The press release is titled "Governor McCrory Signs Legislation to Promote Transparency and Safety for Law Enforcement and the Public". This dangerous bill does the opposite of that--it explicitly lays out that police dash cam and body cam footage is NOT part of the public record and not subject to public viewership. Want to look at some police cam footage? Just file a request with THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY, and they will decide if you get to or not.
And he signs it with a bunch of ****ing cops watching over his shoulder smiling proudly about all the murders they are gonna be able to get away with freely with no oversight from the public. Nowadays a cop shoots somebody dead his name doesn't even get released to the public. If you get pulled over with a joint in my town your name and picture is getting plastered all over the paper the next day, long before you get a chance to go to trial. And now they want to make this footage secret so police will ONLY make it public when it helps their case, and they will hide it every single time it doesn't. And they call this increased transparency.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/new...#storylink=cpy
Quote:
Gov. Pat McCrory signed controversial legislation Monday regulating the release of recordings from police body and dashboard cameras.
There were growing calls for McCrory to veto the legislation because it makes it difficult for the public – including people involved in a recorded police action – to see it. But the Republican governor said the law will strike a balance between improving public trust in the police and respecting the rights of officers.
McCrory signed the bill while surrounded by law enforcement officers from several departments and against the backdrop of fatal police shootings last week of black men by police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana, along with the shooting deaths of five police officers by a black gunman in Dallas who was targeting white cops.
These shootings or their aftermath were captured on the telephone cameras of witnesses.
McCrory referenced those deaths in his remarks and said the law “ensures transparency.”
But the legislation was the subject of heated debate before it easily cleared the General Assembly on a 48-2 Senate vote and a 88-20 House vote. Some lawmakers wanted to loosen restrictions on access. Groups that wanted McCrory to veto the bill because they said it re-enforced secrecy held a rally in Raleigh last week and produced a petition they said was signed by more than 3,000 people.
“Body cameras should be a tool to make law enforcement more transparent and accountable to the communities they serve, but this shameful law will make it nearly impossible to achieve those goals,” Susanna Birdsong, policy counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina, said in a statement.
Body camera footage is not now spelled out in state law as public record, and law enforcement agencies often made it inaccessible to the public by declaring recordings part of personnel files. The new law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, says the footage is not a public record or a personnel record.
The law allows people who are recorded, or their representatives, to see footage if law enforcement agencies agree. The police chief or sheriff would decide whether to grant access. The law enforcement agency can consider a number of factors in making the decision, including whether disclosure may harm someone’s reputation or jeopardize someone’s safety, or if confidentiality is “necessary to protect either an active or inactive internal or criminal investigation or potential internal or criminal investigation.”