You already know they won’t, and even if they do, a malfunction will always be the reason the footage was lost, unless it helps them track and arrest protestors.

Depends on whose agenda it helps.

Are people really still confused about this? Police loves body cams. Body cams make it easier for them to prosecute people and let them gather intel on protesters. If by accident body cam records something inconvenient they just hide the footage. Body cams are for surveillance, not accountability.

So yes, they will turn them on and they will stream all the footage to Palantir.

I doubt they will even wear them

They all have Grok AI integrated to ensure that they're Always On™ and that all of the totally real and accurate details of the violent antifa rioters brandishing their automatic assault pistols are enhanced to perfect, crystal-clear HD

or the video footage not being withheld from the public?

This assholes won't actually use them correctly and conveniently "lose" the footage when needed, but generally having more cameras does actually help.

Yes the hard part of accountability is the elephant in the room, but I'm just saying, more cameras is always better than less.

Comprehensive reviews of body cam usage already put into question the overall efficacy of body cameras (https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12412 is the one I see cited most often, not sure if there are newer systematic reviews).

And that one also comes to the conclusion, especially regarding effects on use-of-force:

Ariel et al. (2016a) recently provided one nuanced explanation to these mixed findings. They discovered that when officers have more discretion in turning on their cameras, they tend to exhibit greater uses of force than officers who have less discretion regarding their BWCs [Body-worn Cameras]. In most of the use-of-force studies reviewed earlier, researchers did not track activation and therefore it was not clear to what extent Ariel et al.’s nuance is salient. If activation is related to use of force in these ways, however, consistently training, reinforcing, and supervising the implementation of mandatory policies may be needed to secure a positive effect of BWCs on reported uses of force

That, combined with the seemingly more gung-ho internal processes in DHS/ICE, also leads me to believe in few positive outcomes here -- especially with the 'editorial monopoly' in institutional hands.

“Does this AR-15 make my ass look fat?”

If it supports their side of the story it will be

Yes.

It would work if the cops weren't able to turn them off and the footage was uploaded to servers not owned by the PD.

I thought that's what they were already doing. They have been caught posting edited images already.

You'd think with a budget of billions that they'd be able to afford reliable cameras that don't malfunction at inopportune times.

But of course, that obvious thought would never occur to their supporters.