News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
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Over the course of his reporting career, Sebastian Junger has had several close calls with death. In the introduction to his memoir, "In My Time of Dying" ... he describes his own near-drowning while surfing. On June 16, 2020, Junger found himself face-to-face with mortality in a way he'd never been. One minute he was enjoying quiet time with his wife at a remote cabin on Cape Cod in Massachusetts; the next, he was in excruciating pain from a ruptured aneurysm. "It never crossed my mind to start believing in God," [said Junger]. "But what did happen was I was like, maybe we don't understand the universe on a fundamental level. Maybe we just don't understand that this world we experience is just one reality and that there's some reality we can't understand that's engaged when we die. All this stuff happens – ghosts and telepathy and the dead appearing in the rooms of the dying – that's consistent in every culture in the world. Maybe anything's possible. If there's ever an example of "anything can happen," it's the universe popping into existence from nothing. Two nights before I went to the hospital, I dreamed that I had died and was looking down on my grieving family. Because I had that experience, which I still can't explain, it occurred to me that maybe I had died and ... was a ghost. I went into this very weird existential Escher drawing. Am I here, or not? At one point, I said to my wife, "How do I know I didn't die?" She said, "You're here, right in front of me. You survived.""
Note: Sebastian Junger is an American journalist, author and filmmaker focused on wartime issues. Explore more positive stories like this about near-death experiences.
"Community-owned cooperative real estate" ... was developed a decade ago by a nonprofit legal group and a nonprofit neighborhood group in Oakland, Calif., and has been refined by legal and development groups in Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and other cities. The cooperative strategy enables neighborhood groups to finance unconventional construction or renovation projects that banks and institutional lenders, which prefer strong cash-flow operations, won't touch. Much of the approach stems from efforts by the federal and local governments to make it easier for small investors to put money into real estate developments. Federal rules once barred small investors – those whose net worth is less than $1 million or who make less than $200,000 a year in income – from participating in development projects; that changed in 2015. At the same time, a few states enacted laws allowing small investors to put their money into local developments. "Until that change, 90 percent of the residents in a community couldn't make direct investments in a real estate project," said Chris Miller [with] the National Coalition for Community Capital, a nonprofit group. "Michigan allows nonaccredited investors to invest up to $10,000 in a project now." In Oakland, the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is widely credited with being one of the first community groups to apply the community-owned cooperative concept to a neighborhood project.
Note: Explore more positive stories about reimagining the economy.
Facebook's inscrutable feed algorithm, which is supposed to calculate which content is most likely to appeal to me and then send it my way ... feels like an obstacle to how I'd like to connect with my friends. British software developer Louis Barclay developed a software ... known as an extension, which can be installed in a Chrome web browser. Christened Unfollow Everything, it would automate the process of unfollowing each of my 1,800 friends, a task that manually would take hours. The result is that I would be able to experience Facebook as it once was, when it contained profiles of my friends, but without the endless updates, photos, videos and the like that Facebook's algorithm generates. If tools like Unfollow Everything were allowed to flourish, and we could have better control over what we see on social media, these tools might create a more civic-minded internet. Unfortunately, Mr. Barclay was forced by Facebook to remove the software. Large social media platforms appear to be increasingly resistant to third-party tools that give users more command over their experiences. After talking with Mr. Barclay, I decided to develop a new version of Unfollow Everything. I – and the lawyers at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia – asked a federal court in California last week to rule on whether users should have a right to use tools like Unfollow Everything that give them increased power over how they use social networks, particularly over algorithms that have been engineered to keep users scrolling on their sites.
Note: The above was written by Ethan Zuckerman, associate professor of public policy and director of the UMass Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.
Conservative social media influencers have been caught posting coordinated messages opposing proposed nutritional guidelines for SNAP benefits–the government assistance program formerly known as food stamps–after receiving payments from public relations firms. The campaign emerged as Agriculture Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explores limitations on using SNAP benefits for sugary beverages. During fiscal year 2021, the program disbursed over $121 billion in benefits, with a significant portion spent on ultra-sugary drinks that provide minimal nutritional value. Kennedy previously argued in an opinion column that it is "nonsensical for U.S. taxpayers to spend tens of billions of dollars subsidizing junk that harms the health of low-income Americans." In response, several high-profile accounts began posting nearly identical messages criticizing the proposed reforms. Independent reporter Nick Sortor revealed that these posts were orchestrated by Influenceable, a public relations firm offering influencers up to $1,000 per post to oppose SNAP reforms. Sortor published text messages documenting these solicitations. This incident highlights a longstanding pattern in the beverage industry's approach to policy debates over sugary drinks. For more than two decades, soda companies have quietly funded scientists, advocacy groups, journalists and community organizations to counter proposals limiting sugary beverage consumption.
Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in the food system.
The United Nations has delivered more than $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control, resulting in the flow of U.S. funds to the extremist group, according to a recent government report. The U.N. deposits the cash into a private Afghan bank and disburses funds to the agency's aid organizations and nonprofit humanitarian groups. But the money does not stop there. Some winds up at the central bank of Afghanistan, which is under the control of the Taliban. The group took over the country after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in August 2021. The report, from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, provides the first detailed account of how U.S. cash falls under the control of the Taliban and adds to a growing body of evidence that contributions to the U.N. are not always reaching Afghans in need. After getting the money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.N. flies shrink-wrapped $100 bills to the Kabul International Airport. The money arrives on a regular basis, as much as $40 million at a time. "Aid diversion does happen, and when it does, humanitarian work has to halt and solutions need to be found," said one U.N. official who was not authorized to make public comment. "There are cases where the Taliban seek to take control of distribution according to their priorities, or other cases where aid work is stopped altogether." The only way to stop [the diversion of foreign aid] would be to halt the flow of money.
Note: Read more about how the Taliban are now arms dealers after the US military left billions of dollars worth of weapons in Afghanistan. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
Several prominent Hollywood actors wrote letters of support for Brian Peck, the Nickelodeon dialogue coach convicted of child sexual abuse in 2004. In the Investigation Discovery documentary series "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," former "Drake & Josh" star Drake Bell accuses Peck of sexually assaulting him when he was 15, for the first time identifying himself as the victim at the center of the case. Peck was arrested in 2003 and the following year pleaded no contest to two child sexual abuse charges. But the documentary's fourth episode discusses Bell's surprise that Peck still received support in Hollywood after he was convicted. Before Peck was sentenced in 2004, several famous actors wrote letters of support for him, including James Marsden, 50, and Taran Killam, 41. In "Quiet on Set," Bell alleges that Peck, a dialogue coach on "The Amanda Show," subjected him to "extensive" and "brutal" sexual abuse. He also describes being "shocked" when he went to court for Peck's sentencing and found his "entire side of the courtroom was full" with supporters, noting there were "definitely some recognizable faces." During the sentencing, Bell ... made a statement to those supporting him. "I looked at all of them and I just said, 'How dare you?'" Bell recalled. "I said, 'You will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person, and I will forever have the memory of the person you're defending violating me.'"
Note: Brian Peck was charged with 11 counts of child sex abuse. Explore our archive of revealing reports from reliable media sources on high-level pedophilia and sexual abuse.
Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI aiming to infer employees' internal states, a practice that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice. We wondered what workers think about these technologies. My collaborators Shanley Corvite, Kat Roemmich, Tillie Ilana Rosenberg and I conducted a survey. 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions. Despite emotion AI's claimed goals to infer and improve workers' well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: "They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I'm not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I'm not working enough." Participants ... said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace.
Note: The above article was written by Nazanin Andalibi at the University of Michigan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Joe Biden's administration has admitted transporting migrants on secret flights into the U.S. and lawyers for its immigration agencies claim revealing the locations could create national security 'vulnerabilities'. Customs and Border Protection has refused to disclose crucial information about a program last year arranging flights for thousands of undocumented immigrants from foreign airports directly to U.S. cities. While record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country. Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 [migrants] with no legal rights to enter the United States. Included in details of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit first reported by Todd Bensman, the Center for Immigration Studies found Biden's CBP approved the latest secretive flights that transported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from foreign countries into at least 43 different American airports from January through December 2023. The program was part of Biden's expansion of the CBP One app, which kicked off at the start of last year. [Migrants] who cannot legally enter the U.S. use CBP One to apply for travel authorization. Migrants are able to remain in the U.S. for two years without obtaining legal status and meanwhile are eligible for work authorization.
