Bowser administration wants to keep police body camera footage exempt from FOIA requests – FOX 5 DC

dcogcadmin | April 15, 2015

WASHINGTON –

A member of the D.C. Council is questioning plans by the Bowser Administration to keep all footage shot by D.C. police body cameras private.

The plan by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office to keep all body camera footage private first surfaced in language in her Budget Support Act.

If passed, it would keep the public and the news media from being able to request selected footage recorded by police under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to a senior member of the Bowser administration, the plan to keep all footage in control of the D.C. Police Department is geared toward the privacy of individuals and their personal information that might be captured by the camera.

In effect, the video would be treated as evidence and would be released on a case-by-case basis.

According to the official, blurring information like license plates, phone numbers, email addresses, [Read More]