Legal Loophole Allows Texas Law Enforcement Agencies To Withhold Bodycam Video. KHOU 11 Interviews Gregor Wynne Arney Attorney Joseph Larsen
While body cameras are touted to improve agency transparency and the accountability of law enforcement personnel, dozens of Texas agencies are using a loophole to keep the public from seeing hundreds of videos. KHOU Channel 11 reported the loophole and the Texas agencies that are taking advantage of it. The Texas Attorney General’s office allowed nearly 600 videos to be withheld last year after law enforcement agencies claimed they didn’t have the technology to edit out confidential information.
A KHOU 11 analysis of attorney general letter rulings from 2023 found 120 Texas agencies denied 588 requests for the videos, stating they did not have redaction capabilities. In a majority of the denials “motor vehicle information”, primarily license plates and driver’s license information, was listed as confidential information the agencies couldn’t redact. In each of those cases, the Texas AG ruled if the information could not be redacted, then the video must be withheld in its entirety. Of all Texas agencies, the top denier was VIA Metropolitan Transit, the public transit authority in San Antonio, who denied 64 requests for video because they claimed they didn’t have the technological capability to redact.
Joseph Larsen shared with KHOU 11 that a lot has changed since the days of VHS tapes, adding that continuing to allow agencies to withhold entire videos is “astonishing” and “ridiculous”.
“They’re avoiding scrutiny. They’re avoiding the public actually knowing what’s going on. There’s no other way to put it,” said Larsen. “And they’re hiding under some 40-year-old ruling, and the attorney general is letting them get away with it.” He added, “It’s the easiest thing in the world to manipulate video…I just Googled the type of services available. It’s ubiquitous. It’s everywhere.”
Recent federal rulings have “shifted the burden to the government to explain why teenagers can ‘insert cat faces over the visages of humans’ in social media posts but government agencies cannot similarly redact their video records.” Other states have seen agencies claim a technology loophole and moved to close it relatively quickly. For example, the Illinois Attorney General ruled in 2016 that “a public body’s assertion that it lacks the technological capability to make redactions is not a valid basis for denying a request for these videos.” The 2016 ruling further reads “Law enforcement agencies must be able to perform the required redactions to body camera footage or obtain assistance from an outside source.” Larsen said Texas agencies should work the same way and use contractors if necessary.
“They’re required to provide a cost estimate and the requester can look at the cost estimate and say, ‘yeah, I’ll pay it’ or ‘no, I won’t pay it,’” added Larsen.
To read the article in its entirety, watch the video, and learn which Texas agencies have taken the biggest advantage of the loophole, follow the link to KHOU 11’s interview with attorney Joseph Larsen.