Note: Read the full in-depth report by the Center for Immigration studies here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The Los Angeles County coastline is renowned for its stunning views and famous beaches. But move into deeper waters and another legacy comes into view: industrial waste dumped on a scale we're just beginning to understand. Using a deep-sea robot, UC Santa Barbara scientists discovered an eerie graveyard of leaking barrels in 2020, spread out on the seafloor near Santa Catalina Island. DDT, a powerful pesticide that was banned 50 years ago, was found in high concentrations near the barrels, leading scientists to suspect they were full of it. (Scientists later discovered that companies didn't even bother putting DDT in barrels – they dumped it directly into the sea.) The barrels may actually contain low-level radioactive waste. "From the 1940s through the 1960s, it was not uncommon for local hospitals, labs and other industrial operations to dispose barrels of tritium, carbon-14 and other low-level radioactive waste at sea," [Rosanna Xia] reported. That was a key finding in a new study. Researchers found clues while reviewing hundreds of pages of records, which indicated that a company tasked with pouring the DDT waste off the L.A. coast had also dumped low-level radioactive waste. The radioactive waste sitting down there is unequivocally terrible, but the "concerning concentrations" of DDT in the deep ocean are worse. Researchers have found high levels of DDT across an area of seafloor larger than the entire city of San Francisco.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.
Erik Prince has been many things in his 54 years on Earth: the wealthy heir to an auto supply company; a Navy SEAL; the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, which conducted a notorious 2007 massacre in the middle of Baghdad. Last November, Prince started a podcast called "Off Leash," which in its promotional copy says he "brings a unique and invaluable perspective to today's increasingly volatile world." On an episode last Tuesday, [he said] that the U.S. should "put the imperial hat back on" and take over and directly run huge swaths of the globe. Here's are Prince's exact words: "If so many of these countries around the world are incapable of governing themselves, it's time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we're going to govern those countries ... 'cause enough is enough, we're done being invaded. You can say that about pretty much all of Africa, they're incapable of governing themselves." Prince's co-host Mark Serrano then warned him that listeners might hear his words and believe he means them: "People on the left are going to watch this," said Serrano, "and they're going to say, wait a minute, Erik Prince is talking about being a colonialist again." Prince responded: "Absolutely, yes." He then added that he thought this was a great concept not just for Africa but also for Latin America. Previous bouts of the European flavor of colonialism led to the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world.
Note: Erik Prince's Blackwater served as a "virtual extension of the CIA." Learn more about how war is a tool for hidden agendas in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
The $118bn bipartisan immigration bill that the US Senate introduced on Sunday is already facing steep opposition. The 370-page measure, which also would provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, has drawn the ire of both Democrats and Republicans over its proposed asylum and border laws. But privacy, immigration and digital liberties experts are also concerned over another aspect of the bill: more than $400m in funding for additional border surveillance and data-gathering tools. The lion's share of that funding will go to two main tools: $170m for additional autonomous surveillance towers and $204m for "expenses related to the analysis of DNA samples", which includes those collected from migrants detained by border patrol. The bill describes autonomous surveillance towers as ones that "utilize sensors, onboard computing, and artificial intelligence to identify items of interest that would otherwise be manually identified by personnel". The rest of the funding for border surveillance ... includes $47.5m for mobile video surveillance systems and drones and $25m for "familial DNA testing". The bill also includes $25m in funding for "subterranean detection capabilities" and $10m to acquire data from unmanned surface vehicles or autonomous boats. As of early January, CBP had deployed 396 surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Note: Read more about the secret history of facial recognition technology and undeniable evidence indicating these tools do much more harm than good. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Our new report for the Groundwork Collaborative finds that corporate profits accounted for more than half – 53 percent – of inflation from April to September 2023. That's an astronomical percentage. Corporate profits drove just 11 percent of price growth in the four decades prior to the pandemic. Businesses have been quick to blame rising costs on supply chain shocks from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But two years later, our economy has mostly returned to normal. In some cases, companies' costs to make things and stock shelves have actually decreased. A recent survey from the Richmond Fed and Duke University revealed that 60 percent of companies plan to hike prices this year by more than they did before the pandemic, even though their costs have moderated. Corporations across industries, from housing to groceries and used cars, are juicing their profit margins even as the cost of doing business goes down. Since the summer of 2021, Groundwork began listening in on hundreds of corporate earnings calls where we heard CEO after CEO boasting about their ability to raise prices on consumers. Now we hear something slightly different: CEOs crowing about keeping their prices high while their costs go down. PepsiCo raised its prices on snacks and beverages by roughly 15 percent twice in the last year while bragging to shareholders that their profit margins will grow as input costs come down.