of a 
victim would be appropriate, thinking of the domestic violence 
victim that is recanting.
    There are also circumstances where it would be absolutely 
inappropriate, the victim of a sex assault or a child victim 
subject to abuse.
    I think the clarity of the policies within an agency 
becomes critical at that point, because what you are left with 
in a courtroom setting is video for a number of purposes, and 
then it is remarkable in its absence when perhaps the most 
important individual in a proceeding is not on video, and being 
able to explain that to a jury and perhaps have it in 
appropriate jury instructions to explain that to a jury I think 
would be very, very important.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Henderson.
    Mr. Henderson. Senator, we agree completely that there has 
to be clear operational policy for recording, retention and 
access to film. We certainly believe that the rights of 
individual victims should be protected and that there are clear 
incidents where the rights of privacy of the individual would 
preclude a release, a casual release of this information.
    However, in incidents involving the police use of force, 
there should be access to that information as quickly as 
possible. It should be shared broadly with the public. Those 
policies that govern the retention and access to information 
should be strictly enforced.
    That when officers fail to record incidents that should be 
recorded, there should be consequences for that. Obviously, 
there has to be adequate training, there has to be 
reinforcement, and has to be a sense that these officers are, 
in fact, being helped as much by the existence of these cameras 
as the public they serve. When those things work in conjunction 
with one another, we think they produce positive results.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Henderson, if I could just follow up. 
As I was telling Senator Scott, as we were talking about the 
officer being responsible for turning the camera off and on and 
being trained to turn it on at the right time, I could see how 
that itself will be controversial, because what did the officer 
record, what did the officer choose not to record.
    As we said earlier, this is not perhaps quite as simple as 
it appears.
    Mr. Henderson. You are right, Senator, but, again, if the 
department provides clear operational guidelines for the 
recording, retention and access to that film, then the officer 
is not left having to decide for him or herself what incidents 
require recording and what do not.
    He will have that clear, bright line that we hope will 
encourage him to do the right thing or her to do the right 
thing.
    That is why it is so important that these guideline be 
developed with public review, that they be disclosed openly, 
that that transparency and debate in the public sphere serves 
the interests of the officer, as well as the public.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. This is a very 
interesting hearing and I appreciate all of the witnesses. I 
will echo what my friend, Senator Cornyn has said. The 
unsimpleness of this is perhaps the most significant thing that 
we have heard.
    As Sheriff Bruder probably knows better than the rest of 
the panel, police officers see people at their worst. They see 
people at times of real emotional agony. They see them with 
horrific physical injuries. A video record of a great deal of 
that would be hugely intrusive to those individuals, hugely in 
demand by our 24/7 news media ``if it bleeds, it leads'' 
culture.
    I think you could expect some really intense conflict over 
this availability. You can go into people's homes if you are a 
police officer. If your camera is running in somebody's home, 
does that person have a right to not have what is in their home 
seen? If the person is a celebrity, if they are a public 
official, a sports hero, or something like that.
    I think it is really important to solve the problem of 
police use of force, but we want to make sure we do not open a 
whole new array of problems.
    Sheriff Bruder, you said there are 46 different sheriffs in 
your home State.
    Sheriff Bruder. Yes, sir.
    Senator Whitehouse. In Rhode Island, we have got 39 cities 
and towns and most of them have their own police departments.
    Sheriff Bruder. Yes, sir.
    Senator Whitehouse. How many of your sheriffs have what you 
would consider a sophisticated IT department?
    Sheriff Bruder. A handful. Obviously, a lot of them have to 
comply with CGIS requirements from the FBI. They have got some 
IT, advanced IT stuff there, but only a handful have the 
ability to go back and do those things.
    Senator Whitehouse. We have police departments that have 
been hit by CryptoLocker and shut down.
    Sheriff Bruder. Right.
    Senator Whitehouse. I think police departments are very 
often targeted by hackers nowadays, whether it is CryptoLocker 
or other devices. The question of the hackability of all of 
this when you consider what the Rupert Murdoch folks did over 
in England, hacking into telephones, how easy would it be to 
pay somebody to hack into these and get some of that very, very 
personal footage out.
    I do not know how--I appreciate, Mr. Henderson, your desire 
that there be a clear, bright line, but at this point, I do not 
see a clear, bright line if you are a police officer who has to 
make an on/off decision about when you turn it on. Do you know 
when you are going to be using force in advance? Probably not.
    Does that mean that any encounter, you should turn it on 
sort of just in case and then maybe erase it after? This is 
really complicated. What are the best policies out there right 
now? Are there a couple that we could look at where you think 
people have really got this right in the public records law, in 
terms of something that a patrol officer who already has 5,000 
other things to remember can implement in a sensible way and in 
a way that is protective of the myriad of privacy rights that 
surround this?
    Ms. Miller.
    Ms. Miller. I think that when we----
    Senator Whitehouse. PERF is terrific, by the way. Thank you 
for your work and thank you for your organization's great work.
    Ms. Miller. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for the 
question.
