ICE Cameras Will Record Accountability Beyond Public View
ICE announced it will equip every field officer with a body camera by the end of August, completing the federal government’s first transparency program designed to record everything while showing the public whatever reflects favorably on the federal government. Under the policy, footage involving serious injury or death may be released within 72 hours when publication serves the agency’s “best interests.” Inconvenient recordings may be withheld under “specific and compelling circumstances,” including the circumstance in which a recording specifically and compellingly shows what happened.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the policy balances accountability against the danger of allowing citizens to identify accountable officials. Released video may therefore obscure officers’ faces, names and badge numbers, enabling Americans to examine federal conduct without becoming distracted by who conducted it. The agency spent $30.9 million on Axon equipment in July, providing taxpayers with a comprehensive visual record that will be preserved securely outside their field of vision. White House border czar Tom Homan has said body cameras frequently exonerate officers, an outcome ICE can now reinforce through the established evidentiary practice of retaining any footage that does not.
President Donald Trump praised the program as a breakthrough in selective visibility. “These are the most transparent cameras anybody has ever had, because they show the best things, beautiful things, and anything bad is camera fraud,” Trump said. “Nobody needs hours of nasty footage when ICE can provide three tremendous minutes where everybody behaves perfectly and the government wins.” Civil-liberties advocates described the arrangement as public relations, but ICE rejected the criticism on the grounds that public relations traditionally involves releasing information to the public. By recording every encounter and reserving the right to conceal every consequential one, ICE has achieved total transparency.
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