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Because of Charles Littlejohn, we know that former President Donald Trump and a whole bunch of other rich people pay next to nothing in taxes. Littlejohn, a former consultant at the Internal Revenue Service, leaked these tax returns. For leaking this sensitive information, Littlejohn has been sentenced to five years in federal prison, the maximum jail term. Littlejohn's lawyers (Bloomberg, 1/18/24) had argued that he had acted "out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change." Littlejohn now joins people like Reality Winner (New York Times, 8/23/18) and Chelsea Manning (NPR, 1/17/17), security and military-sector leakers who put their freedom on the line to disclose government secrets they felt should be a matter of the public record. The fact of the matter is that investigative journalism can only happen because of leakers who take great risks. Adrian Schoolcraft, an NYPD officer who provided the Village Voice (5/4/10) with evidence of statistics manipulation, felt the wrath of government power when he was eventually forced into a psychiatric ward (Chief, 10/5/15). Edward Snowden, who provided the Guardian (6/11/13) with details about widespread NSA surveillance, is still in exile in Russia as a result of his decision to be a whistleblower. By revealing what the rich can legally get away with, [Littlejohn] was demonstrating that we live in an increasingly divided society.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) sparked privacy concerns after unveiling plans to roll out controversial facial recognition tech in over 400 US airports soon. "TSA is in the early stages of deploying its facial recognition capability to airport security checkpoints," a spokesperson [said] regarding the ambitious program. They explained that the cutting-edge tech serves to both enhance and expedite the screening process for passengers. Dubbed CAT-2 machines, these automated identification systems accomplish this by incorporating facial recognition tech to snap real-time pictures of travelers. They then compare this biometric data against the flyer's photo ID to verify that it's the real person. These CAT-scans enable "traveler use of mobile driver's licenses," thereby improving the security experience, per the spokesperson. The TSA currently has 600 CAT-2 units deployed at about 50 airports nationwide and plans to expand them to 400 federalized airports in the future. Following the implementation of these synthetic security accelerators at US airports last winter, lawmakers expressed concerns that the machines present a major privacy issue. "The TSA program is a precursor to a full-blown national surveillance state," said Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley. "Nothing could be more damaging to our national values of privacy and freedom. No government should be trusted with this power."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Tom was in the fourth grade when he first googled "sex" on his family computer. It took him to one of the big free porn sites. According to a study released by Australia's eSafety Commissioner in September, Tom's experience is similar to many young people: 36% of male respondents were first exposed to porn before hitting their teens, while 13 was the average age for all young people surveyed. Only 22%, however, admitted to intentionally seeking it out, with more accidentally stumbling upon X-rated material via social media or pop-ups on other parts of the internet. When Tom started having sex years later, he found it difficult to connect to his real-life partner. "Functionally, I almost couldn't have sex with her. Like the real thing almost didn't turn me on enough – the stimulation just wasn't quite right. Even now if I go through a phase of watching porn, closing my eyes during sex is much worse. I sort of need that visual stimulation." When Dr Samuel Shpall, a University of Sydney senior lecturer, teaches his course, Philosophy of Sex, he isn't surprised to hear young men like Tom critique their own experience of porn. "The internet has completely changed not only the nature and accessibility of pornography, but also the nature and accessibility of ideas about pornography," he says. "It's not your desire moving your body, it's what you've seen men do, and added to your sexual toolkit," [Tom] says. "But it takes you further away from yourself in those sexual moments."
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and Big Tech.
Amid a raft of U.S. strikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon has boots on the ground in the country – a fact the Defense Department has recently refused to acknowledge. "A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS," the White House told Congress ... on December 7. This month, the U.S. began its military campaign against the Houthis for attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea. As the U.S. began to attack, defense officials suddenly became more reticent about the American military presence in Yemen. In a press briefing on January 17, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder was asked if he could give assurances that the U.S. had no troops on the ground in Yemen. "It's possible that U.S. forces are spread so widely around the globe that not even the professional tasked with knowing that can keep track of it all," said Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, who worked on Yemen as a Capitol Hill staffer. "But it's also possible that, given the dramatic expansion in US presence in the region in recent months, he is trying to skirt the question to avoid greater scrutiny." The U.S. has conducted eight rounds of strikes on Houthi targets in the past month alone. On December 18, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a U.S.-led coalition to defend ships against Houthi attacks.