    When we did our research, we looked at a lot of different 
policies and we spoke to a lot of agencies from across the 
country, because I think this technology is so new that I could 
not even really point to one policy that was a model at this 
point.
    I think that for one thing, every State law is different 
when it comes to disclosure and evidence. They are all going to 
be a little different. What we did was we gathered all of those 
policies, we spoke with all of the people who have experience 
in this, law enforcement officials and civil rights groups and 
unions and different folks and we kind of came up with what we 
found were, at that phase, some of the best practices and the 
best policies.
    When it comes to turning the cameras on and off, the policy 
we saw the most and that we thought was probably the best was 
to do it during all calls for service. When you get a call on 
the radio, when an officer gets a call on the radio and goes to 
that call, they turn it on from the minute they get that call 
and it goes until the end of that incident.
    Then also during all----
    Senator Whitehouse. An officer comes to somebody's house 
responding to a call. The person who made the call says, ``I do 
not want you to come in with your camera on, this is my house, 
I do not know what you are going to do with all that footage.'' 
What is the officer's choice then?
    Ms. Miller. It depends on the jurisdiction. We would 
recommend that the officer continue recording, unless this is a 
victim who is saying that they do not want their face on the 
camera. At that point, we say continue recording because most 
of the agencies we worked with said as long as the officer has 
a legal right to be in the home, which he would as responding 
to a call for service, then that is when they should be 
recording, because you do not want some incident to occur then 
and not have the footage of that incident. There is an 
accountability piece there, as well as the privacy piece.
    Senator Whitehouse. That is kind of the backside of the 
Supreme Court decisions we are dealing with right now about 
police surveillance, where the Supreme Court has taken a look 
at things that police always have done, but said now when they 
are hyper-enabled by technology, it is actually a new question.
    My time is up, but this is a really interesting hearing and 
I appreciate the Chairman holding it.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you. Senator Coons. Senator 
Klobuchar. You all decide among yourselves.
    Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Graham and Senator 
Klobuchar and Senator Scott, for calling this hearing, Ranking 
Member Whitehouse.
    This is an important time and an important issue. The 
American public, as we all know, is searching for answers on 
how to effectively heal the divisions we have seen play out 
between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
    Last week was National Police Week, and we honored 273 
officers killed in the line of duty. A stark reminder that 
policing is a dangerous profession, and it is our duty as 
elected officials to provide State and local police with the 
support, the equipment, the training and the resources they 
need to come home to their loved ones and families at the end 
of each day on the job.
    In the recent weeks and months, we have also seen 
disturbing footage taken from a number of scenes in New York, 
and Missouri, and Ohio, and South Carolina, and in Maryland, 
and in each of these instances, the actions taken by law 
enforcement and the ensuing public response has highlighted the 
deep divisions that still exist in many places between law 
enforcement and the communities they protect.
    It is also our duty as elected officials to try and help 
bridge those divides, and I welcome today's hearing as an 
opportunity to learn and work constructively on what is the 
best way forward for finding common ground.
    Like many of my colleagues, I believe that body-worn 
cameras have tremendous potential if implemented correctly and 
thoughtfully to increase accountability, to settle conflicting 
witness accounts, to contribute to officer safety and to 
transparency, and to heal some of these deep divides. There are 
very important concerns that you, as witnesses, have raised so 
far today and I think meeting those concerns will be absolutely 
essential to ensuring that cameras become properly deployed 
tools of accountability rather than means of furthering 
division.
    I have a couple of simple questions, and I would appreciate 
your answering them in turn, if you would not mind, to just 
continue this conversation.
    When designing and implementing rules for the use of body-
worn cameras, who should be at the table? How can communities 
ensure that the rules around use of cameras and access to video 
footage are properly followed once in place?
    If you would, please, Ms. Miller.
    Ms. Miller. Thank you for the question. The first part, we 
recommend that police agencies engage with pretty much any 
stakeholder who is going to be affected by the cameras. 
Community organizations, line officers, unions, prosecutors, 
local policymakers, courts--all of these people need to be 
included at the table when it comes to policy develop and 
engaged and their voices heard.
    When it comes to the second part of your question and kind 
of the accountability portion, we recommend that agencies share 
their policies online, on their websites with the public, that 
they share their retention schedules for data with the public, 
and we recommend that they regularly collect statistical 
information about the usage of cameras and make that public, as 
well, so that the public can see how the cameras are being 
used, what is being released, things like that. Those are kind 
of our two recommendations.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. Mr. Bruder.
    Sheriff Bruder. Again, in South Carolina, we are looking at 
implementing statewide legislation to have body-worn cameras. 
The legislature has kind of sent that task over to the Law 
Enforcement Training Council, which is made up of various law 
enforcement agency heads from across the State.
    I know that they have already had plans to include many of 
the groups that Ms. Miller has mentioned, as well as our 
criminal attorneys, their associations, those kinds of folks to 
make sure that everybody has input on the implementation and 
the development of those policies.
    I echo Ms. Miller's comments on the accountability, that 
that is probably the best way to go about doing that.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. Mr. Weir.
