I feel like I've shared my opinion on this matter a few times on here but I'll go for one more: I'm all for more cameras. I do my job well, I think very well. And I have no problem with people seeing what I do. In fact, I wish people could experience the things I do on a daily basis to have a better understanding of where I come from. I think the technology is there and I would like to use it.

HOWEVER:

In most states, the public disclosure laws are severely broken. In many places anyone can anonymously walk in to a PD or city hall and fill out a request for every document the city has ever had a record of. This cripples cities by having to now spend hours, days, months and years redacting and editing documents to make them conform to disclosure standards. Depending on the size of the PD, this could be several people's full time jobs and be near impossible to fulfill. And if not fulfilled under the right contexts, the city can then be sued for not releasing the documents. Don't get me wrong, I believe in an open and honest government, but there needs to be better checks and balances in the dissemination of information so that activists making a point can't shut down a records division with requests designed only to break the government. This also costs tax payers a fair amount of money that could be directed to better causes. Police video footage is unfortunately the most requested and most difficult documentation to release... Taking a lot of time and money. I don't know what the answer is, but I know that the current disclosure laws don't work.

Second- while I believe the technology is there, I worry about its reliability. I've used several brands of dash cameras made specifically for police vehicles that are wrought with problems. Hard drives fail, fuses blow, Windows crashes on the micro pc controller, system reboots inexplicably... It's very frustrating when youre excited that something "got on tape" only to find your expensive dash cam reset itself after it activated. I know that with ssd tech making things more reliable that the cameras are getting better, but it's a scary thought that if this technology fails and you were doing everything you were supposed to, you could get quickly eviscerated by the public for being a "corrupt" cop who destroyed evidence.

Finally, they don't capture everything. while most cameras are able to attach to glasses or the chest, they wouldn't see everything I see, hear and smell. Cameras provided a great explanation of some scenarios, but sometimes they can produce an angle or viewpoint that doesn't see what the officers are experiencing. I may see something at just a slightly different angle that a camera can't catch, and even if I'm right, I could be labeled as being "lucky" that someone was armed or questioned if I acted too quickly when I actually know what I'm seeing.

Also, people don't generally think that they themselves will be the subjects of the video. Got drunk and wrecked your car? You're now on hours of video cussing, screaming and making an embarrassment of yourself all for public consumption. That then gets posted to YouTube and is forever burned into the Internet. You or a family member hurt and you called 911 to get help? Your worst moment has now been recorded in a publicly available medium. To me as an everyday person, it's scary to think that the moment I need help the most, the moment I'm hurt, bleeding, crying, whatever, will likely end up on someone's YouTube channel forever. In a time of depleting privacy, that's one of the sad realities of our public services as they modernize to meet the demands of public disclosure.

So to be clear, I am all for having a body camera, but it's not as simple as just strapping on cameras and recording. It's an area that demands careful thought and implementation from law makers, the PD and the public. I don't have a camera yet, but on a daily basis I wish I did. I just wish that all of the elements I described above would move at the speed of the technology so that things ran smoother.

While I know not everyone will agree with my points, remember that they are just my personal observations and nothing more. And I am open to disagreement, as I'm always looking for better understanding on these things. I hope this answered OP's question!