South Florida cops claimed they were “forced to fire” at a 32-year-old Black man named Donald Taylor in August because he was armed and would not follow commands.
But newly surfaced video contradicts those claims, showing the Black man walking away from cops with his hands raised to his sides showing no gun in his hand when a Hollywood police officer fired a single shot as Taylor had his back turned to the cops, killing him.
The problem with mass surveillance is that, for it to be impossible to abuse, it both must be and can’t be publicly transparent.
If access is only provided to a small group and they are corrupt, it will be used against the out-group while denying the out-group any hope of using it for justice against the in-group. This is the current state of affairs right now with big tech, digital surveillance, and government CCTV.
If all the data was publicly available without safeguards—which is the only way to prevent the above problem—the problem shifts to it being used by bad actors for harassment and blackmail. No matter who you are, if you’re always watched by a camera, you will be eventually be recorded accidentally or intentionally breaking a law or some moral code. For digital surveillance, something could easily be taken out of context and used to irrecoverably damage your reputation before you get the chance to defend yourself.
When the solution to either situation is the same problem causing the other, there is no middle ground or way to reconcile them. The only way to prevent both is to just not have mass surveillance, and instead provide a framework allowing the public to create recordings that can only be used to protect themselves.