    Mr. Weir. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for the 
question. I think it is critical, once again, to keep in mind 
that we are not just looking at the front end of this process. 
The accountability and the transparency associated with video 
recording is very, very important. The back end of this is what 
are we going to do with it.
    This, in fact, is evidence that is being collected and how 
that evidence is stored, managed and appropriately disclosed to 
defense counsel and perhaps disclosed to the public or perhaps, 
under some circumstances, not disclosed to the public to 
respect privacy interests, all those are very important 
considerations.
    Many of these decisions, I believe, could be--should be 
addressed on the local level, something that the community 
itself needs to be engaged in. When we start talking about 
building and developing trust between law enforcement and the 
community, this is something that should happen well before we 
are rolling out body cameras. The community has got to be 
engaged and those relationships have got to be formed by all 
partners.
    We cannot lose sight of the fact that at the end of the 
day, the collection of this data fundamentally is for 
evidentiary purposes and how can we best preserve that 
evidence.
    Senator Coons. Thank you, Mr. Weir. Mr. Henderson.
    Mr. Henderson. Senator Coons, thank you for the question. I 
agree with the remarks of my colleagues. All affected 
stakeholders should be invited to the table and there should be 
a public debate on these issues. That includes elected 
officials, that includes members of law enforcement, it 
certainly includes legal advisors, people who may serve--former 
prosecutors, defense bar, should be encouraged to come, civic 
organizations, as well as recognized non-governmental 
organizations that have roles to play in evaluating the 
implementation of this; human rights groups, like Amnesty 
International or Human Rights First might be included in the 
debate.
    Having said that, again, body-worn cameras are only one 
tool. They cannot accomplish the systemic reform. For example, 
we do not have a policy addressing a ban on racial profiling, 
for example, and that continues to be a factor in law 
enforcement in a particular community. It will defeat the 
purpose of the body-worn camera if that purpose is to help 
reiterate law enforcement and the community together in a new 
approach to law enforcement.
    Senator Coons. I really appreciate all your answers and I 
am, again, grateful to the Chairman for calling this.
    As the co-Chair of the Senate Law Enforcement Caucus and 
someone who worked closely with law enforcement in my previous 
county role, I will tell you that those are thoughtful and 
thorough answers and it is my hope that some of the different 
organizations you represent will work together to help develop 
some model guidelines and some model policies.
    It should be locally driven, but not every community is 
going to have the resources and the time and the effort. I 
think body-worn cameras are misperceived as an easy solution to 
very complex and deep-seated problems. They can be a 
constructive tool, but we need to do the hard work first to 
make sure that the parameters and challenges are understood.
    I am grateful for your testimony today. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Whitehouse. Chairman, before we turn to Senator 
Klobuchar, can I ask unanimous consent that the statement of 
our Ranking Member, Senator Leahy, be added to the record of 
this proceeding?
    Chairman Graham. Without objection. Senator Klobuchar.
    [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and 
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you all for being here.
    This is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. As many 
of you know, I used to be prosecutor and actually Minnesota was 
one of the first States in the country that videotaped 
interrogations both in squad cars and custody, anything that 
was in custody. It came about because of defense efforts, 
actually, to prevent any kind of questions about bad 
activities, but also to protect civil rights. I made the 
argument, and our police pretty much agreed, that it also 
protected them. It made for a better process. It allowed people 
to see videotape of someone when they were being questioned so 
that jurors could judge for themselves what they thought.
    We had a few cases where we had people that would say 
things that were somewhat incriminating on the videotape that 
the jurors were able to see, and mostly it made sure Miranda 
rights were read and that the process was fair.
    I guess I would start with that, and I think it has come 
now in more jurisdictions obviously, and our police have grown 
to accept it and they did accept it actually pretty quickly 
when it started there.
    Of course, there are other issues with regard to body 
cameras and privacy that we have pointed out that are different 
than just interrogating one person. I want to start with this 
concept of the interrogations. I guess I will start with you, 
Mr. Weir and Mr. Bruder.
    I realize that not every jurisdiction has this mandatory 
recording of interrogations. How would you compare body cameras 
to other types of interrogations? What are some of the issues 
that you do not have with the interrogations that you have with 
the body cameras?
    Mr. Weir. Thank you, Senator, for the question. As you 
know, there are other recording devices that are more 
widespread right now, such as dashboard cameras used by law 
enforcement in stops. Those have proven to be very effective 
law enforcement tools for many of the reasons that you 
articulated.
    Oftentimes it shows the officer acting in absolute 
conformity with the best practices that you would expect from 
police and sheriff's officers and State troopers. It is also 
great evidence of what actually happens on scene.
    Senator Klobuchar. It is also a good training thing, 
actually, I think for officers. They are able to watch each 
other and see what is good and what is bad and make sure. It is 
really, I think, a very good way for people to learn when they 
are able to watch each other. Continue on.
