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THREAD: a fact more people should know is that police have **wanted** body cameras for years. they had a problem though: cops couldn't get hundreds of millions of $$$ in funding for new digital tech. so how did police finally get them? (1)
over the last few years, as videos mostly shot by civilians captured pervasive brutality, police realized they had an opportunity: partner with "reformers" to suggest body cameras as a solution to rampant police violence. liberal "reformers" were a perfect target/accomplice. (2)
many elite "reformers" convinced cities to spend hundreds of millions to give police this new tech before regular people realized that police control the cameras, decide when to turn them on and off, and were plotting to link them to massive new facial recognition databases. (3)
this was a huge boon to amazon, palantir, and a series of other interests backed by venture capital, including many by a venture capital company run by the CIA. (4) https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2012/07/16/156839153/in-q-tel-the-cias-tax-funded-player-in-silicon-valley
it couldn't have happened without this partnership between liberal "reformers" and police to weaponize violence against Black, immigrant, and poor communities as the very excuse to give police more money, weapons, and power. (5) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/04/the-george-floyd-act-wouldnt-have-saved-george-floyds-life-thats-says-it-all
this was perfect for police. people wouldn't ask deeper questions like why are the police in this neighborhood? why are they only enforcing some "crimes" against some people? read more here: (6) https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-punishment-bureaucracy
in the end, police got more cameras than they ever dreamed, companies got richer, and these cameras are used far more often by police as evidence to convict Black people than they are to hold police accountable. this is the cycle of "reform," until we stop it. (end)
