Time has not been kind to VHS videocasettes

How many VHS videos were recorded by individuals over time! Maybe 100s of millions or more of hours?

"Before streaming, before Blu-ray, and before DVDs, the VHS videocassette was the king of video. First launched in Japan in 1976, the format, short for Video Home System, was easy to use, compatible with any television, and affordable. 

After winning the battle for dominance with the Betamax cassette, the VHS ushered in an era of amateur filmmaking, home movie collections, and video store rentals. Recognizing the value of the new format, Harvard curators quickly began amassing materials on VHS. Though no single tally of Harvard’s VHS holdings exists, a 2018 count of audiovisual material says the figure is likely in the tens of thousands. ..."

Time has not been kind to VHS — Harvard Gazette "As tech turns 50, preservationists race to save material stored on vanishing format. Methods include … baking?"

Police Departments in the U.S. Turning To AI To Sift Through Millions Of Hours Of Unreviewed Body-Cam Footage – Analysis

Good news! Maybe AI can help here too! Overwhelmed by too much video footage!

"Over the last decade, police departments across the U.S. have spent millions of dollars equipping their officers with body-worn cameras that record what happens as they go about their work. Everything from traffic stops to welfare checks to responses to active shooters is now documented on video.

The cameras were pitched by national and local law enforcement authorities as a tool for building public trust between police and their communities in the wake of police killings of civilians like Michael Brown, an 18 year old black teenager killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Video has the potential not only to get to the truth when someone is injured or killed by police, but also to allow systematic reviews of officer behavior to prevent deaths by flagging troublesome officers for supervisors or helping identify real-world examples of effective and destructive behaviors to use for training.

But a series of ProPublica stories has shown that a decade on, those promises of transparency and accountability have not been realized.

One challenge: The sheer amount of video captured using body-worn cameras means few agencies have the resources to fully examine it. Most of what is recorded is simply stored away, never seen by anyone. ..."

Police Departments Turning To AI To Sift Through Millions Of Hours Of Unreviewed Body-Cam Footage – Analysis – Eurasia Review

How Police Have Undermined the Promise of Body Cameras

Stop Reflexively Praising Police Officers As Heroes

Posted: 8/15/2014

Trigger

I was very surprised to read this article “It’s Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police There is nothing conservative about government violating the rights of citizens.” in the National Review.

Don’t get me wrong: Individual police officers have become true heroes through their actions!

The Police Department

The police officers are carefully crafted as first responders, heroes, putting their life on the line every minute of their duty; we are left to believe that many of them die every year in the line of duty in a shooting with criminals etc.

This contrasts clearly with the power that police officer labor unions wield and with the intensified militarization of police forces across the country latest since the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration upped the fight against drugs.

SWAT Teams

It seems now almost every police department in the country no matter how small has one of those teams plus the military gear. As NPR reported today, if a county has a SWAT team, the smallest town in that county wants to have one too.

Perhaps, in the beginning SWAT teams were strictly limited to counteract armed hostage taking or other, very severe offenses by armed criminals. However, now that there are so many SWAT teams, they have to be used whenever possible. Not least, once you have a SWAT team at your disposal and you don’t use it in an incident, the police department will be sued for negligence. Catch-22!

Dash & Body Cameras

From a technology standpoint it should be quite feasible today to equip every police car and police officer with such cameras that record their duty activities from beginning to end.

I would say, it should be done! If the powerful police labor unions object so be it! Police officers have such powers as no one else, they should be held accountable for what they are doing.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis is often quoted as saying:

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."” (Source; emphasis added)

Let’s add to that cameras that record the actions of police officers.

Such cameras would also allow to record offenses committed by criminals to be recorded more often in the act or to easily reveal the lies offered by criminals when caught.