    Mr. Weir. I would certainly agree with that, Senator. I 
would also agree that we are all about trying to improve our 
process. From a law enforcement and prosecutor perspective, our 
goal is to pursue the truth. Our goal is to achieve justice and 
we do not hide from the facts. If, in fact, the video recording 
helps establish those facts, then it is a tool that should be 
used.
    With respect to the taping, videotaping of interactions and 
conversations with witnesses and defendants, that is a good 
practice. Certainly, in my jurisdiction, we do that as often as 
we possibly can. However, it is not mandated and I would be 
very reluctant to be advocating mandating that given the fact 
that, once again, in the pursuit of truth, the pursuit of 
justice, there may be legitimate evidence that results from the 
conversations between law enforcement and individual that could 
be lost and that subverts our pursuit of truth and justice.
    I think in the right circumstances, I think it should be 
encouraged and it is used extensively, but I certainly would 
not be in favor of any kind of a mandate.
    Senator Klobuchar. I think in our State, it was a Supreme 
Court decision called the Scales decision. I will tell you our 
police have grown, for the most part, to like it and we have 
not had issues of not being able to get convictions or anything 
like that because of this practice.
    Sometimes they have to explain why they pursued a certain 
number of questions or why they did it a certain way, that is 
true, but I think overall we have found it to be beneficial.
    Mr. Bruder.
    Sheriff Bruder. Thank you for the question. I would echo 
Mr. Weir's comments that it is best practice and probably 
advisable to go ahead and try to get those interrogations on 
film when possible, but it is not mandated in South Carolina.
    To kind of transition to a different point that you were 
making and something that was a great fear of ours when we were 
trying to support this legislation, we too have dash cameras in 
our cars and we have seen a tremendous problem where somebody's 
foot can go off the scene of the video and then the cases being 
dismissed because you do not see everything that is happening 
on video.
    What we do not want to happen is for that to be taking 
place with dash--body cameras. We do not want to get to the 
point where the body camera footage is the end-all-be-all of 
evidence.
    Senator Klobuchar. I understand this. We used to call it 
the CSI effect with juries because we would have a case--and 
Mr. Henderson knows what I am talking about--where there would 
be no possibility of DNA, but a defense lawyer would say, well, 
if there is no DNA, and people are used to seeing this on TV. 
Your point is well taken, although I think some of this--you 
would have to explain to juries why something went bad, that it 
is not necessary to have that for a case. I think that is a 
good point.
    When I came in, Senator Whitehouse was asking some 
questions about just the best--the pilots of you, Ms. Miller. 
We have a pilot going on in Duluth and in Burnsville, 
Minnesota. Maybe we want to look into how they are doing there, 
and Minneapolis with what they are doing. I do think those 
pilot programs are one good way of figuring out what is working 
best and allow States to develop some of these privacy policies 
that are going to have to be in place to make this work.
    I do not know if you wanted to add anything to that, Mr. 
Henderson.
    Mr. Henderson. Senator, thank you. No. I think pilot 
studies can be very useful in providing information to be 
considered by a wider audience before a major investment is 
made in the purchase of these cameras.
    Having said that, I hope that States and localities will 
not use that delay as a basis for not going forward, 
particularly now that the Department of Justice is making 
available grant funds to support some States in moving in this 
area. I think that should be encouraged. We support the 
Administration's approach.
    Senator Klobuchar. That is why I led with this 
interrogation issue because at first it was something that our 
officers were concerned about, and I think they grew to think 
it was actually a pretty good policy over time.
    This one, I will admit, has much more complications in 
terms of some of the issues that were raised with privacy and 
what you do with these tapes and that you protect people's 
privacy as opposed to just interrogating someone in a squad car 
or in a room.
    That is why it is more complicated and we have to consider 
that as we move forward.
    I want to thank all of you for being so thoughtful today. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Scott.
    Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you once 
again holding this hearing.
    I have met with more than a dozen groups over the last 
couple of weeks and would love to turn the information over to 
the Committee and submit it for the record.
    Chairman Graham. Without objection.
    [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
    Senator Scott. Thank you, sir.
    Ms. Miller, do you know how many jurisdictions around the 
country are currently running some type of a pilot program and/
or have adopted the policy of body-worn cameras, approximately?
    Ms. Miller. That is a great question. It is one I get asked 
a lot, and it is one I do not know the answer to. I do not 
think anyone knows the exact number. The most recent estimate I 
have heard was between 3,500 and 4,000 agencies across the 
country, but, again, that is just an estimate. I think it is 
not even the most recent. I do not think it is necessarily 
current.
    That is something would--I think people are working on 
trying to figure that out.
    Senator Scott. The number is not nearly as important as the 
level of activity around the country.
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Senator Scott. I think 4 or 5 years from now, looking back, 
this will be a foregone conclusion how we find ourselves with 
the vast majority officers wearing body-worn cameras.
    I do think it is important for us to point out the fact 
that the American Laboratory is currently at work looking for 
best practices and the best policies. We can look around the 
country and we will find the weaving together of the best 
practices and policies around the country.
