Massie: I Want an Update on Body Cameras
Committee questioning: Massie wants an update on federal body-camera policy.
Original by Office of Rep. Thomas Massie on YouTube ↗ · Is this yours? Claim credit →
Transcript
Download captionsClick any timestamp to jump to that moment.
- Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Neum, I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank you for your service as governor during the COVID
- epidemic when so many governors and mayors use their power to limit freedoms. I think you along with Ron DeSantis exercise great
- discretion by trusting the people that you worked for basically your citizens to make their own decisions about
- vaccines and mandates and lockdowns. So, my hat's off to you for for your service there. And I know the job you have now is extremely difficult.
- Today here on the dais, it's going to be partisan. I know that, but keep in mind that the majority of Americans support the work that you all are doing and we
- want to make it easier and we want to make it safer for the citizens and for your officers who are carrying out this difficult work. So, one of my questions is
- deals with body cameras. I've talked to my local law enforcement, you know, sheriffs and police departments in my district, Republicans and Democrats who
- hold those offices and almost unanimously they support body cameras and so do the
- the officers and deputies who work for them because they believe it protects the officers as much as it protects the
- the citizens who may be offending the law in some way and need to be arrested. So, I want to ask you for an update on body cameras and your opinion on that.
- That's something that the Democrats have demanded, but it's something that I think might just be common sense. So, what's your thought on body cameras? Yes, we certainly are working to get
- body cameras on all of our officers. CBP has had them on many of their agents that interact with people for the last several years, but they
- haven't been many times supported financially for running the systems that run the body cameras. Also, ICE has body cameras deployed, but we're not funded for body cameras right now. So, that's
- one thing I'd like to ask you all to do. I have said that we will deploy every body camera that we have, and we are doing that. I think we now today maybe have 14,000 body cameras on
- agents that are out doing enforcement. But, clearly we need tens of thousands more, and we need to be able to maintain them, have the analyzers that can go through the video to make sure [snorts]
- that it is a situation that it's analyzed for these investigations. And I agree with you. Our our officers overwhelmingly, we train 130 different
- federal agencies and law enforcement officers at FLETC under the Department of Homeland Security. Overwhelmingly, they support body cameras because they give you the full context context of the
- of the interaction. It can't It's just not a snippet of 10 seconds that gets posted on the internet that people are trying to make claims on what really happened there. It'll give you the full
- context of the interaction to know that these officers and prove out that they followed their training. So, as a as a former member of Congress, I appreciate
- that you respect that we have the power of the purse. I do think we have allocated enough money, the current shutdown notwithstanding,
- to DHS, but perhaps we need to go and ICE a bit perhaps we need to go back and make sure that your use of that money for body
- cameras wouldn't violate >> pretty prescriptive in how you assigned the dollars to us even though ICE got 75 million dollars. It was pretty prescriptive towards detention centers,
- contracts, and airframe in order to move individuals out of the country. And And so, the the body cams and their maintenance
- ongoing into appropriation bills into the future needs to be addressed. I know it costs money to keep all that video around, and that's what my local law enforcement talks about. The ones who
- haven't adopted them, they just can't afford to keep the records like they're supposed to. But, I hope we make sure that you have the funding for body cameras. I've only
- got about a minute left, but there was a memo about whether you need an administrative warrant or judicial warrant to enter
- into residences. And um you know, I'm a strong proponent of the Fourth Amendment, and I think it would be helpful if we stuck to that. I know
- there are exigent circumstances sometimes where you're in pursuit or something of somebody, but I think for entering a residence or private
- property, it would be helpful to have judicial warrants. I'll give you 30 seconds to give us your opinion on that. Well, I would tell you that all of our
- officers and at the department we follow the Constitution and respect the amendments. The Fourth Amendment's incredibly important. In the 400,000 different
- instances where we've detained someone under administrative warrant, only 28 of those have been used to go into a home. So, it's very rare, not very often. It
- is legal, it is justified, and it is the tool that you have given us as a body and that the Supreme Court has confirmed. So, we do use it, but it's very rare when we do.
- All right. Um with that, I yield back to the chairman. Gentleman yields back.
Comments
You have to be logged in. A comment stays up until three different people flag it. Then it comes down. Nobody on our side reads the queue.