Note: Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
Last year, the US Commission on National Defense Strategy published its final report, creating intense buzz in Washington. "The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945," the report warned. To meet the challenge, "the US government needs to harness all elements of national power," starting with a 5% boost to the Pentagon budget, currently at $886 billion. Congress created the bipartisan commission as "an independent body." Yet some of the members of the commission are connected to think tanks and the defence contractors that fund them: from Boeing to General Electric, Northrop Grumman to Lockheed Martin. If taxpayers go along with the military buildup advocated by the report, these and other firms stand to profit handsomely. The Atlantic Council recently published its own nuclear report, which called for boosting funding for missile-defense technologies. The Atlantic Council has received at least $10 million from major Pentagon contractors that manufacture nuclear weapons and missile-defense systems. There are so many reports paid for by vested interests, commissions on which they sit, and governments getting their piece, it's hard to keep track. Consider Michèle Flournoy, a former Pentagon official who founded the Center for New American Security and sits on its board. CNAS published a report in September titled "Integration for Innovation" as part of its "defense technology task force." Executives from RTX (which contributed at least $450,000 to CNAS), Lockheed Martin ($600,000), Palantir ($175,000), Leidos ($300,000), and Booz Allen ($250,000) all directly contributed as members of the task force, even as they benefit from every single proposal in it.
Note: Learn more about arms industry corruption in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.
Britni Ricard is the CEO of her own cosmetics company, COTA Skin Care, which she started in 2019. Last year, she also became a landlord when she bought her first investment property. The apartment building in New Orleans has 10 units and, according to Ricard, many of the tenants are single women with children. That made her think of her own childhood growing up in public housing, and how difficult Christmastime could be for her mom. "It was tough," Ricard told CBS News. "My mom was a single woman raising three children alone, and watching her continuously struggle as a child and wanting to figure out, 'How can I help?'" In November, Ricard gathered her tenants for a pre-holiday meeting and, while decked out in a chartreuse suit, she delivered a gift to her tenants that would make Santa Claus green with envy: one month of free rent. A video of her surprise announcement went viral on TikTok. In the video, Ricard also offered to organize a seminar to help her tenants become homeowners. Kedesha Dunn lives in one of the building's units with her two boys. The single mom said Ricard's gift would allow her family to celebrate more and worry less. "Now I, you know, I don't have to go try to take a loan out or something like ask my family for money," Dunn said. "Like, I can do it now. Like, I can do it." "I'm an emotional person," Dunn added. "I start to cry. 'Cause I'm just like, that is so sweet. She's uh, better than Santa Claus at this point. ... Like a guardian angel."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Submarine cables used to be seen as the internet's dull plumbing. Now giants of the data economy, such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, are asserting more control over the flow of data, even as tensions between China and America risk splintering the world's digital infrastructure. The result is to turn undersea cables into prized economic and strategic assets. Subsea data pipes carry almost 99% of intercontinental internet traffic. By 2010 the rise in data traffic led internet and cloud-computing giants–Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft–to start leasing capacity on these lines. The data-cable business is ... being entangled in the tech contest between America and China. Take the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN). The 13,000km data pipeline was announced in 2016, with the backing of Google and Meta. It aimed to link the west coast of America with Hong Kong. By 2020 it had reached the Philippines and Taiwan. But last year America's government denied approval for the final leg to Hong Kong, worried that this would give Chinese authorities easy access to Americans' data. Hundreds of kilometres of cable that would link Hong Kong to the network are languishing unused on the ocean floor. China is responding by charting its own course. PEACE, a 21,500km undersea cable linking Kenya to France via Pakistan, was built entirely by Chinese firms as part of China's "digital silk road", a scheme to increase its global influence.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
When body-worn cameras were introduced a decade ago, they seemed to hold the promise of a revolution. Once police officers knew they were being filmed, surely they would think twice about engaging in misconduct. And if they crossed the line, they would be held accountable: The public, no longer having to rely on official accounts, would know about wrongdoing. Police and civilian oversight agencies would be able to use footage to punish officers and improve training. In an outlay that would ultimately cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the technology represented the largest new investment in policing in a generation. It was a fix bound to fall far short. As policymakers rushed to equip the police with cameras, they often failed to grapple with a fundamental question: Who would control the footage? They defaulted to leaving police departments ... with the power to decide what is recorded, who can see it and when. Departments across the country have routinely delayed releasing footage, released only partial or redacted video or refused to release it at all. They have frequently failed to discipline or fire officers when body cameras document abuse. We conducted a review of civilians killed by police officers in June 2022, roughly a decade after the first body cameras were rolled out. We counted 79 killings in which there was body-worn-camera footage. A year and a half later, the police have released footage in just 33 cases – or about 42%.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.
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