    I do think it is important to perhaps reemphasize the 
necessity of local development of the policies. Policing is a 
local effort and not a Federal effort nor should we find 
ourselves trying to figure out how to Federalize local 
policing.
    I think it is also important for us--Mr. Weir, I would love 
to hear your thoughts on the mandates. I am of the opinion that 
we should not mandate from the Federal Government what local 
law enforcement should do for body cameras, but we certainly 
should encourage it and we can, I think, Ms. Miller, as we have 
discussed previously, create a framework for folks to work 
within.
    Thoughts.
    Mr. Weir. Thank you, Senator. I agree and would expect that 
most of my colleagues in the prosecution community would also 
agree.
    There certainly is a place to delineate best practices and 
there certainly is a place to try to articulate the kinds of 
issues that need to be addressed and perhaps even suggest 
proposed solutions to some of those issues.
    Fundamentally, this really is a local issue and it varies 
significantly from one locale to another based upon resources, 
officers training and the kind of requirements that are needed 
to effectively prosecute. The resources are a huge issue not 
just with respect to the money involved with the data storage, 
but the personnel associated with that as far as being able to 
accurately document what data you have on hand and then, from a 
prosecutor's perspective, to be able to draw down that 
information and be able to identify which portion of recordings 
go with which case and how is it going to be used.
    Although you are generating significant evidence, you also 
generate significant work. If you have nine different cameras 
on in a single incident, that exponentially increases the 
amount of review that you may have, some of which may be 
extraordinarily relevant to the issue, but some of it may not. 
That still translates into personnel and manpower costs. I 
think it is very, very important that it be done on a local 
basis, perhaps with guidance from a Federal level or State 
level and, also, as we have been discussing, I think, input 
with respect to involved stakeholders from the community would 
also be an important component.
    Senator Scott. Thank you.
    Sheriff Bruder and Mr. Henderson, I know that we have heard 
a lot about privacy issues and whether you use cameras or not.
    I think one of the questions I have has to do with privacy 
issues in public spaces. With the number of cameras that are 
now available, call it the iPhone or whatever, Samsung, but I 
do not want to get in trouble with anybody, but whatever your 
phone of choice is and/or your cameras at grocery stores or you 
are walking down the street and if you are in my neighborhood, 
you are on camera because I have them all around my house, as 
well.
    The truth is that there is a new conversation, and perhaps 
new considerations that need to be absorbed as it relates to 
privacy issues in public spaces, and I am not sure if you have 
thought this through yet, Mr. Henderson.
    For Sheriff, since you are a man who can arrest me in South 
Carolina, I want to make sure we give you as much time as 
necessary on that issue of privacy. That is my best joke, by 
the way.
    Mr. Henderson. Senator Scott, I'm sorry--I will be very 
brief. I think you have identified a new, but very complex 
challenge that faces 21st century society. After all, our 
Congress has just gone through a debate over the collection of 
data by the National Security Agency, what kind of information 
can be gathered in various forms.
    There obviously are new sensitivities, heightened 
sensitivities about privacy in our society and that should be 
the case.
    I think we have to move with care and thoughtfulness. I 
think that new policies have to be developed to meet new 
challenges and how we both access this information, how we 
retain and store it, who has access to it, these are all very 
relevant questions that should be discussed before an 
investment is made of substantial cost rather than after.
    I am glad you have identified the issue, and I do not feel 
that we have given adequate attention to the complexity of the 
privacy challenges that face the country.
    Senator Scott. I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman. Thank 
you very much.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator Scott. Senator 
Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Graham. Mr. Bruder, would you like to make a 
comment?
    Sheriff Bruder. I will be quick. One of things--and that 
exact conversation happened in the South Carolina Senate 
Judiciary Committee and they have the exact same conversations 
there. Ultimately, it came down to a matter of what was subject 
to the Freedom of Information Act and what was not. Again, it 
came down to a resource issue and the fact that we have got 
very small police departments that would ultimately have to 
create a FOIA department to be able to maintain all of this 
data that was coming in and out and all of the requests.
    Essentially the decision was made not to make it a public 
document, but to be able to give a copy of that data to a small 
amount of people and then they, obviously, could do with what 
they wanted to after that.
    That was our way of kind of narrowing it down so that the 
public still does have input, the public still does have 
knowledge, and, of course, the agency head, the law enforcement 
agency head could still release it if it benefited the public, 
as well.
    Senator Scott. Thank you very much.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator Scott. Senator 
Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for 
holding this hearing and thanks to Senator Scott for the bill 
that he has introduced and the initiative that he has taken, 
and thanks to all of you for being here today.
    I am a strong supporter of body-worn cameras by police. In 
fact, I have supported the full appropriation for existing 
programs that would fund them, and I think they will make a 
very substantial contribution to the credibility and 
effectiveness of law enforcement.
    At the same time, I respect Mr. Henderson's point, and I 
think you have all made it in different words, that a lot of 
care and thoughtfulness needs to go into this new policy.
    A lot of people are pretty simplistic in their view of it. 
You have a camera, so, of course, it will record everything, no 
problem and there will be no questions.
    In fact, there are questions about privacy, there are 
questions about chain of custody, who has access to the results 
of these body-worn cameras, where are the results stored, if 
so, by a third party. The chain of custody issues are 
multiplied and what are the standards.
    Existing Federal programs do not fund standards and policy 
guidelines, and I think there is a role for the Federal 
Government to play, as you just said, Mr. Weir. In fact, not 
only is there a role, there is a necessity for the Federal 
Government to try to set some evidentiary standards and 
criteria for admissibility here.
    I might just say one of the toughest cases I ever had to 
try involved the use of video in a drug prosecution where the 
video failed for a short period of time and the defense was 
that the critical, in effect, exculpatory support for the 
defendant occurred during that period when the video failed and 
tried to create reasonable doubt because of that malfunction.
    We are not done with this topic simply by requiring cameras 
to be worn by police. There are significant issues to be 
overcome and I think you have all highlighted them.
    I might just ask all of you not just for the number, but 
could you point us in the direction of programs that are 
working and working well so that perhaps we have models for 
what should be done by other cities, in fact, maybe other 
States, if you know of any.
    Ms. Miller. Thank you again for the question. We worked 
with several agencies that I think are doing a lot of things 
right and even though their policies may differ and we may not 
agree with every single policy they have, I think that they are 
very thoughtful about what they are doing.
    Oakland, California was one of the initial adopters of body 
cameras. They have had them since 2009-2010. I have worked with 
their chief quite a bit. Places like Daytona Beach, Florida; 
Greensboro, North Carolina; Mesa, Arizona; they have all put a 
lot of thought--Rialto, California, which is where one of the 
studies was done. These places have all done a lot of work and 
I think those are all agencies that have really done a good job 
of considering all of these issues and are still engaged in 
trying to reform their policies as they learn new things.
    Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Bruder.
    Sheriff Bruder. Thank you for the question. Obviously, it 
is very new technology, so there are only a few in South 
Carolina that have done it, and we have got probably 22 
agencies out of the 316 in South Carolina that have actually 
implemented body-worn cameras.
    I can think of a couple off the top of my head that are 
doing it very well. The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office has 
been doing this for coming up on a year and they seem to be 
having great success with it. I also looked at the Charleston 
Police Department. The Charleston Police Department has taken 
the route that we have all discussed in bringing everybody to 
the table to formulate their policies. I believe that they have 
been approved by the ALCU and a number of other groups. A lot 
of other agencies are kind of looking to Charleston and their 
policies as a model that they can follow and implement in 
similar ways in their own communities.
    Mr. Weir. Senator, in Colorado, approximately 28 percent of 
the law enforcement agencies are using body cameras in one form 
or another. The greatest success stories that I hear are coming 
from the very, very small departments. When I say small, these 
are departments with less than 10 sworn officers. I think that 
helps focus some of these issues and also perhaps reduces some 
of the complexities associated with this.
    Of that 28 percent in Colorado, there is only 1 department 
in excess of 50 officers that have used body cameras and that 
has been on a pilot basis. I think in Colorado that it is still 
an open question, although the response from the agencies, the 
smaller agencies, has been very positive.
    Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Henderson.
    Mr. Henderson. Senator, that is a great question. It 
deserves a thoughtful response. I would prefer to submit my 
answer in writing. I would like to consult with the task force 
that helped to produce our civil rights principles, and I think 
they have surveyed some of the programs currently in place and 
I would like to get their advice before I respond.
    Senator Blumenthal. I would welcome that response and any 
other written responses after this hearing from any of you on 
any of these topics. I might just say with all the questions 
that may be raised, body-worn cameras are going to be a fact of 
life for better, not for worse; better that the images should 
come from cameras worn by police than cameras held by 
bystanders. We know that the images from those bystander-held 
cameras are going to be a fact of life, whether we like it or 
not; better that they should be held or worn by police officers 
who are sworn to tell the truth and enforce the law and seek 
justice.
    I am a strong advocate and simply raise these questions 
because I think they are inevitable and you as professionals 
would want them answered.
    Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Graham. Senator Durbin.
    Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
coming before us today to discuss this issue.
    Mr. Henderson, I am kind of stuck on this one point here 
that Mr. Bruder raised. The State of South Carolina has deemed 
data recorded by a body-worn camera not to be a public 
document. Thus, the data is not subject to Freedom of 
Information Act disclosure. He goes on to say in his testimony, 
``Doing so will ensure that a single moment of indiscretion 
does not provide a lifetime of embarrassment, ensures that 
one's guilt or innocence is determined in a court of law and 
not a court of public opinion.''
    In your testimony, you noted the fact that footage from 
body-worn cameras can be a valuable source of evidence to help 
protect both officers and the public. The public needs access 
to that information if it is going to protect them, does it 
not?
    Mr. Henderson. Senator Durbin, thank you for the question. 
The answer is yes. I do think the public needs access to that 
information.
    I would say in every instance where there has been a use of 
force by the police department in a particular encounter with 
the public, that information should be made available and 
accessible and relatively quickly in the aftermath of a 
particular incident.
    Heretofore, we have not had adequate data about the use of 
force or, for that matter, death in custody. It was not until 
the Senate this year adopted a provision requiring the 
collection of data of individuals who died in the custody of 
law enforcement that we are beginning to get that information.
    I am concerned about unilateral declarations that exclude 
access of this information to the general public without having 
first a clear discussion of why that approach has been taken 
and whether it conforms with existing exemptions of the Freedom 
of Information Act.
    I think in many instances, the judgment, and understandably 
done in the desire to protect individuals from permanent 
embarrassment over incidents that are relatively minor in 
nature, that is a legitimate concern. That should not override 
the public's need or access to information that is involved 
particularly where the use of force by police officers has 
taken place.
    Senator Durbin. Mr. Bruder, what you are saying to us is 
that you do not want this to be a fishing expedition. That is 
the way I read your testimony.
    How do you respond to this balance, protecting police 
officers and protecting the public, while saying the police can 
hold that information from that body cam and it does not have 
to be disclosed.
    Mr. Henderson suggests that if there is use of force, that 
ought to create the exception. What do you think?
    Sheriff Bruder. I agree with Mr. Henderson's concerns and 
that is a fine line that we have been trying to walk in South 
Carolina to allow access, that the public can see and have 
confidence in what the law enforcement agencies have been 
doing, but also to protect ourselves and protect the victims 
and other people on the video from excessive or abusive FOIA 
requests.
    Our bill in South Carolina still allows the public to get 
that information, whether that is through the individual who is 
on the camera can request a copy of that and he can obviously 
do what he would like to do with that data then, or the agency 
head, the law enforcement agency head could still release that 
information if he felt like it was in the best interest of the 
public to go ahead and do that, and we have seen that time and 
time again where questionable uses of force have been used and 
we have gone back to gone ahead released the video.
    One of the questions that was brought up earlier was about 
tapering with the video or doing those types of things. This is 
a topic that came up when we considered our release of 
information.
    Not only does FOIA prohibit us from releasing certain 
things, but there are also ceratin things in South Carolina 
that prohibit us from releasing victim identifying 
characteristics or juveniles and those types of things and for 
us to do that, we would have to go back and redact.
    Obviously, it is easy to redact a document or a piece of 
paper where you have got a black Sharpie that we can go out and 
do those things, but how do you redact a video. Then 
furthermore, once we get into court, will the question be 
raised, okay, it is obvious that you have been able to redact 
and do this to some degree, how do we know that what we are 
watching here in court today is the actual true event of what 
took place that day.
    Those are all questions that we are still trying to figure 
out as this new technology moves forward.
    Senator Durbin. We are all trying to learn and I think the 
march of science challenges us constantly. It was not that many 
years ago DNA did not mean anything to anybody and now it has 
ended up resulting in much better, I think, more complete 
efforts to find the truth and justice and video evidence the 
same.
    The march of science is going to give us access to 
information in real time with some degree of certainty that we 
never had before.
    Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you, Senator Durbin. I will wrap it 
up here. You all have been very informative. I have learned a 
lot.
    Number one, Ms. Miller, in the dash cam recording history, 
has that worked pretty well as far as dash cams?
    Ms. Miller. Yes. I mean, I think that there has been a lot 
of success with dash cams. I think it is a good way for us to 
kind of look to body cameras and see what they can do. I do 
think there are a lot of differences and so it is hard to--we 
always advice agencies you can incorporate things from your 
dash cam policy, but we would not recommend relying on it.
    Chairman Graham. You have to go much further with body 
cameras.
    Ms. Miller. Exactly. I do think they can be instructive.
    Chairman Graham. Has any jurisdiction ever outlawed a dash 
camera after it came into being for any reason?
    Ms. Miller. No, not to my knowledge. I have talked to 
places that--actually, there was one agency that I can remember 
that ended up getting rid of their dash cams because of the 
expectations that the courts started having and it was kind of 
the CSI effect that was discussed earlier.
    They found that their officers' credibility was being 
undermined.
    Chairman Graham. That is just one.
    Ms. Miller. Yes. Just one that I have ever talked to.
    Chairman Graham. Mr. Bruder, dash cams in South Carolina, 
are they pretty common?
    Sheriff Bruder. They are common. They are mostly required 
by law, but we are still having a problem getting the funding 
for that.
    Chairman Graham. Would you say 80 percent, 70 percent?
    Sheriff Bruder. Probably 70 to 80 percent of patrol 
vehicles, not all law enforcement vehicles, but patrol vehicles 
that do traffic enforcement.
    Chairman Graham. How do they store the data or keep the 
data?
    Sheriff Bruder. They have methods that they do that within 
the local agency there. They can go back and they can either 
download that through a cloud means or they can go in and 
physically connect to a computer and download it.
    Chairman Graham. How much more expensive would it be with 
body cameras? Would it be exponentially more expensive?
    Sheriff Bruder. Based on the sheer number of hours and 
amount of video that you are getting, it is going to be 
exponentially greater. Most of our agencies have been looking 
at these and trying to get different cost examples and a lot of 
them have come back with the number of $100 per month per 
officer to store data.
    Chairman Graham. $100 per month per officer.
    Sheriff Bruder. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Graham. Ms. Miller, what is a guesstimate as to 
how much it would cost the Nation, if every agency, every law 
enforcement official had a body camera?
    Ms. Miller. To store the data?
    Chairman Graham. Just to buy the cameras, store the data, 
the whole package.
    Ms. Miller. Gosh, I am terrible at math. I hate to even 
try. I have talked to agencies that spend millions per year on 
storage alone.
    Chairman Graham. Can somebody try to find that answer for 
us?
    Ms. Miller. Yes. We can definitely look into that.
    Chairman Graham. Do you agree about $100 per month per 
officer sounds right as far as storage?
    Ms. Miller. I heard that. I have heard $800 per officer per 
year. It depends on the size of the agency, how many videos 
they are shooting, that sort of thing.
    Chairman Graham. Mr. Weir, you talked about looking at this 
as an evidence device; is that correct?
    Mr. Weir. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Graham. Chain of custody all would be very 
important.
    Mr. Weir. Absolutely, Senator.
    Chairman Graham. Have you had a problem use dash camera 
evidence?
    Mr. Weir. We have not. In Colorado, the dash cameras are 
used routinely by the Colorado State Patrol and then it is left 
up to individual police departments as to whether or not they 
also want to use the dash cameras.
    Chairman Graham. From a prosecutor's point of view, this 
has not been a difficult tool to employ.
    Mr. Weir. Not with respect to dash cameras, Senator. Once 
again, the complexity is logarithmic when you start talking 
about body cameras.
    Chairman Graham. No, no. I got you, but I just want to make 
sure that what we use is good to go.
    Mr. Henderson, the only reason we are probably having this 
hearing is because of these private videos that have shocked 
everybody. Do you agree with that?
    Mr. Henderson. I do.
    Chairman Graham. In those cases, we are glad we have video 
evidence. You have got the North Charleston case that is in 
litigation. I will be careful of what I say, but in that case 
only God knows what the story would have been.
    Mr. Henderson. You are absolutely right. It is these 
private videos that have really motivated the public debate. As 
I said earlier, you deserve great credit for convening this 
conversation.
    Chairman Graham. On balance, if you could get the right 
protocols to protect privacy and make sure the officer is using 
the camera in an appropriate manner, do you think it is best 
for the Nation to go down this road?
    Mr. Henderson. Without question, I think it is absolutely 
essential.
    Chairman Graham. Does everybody agree with that? If you do 
not, speak up.
    Mr. Weir. Senator, I think going down----
    Chairman Graham. I am not saying a Federal mandate, but 
just for law enforcement in general.
    Mr. Weir. I think it can be an effective tool, but once 
again, we have got to be very careful primarily on the back 
end.
    Chairman Graham. I got you. All the problems are real that 
you have identified, but is this something worth pursuing? Is 
the benefit greater than the cost, Mr. Weir?
    Mr. Weir. I think potentially, yes.
    Chairman Graham. That is common ground for everybody. The 
benefit is worth the cost if we can do it right.
    Does anybody know if the Capitol Hill Police wear body 
cameras?
    Ms. Miller. I think they are looking into it, but I do not 
think that they wear them now.
    Chairman Graham. It seems to me that if we were that 
concerned about it, as Members of Congress, we would look into 
that. I intend to do that.
    I very much appreciate your testimony. One last question. 
Let us say there is a grant program. Would you agree that 
having certain criteria, that you have got to do certain things 
before you get the grant, would make sense, Mr. Henderson?
    Mr. Henderson. I think that is also absolutely essential.
    Chairman Graham. Mr. Bruder, would that be okay with you?
    Sheriff Bruder. Yes, sir. Absolutely. I would take that 
opportunity just to point out that in the current grant 
funding, I am not sure that data retention is covered, and 
obviously we have pointed out today that is the most expensive 
part.
    Chairman Graham. You would not want to spend money on a 
program that was not sound. Having conditions on the grant 
makes sense.
    Sheriff Bruder. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Graham. Does that make sense to you, Mr. Weir?
    Mr. Weir. It certainly does, Senator, yes.
    Chairman Graham. Ms. Miller.
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Chairman Graham. A block grant is probably not the way to 
go here. Have some conditions attached to it.
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Chairman Graham. Thank you all very much. I have learned a 
lot.
    The hearing will be adjourned. We will leave the record 
open for 1 week for further questions and any information you 
want to provide for the Committee. You have really done the 
country a great service. Thank you all.
    [Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

                            A P P E N D I X

Miscellaneous submissions:

 Civil Rights Principles on Body Worn Cameras.....................    54

 The Leadership Conference........................................    56

 National Urban League............................................    71

 Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), March 
    2, 2015.......................................................    77

 Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), May 
    19, 2015......................................................    75
    
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